The Design Thinking Workbook

cj meadows and charvi parikh, the design thinking workbook, essential skills for creativity and business growth what do amazon, improv, and castle high school in hawaii have in common?

well, all three have used or do use a design thinking or dt processor technique to achieve their goals.

improv includes games like storywording, where a group tells a story together by saying one word per person, one after the other.

this can be a great team-building activity, as well as one to help loosen the mind and open it to possibilities in the creative phases of dt.

castle high school conducted a need study, design based thinking, to co-develop better educational programs and improve student achievement.

and you'll hear a story about amazon's design thinking later in this chapter.

but why should you incorporate design thinking into your company, team, or personal project?

well, you're right to wonder.

transitioning to a design thinking approach takes time and effort, after all.

but the end results are well worth it.

a study in 2018 found that design-focused companies grew at double the pace of the rest of their industry.

and if that's not enticing enough, consider this.

those design-focused companies realized shareholder returns of up to 75% higher than their industry.

that's right, up to 75% higher returns from using a design thinking process.

and a study in 2013 by the design management institute found that design-focused companies performed 228% better than the s&p index for 10 years in a row.

there are many more such studies, but you've probably already got the picture.

this is an incredibly useful skill to cultivate, especially in the professional world.

the design thinking workbook focuses mostly on business applications of design thinking, or dt.

but you can also apply this approach to personal problems.

this chapter focuses on the corporate applications of dt, but as you learn tips and tricks, think about how they might also be helpful in a personal setting.

first, we'll learn about the author's design thinking methodology.

then delve into some of the foundational skills and tools and techniques you'll find helpful as you begin using this dt process.

so, let's get to it.

what is design thinking?

think about the last failures you faced on a team project.

communication issues?

creativity issues?

were you focused on the right problem, or did you have to reorient after you'd already done a bunch of work?

these are the kinds of failures dt helps prevent.

so, what exactly is dt, or design thinking?

basically, it's a human-focused approach to problem solving meant to help you figure out what the real problem is and solve the issue in creative, innovative ways meant to both benefit all stakeholders and increase business growth.

though there are several dt methodologies, the one meadows and parikh use focuses on a six-step method.

challenge, observe, understand, envision, solve, and prototype.

first, you define the challenge, the problem you need to solve.

it can be difficult to clarify, but it's an important step in the process.

you don't want to get months or even years into a project only to discover you've been working on the wrong issue the entire time.

next, you observe the people who might be having the problem you're trying to address.

in this step, you observe what your target users or clients do, how they act, and what behaviors they engage in.

the third step is to understand the behaviors your targets engage in.

this step is deeply concerned with the whys behind target users' actions, the motivations they have, and the goals they're pursuing.

sometimes this includes results they're trying to avoid.

the fourth step is to envision a solution or future.

this involves dreaming up how you want things to end up.

are you looking to make something easier for a user?

are you trying to create an enjoyable experience, a calming experience?

what do you want users' behaviors or experiences to look like in the future as opposed to what they look like now?

a key thing to keep in mind at this stage is that it's easier to tame a wild idea than to make a mediocre idea truly wonderful.

so, dream big!

the penultimate step is to solve.

this is where brainstorming and other techniques for generating creative ideas come into play.

it also involves making key design decisions, focusing on ideas for bridging the gap between the current issue or situation and the future that you envisioned in the previous step.

the final step of the dt process is to prototype.

once you decide on a solution to pursue, you'll prototype and experiment to see whether the solution is feasible and how well it fits the needs of your users.

you'll probably need at least a few rounds of prototyping as you learn more about your users and your proposed design.

once you find the best solution, you can scale up.

of course, this isn't always a linear process.

as you engage in dt projects, you might find yourself repeating some of the steps.

that's totally normal and an expected part of the process.

you just need to stay focused and open as you keep working toward the best solution.

as with most things, a dt approach isn't the best choice for every situation.

dt is a human-centered mindset.

so if you're looking to solve a problem that's unrelated or just not centered on humans, this isn't the approach you'd want.

for example, if you were trying to solve the problem of a storm snapping electrical wires or of a fence shifting because of erosion, dt probably wouldn't be too helpful.

then again, sometimes we think something's a technical problem when really it's a human one.

or vice versa.

the methodology dt uses to clarify an issue and find the root cause of a problem can help figure out which type of problem you're addressing.

for example, a new manager found himself with a stack of complaints about the elevators in the 30-story building.

each complaint centered on how slow the elevators were.

so, which type of problem is this?

human or technical?

take a moment to think about it, then we'll move on to learning some foundational skills needed for dt.

and don't worry, we'll come back to the elevator problem in a bit.

foundational skills would you believe you've probably already heard of and might even employ some of the foundational skills of dt?

these skills include empathy, observing, listening, and critical thinking.

there's also insight, creativity, collaboration, and storytelling.

sound familiar, right?

let's dig a little deeper into some of these key skills.

you might already know that empathy is the ability to feel and share the emotions of others.

but did you know there are different aspects to empathy?

meadows and parikh label these aspects as cognitive, emotional, and active.

cognitive empathy is being able to understand another's perspective.

emotional empathy is the kind we often think of as empathy in general, the ability to feel others' feelings.

and active empathy is acting in a way that benefits others.

to practice empathy, you can consciously seek to understand others' perspectives and feelings.

talk to them about what's important to their part of a project or why they do the work they do.

try to understand their thoughts, goals, motivations, and feelings.

think about how you might feel if you were in their shoes.

it might feel awkward at first.

