Design thinking has evolved into a key discipline for businesses seeking innovative solutions to challenges, gaining recognition as a vital practice in innovation processes. It’s crucial to clarify that design thinking, despite its immense potential, doesn’t inherently guarantee success. It demands practice and experience, and often benefits from the support of consultants with expertise in applying its principles effectively.

This approach thrives on a wide creative community, engaging professionals like designers, entrepreneurs, engineers, and researchers, aiming to devise people-centric solutions. It champions a human-centric design ethos, urging creativity beyond conventional bounds, balancing innovative zeal with the practicalities of technical and economic viability.

The design thinker’s mindset — a blend of empathy, optimism, creativity, and a readiness to re-evaluate outcomes — derives from a deep understanding of human behavior and needs. This foundation is crucial for devising solutions that truly resonate with human-centered design principles.

Concluding, anyone can adopt a designer’s mindset with proper preparation, embracing creative confidence as David Kelley, a leading figure in design thinking, suggests. The essence of creativity lies not in the act of designing but in a keenness to comprehend the workings of the world, reflecting an innate curiosity about our surroundings.

What is design thinking

Design thinking, a concept without a single definition due to its universal scope and diverse approaches, is best described by Tim Brown, President and CEO of IDEO. He defines it as a human-centered approach to innovation, blending people’s needs, technological possibilities, and business requirements. Unlike traditional problem-solving that tackles predefined issues with set methods, design thinking starts with observation and adheres to human-centered principles, offering a flexible and effective alternative.

“Design thinking is a human-centred approach to innovation that draws on the tools of the designer, integrating the needs of people, the possibilities of technology and the requirements for business success“.

Unlike traditional problem solving, which usually refers to a known problem to be solved through established design techniques and methods, design thinking starts from observation, specifically following the principles of human-centred design. Where traditional problem solving proves to be overly linear, not always so flexible, innovative or efficient in providing an answer to the problem, design thinking has made its way by proving to be a winning alternative due to its human-centred perspective.

Design thinking as we understand it is oriented towards an extremely generalisable practice of creative problem solving and has long since outgrown the product design application scenario from which it originated. From design thinking other methodologies and frameworks have been derived that recall its principles, such as the Design Sprint, a methodology often used to define and validate a prototype (of a product or a new service or a new idea to be brought to the market or presented to a specific audience) very quickly.

In order to actually respond to people’s needs in the context of today’s complex society, design cannot be limited to the specialised contribution of its disciplines and their technological applications. Compared to traditional problem solving, design thinking aims, in fact, to involve all stakeholders, valuing their involvement as far as their cross-disciplinary expertise is concerned.

From being a matter for hard-core designers, design thinking has over time extended to the contributions of many other figures, having in common a creative approach to the problem. This explains in the first place why design thinking is so widely used today even in areas that are apparently unsuspected, at least from the point of view of classically understood design.

This concept is once again focused on in a timely manner by Tim Brown, when, in the introduction to his Change by Design:

Design thinking has taken place thanks to the skills designers have acquired over many decades in their quest to satisfy human needs with the technical resources at their disposal, acting within the practical constraints of business. By integrating what is considered desirable from a human perspective with what is technologically and economically feasible, designers have been able to create the products we enjoy today. Design thinking takes the next step, which is to make these tools available to people who may never have thought of themselves as designers and apply them to a much wider range of problems.

Today, design thinking strategies are integral at every corporate level, fostering cross-functional teams that combine diverse skills to meet business goals.

Design Thinking’s Historical Development

Design thinking, as we know it today, traces its origins to the early 2000s, but its underpinning principles date back further, long before its formal acknowledgment. The 1960s marked a pivotal era where the functional aspects of design began to be examined through a scientific lens, a shift prominently reflected in Nigel Cross’s seminal work, “Designerly Ways of Knowing.” This period saw the blending of design with scientific and technological rationalism, resonating with Buckminster Fuller’s advocacy for a design revolution to address complex human and environmental challenges beyond the reach of traditional politics and economics.

Herbert Simon, a Nobel Laureate in Economics, further propelled this discourse in 1969 with his influential book “The Sciences of the Artificial,” advocating for viewing design as a cognitive process. Simon’s extensive contributions across over a thousand publications have profoundly influenced cognitive sciences and simulation theories, laying the foundational principles for what would evolve into modern design thinking practices, particularly emphasizing rapid prototyping and observational testing.

Throughout the 1970s, scholars like Allen Newell, Cliff Shaw, and Robert H. McKim expanded upon these ideas, although the term “design thinking” had not yet been coined. McKim’s “Experiences in Visual Thinking” notably explored the potential of visual design thinking in problem-solving and understanding complex phenomena.

In the 1980s, Nigel Cross further emphasized the importance of swiftly generating satisfactory rather than optimal solutions, signaling a shift towards more agile and adaptive problem-solving approaches, distinct from the more protracted, theory-based methods prevalent in industrial systems engineering.

The late 1980s and the 1990s saw these principles being applied more broadly across product design, architecture, and urban planning, demonstrating the versatility and impact of design thinking across different scales of application.

David Kelley, the founder of IDEO, was instrumental in bringing design thinking into mainstream consciousness during the 1990s. His establishment of the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford University, commonly known as the d.school, in 2004, marked a significant milestone in the evolution of design thinking. The d.school emerged as a hub of innovation, teaching, and application of design thinking, producing many of the leading innovators of the past two decades and solidifying the role of design thinking across various domains, including business, government, education, and socio-cultural contexts.

Moreover, institutions like MIT’s D-Lab, the School of Design and Creative Technologies at the University of Texas at Austin, Northwestern’s Segal Design Institute, Designmatters at Art Center College of Design, and the Berkeley Haas Innovation Lab have also played crucial roles in advancing design thinking education and practice, further establishing its significance in contemporary problem-solving and innovation strategies.

The Five Phases of Design Thinking

Stanford d.school’s contributions to design thinking have led to a structured framework