you might need to remind yourself to do it.

but eventually, empathizing with others will begin to feel more natural.

another important foundational skill for dt, and it's important to empathizing too, is listening.

but wait, you say, i already know how to listen.

perhaps you do, in which case this will just be a gentle reminder.

but many people think they're listening when what they're actually doing is just hearing.

what's the difference?

hearing is the physiological phenomenon of the ear recognizing sounds and the environment around it.

but listening is a focused activity, concentrated on trying to understand the message behind sounds.

think about it.

when you put on music in the background while working, are you listening to that music and its message?

or are you just hearing the sound in the background while focusing on the work in front of you?

now think about attending a concert.

are you just hearing the music as background noise?

or are you actively listening to the songs, feeling the emotion of the message behind the words and music?

to apply design thinking, you need to cultivate the skill of listening, not just hearing.

as you interview stakeholders or discuss with your teammates, focus on their words and the message they're trying to get across.

don't skip ahead in your mind to what you plan on saying in response.

devote yourself to paying attention to what the person speaking means and what they're trying to communicate.

remember to listen to tone of voice as well.

someone saying, oh, in response to seeing your product could be saying it with excitement, disappointment, or even confusion.

and that difference is important.

you haven't forgotten about the slow elevators problem, have you?

don't worry, we'll get back to it soon.

tools and techniques so a six-step process with eight foundational skills, how many tools and techniques do you think are involved?

meadows and parikh include almost 30.

we can't cover them all in this chapter, but let's go over a few of them.

have you heard of the five whys?

this technique is especially useful in figuring out if the right problem is being looked at.

this is a crucial issue when solving any challenge.

if you're not looking at the right challenge in the first place, there's no way you'll be able to solve it.

so how do the five whys work?

this technique has a physical aspect.

so before you start, gather some post-its and something to write with and bring your team together in one place.

first, agree on a problem statement.

perhaps the statement is something like, an associate injured his thumb.

write this problem statement on a sticky note and stick it on a piece of paper.

write this problem statement on a sticky note and stick it to your working surface, a wall or whiteboard.

then, draw an arrow downward, beneath the note, and ask yourselves why the problem exists.

write all the answers your team thinks of on post-its and put them under the arrow and original post-it.

decide on the answer that seems most correct.

this is the level 2 problem.

in our example, perhaps the associate injured his thumb because it got caught in a conveyor belt.

repeat the process.

add an arrow beneath the level 2 problem note, come up with possible answers for why it happened, and decide on the most correct one.

continue until you find what seems to be the root cause.

most often, it will emerge after five or so rounds of whys.

but if it emerges before or after that, no worries.

you can take this process as far as it needs to go to find the root cause.

so, in our example, we have an associate who injured his thumb.

why was his thumb hurt?

well, because it got caught in a conveyor belt.

why did it get caught?

because he tried to grab his bag from the moving belt.

why was he trying to grab his bag from a moving belt?

because he'd set his bag on the belt and it surprised him by turning on.

why did he set the bag on the belt?

well, because he was using it as a table.

and there we have the root of the problem.

the associate needed a table surface near the conveyor belt.

does this example seem a little random?

it's actually a real-world example of the five whys at work.

the incident happened at an amazon fulfillment center in 2004.

jeff bezos, founder and ceo of the company, used the five whys to drill down to the root cause of the problem and find the simple solution, adding a table near the conveyor, to avoid any future safety incidents of the same kind.

another dt technique is hmw.

how might we...

this is a technique for generating ideas, similar to brainstorming, but focused on answering questions that begin with, how might we?

for example, how might we make brushing your teeth fun for teenagers?

using the hmw sentence stem elicits a state of wondering, of ideation, which can help generate the breadth of ideas needed for successful brainstorming.

a third technique useful in dt is the scamper technique.

this acronym prompts teams to think of whether there's anything in existing products or solutions that can be substituted, combined, modified, magnified, minimized, put to another use, eliminated, or reversed or rearranged.

it's another tool helpful in finding creative solutions.

thanks for listening to our chapter-to the design thinking workbook by c.j. meadows and charvi parikh.

now, you might ask, but wait, what about the slow elevators?

was it a technical or a human-based problem?

and how did the manager solve the issue?

when looking into the problem, the manager began by observing people using the elevators.

he found that people hated waiting in the lobby for the elevators to arrive.

they had no problem with how fast the elevators moved once they'd boarded them.

so the real issue was riders' irritation while waiting in the lobby.

as a prototype of a solution, the manager hung several cheap, full-length mirrors next to the elevator doors in the lobby.

the result?

people were so satisfied doing last-minute checks on their clothes, hair, and faces that they no longer cared about the time they'd spent waiting.

so, the slow elevators problem turned out to be a human-centered problem after all, nothing to do with the mechanics of the machinery.

and the manager solved the issue with some creative design thinking techniques.

a satisfying end, don't you think?

clearly, we couldn't cover everything meadows and parikh share in their workbook, but you've learned the six steps of their dt methodology.

challenge, observe, understand, envision, solve, and prototype.

you know the three aspects of empathy, cognitive, emotional, and active.

and you've learned or been reminded of the difference between hearing and listening, passive versus intentional.

in the last section, you learned about the five whys, hmws, and scamper.

all of these will be helpful as you begin using the design thinking approach to solving problems.

and if you want to learn more skills, tools, and techniques, you know where to find them.

hey, thank you so much for listening.

and if you would like, please leave us a rating or a comment.

we always appreciate your feedback.

see you in the next chapter!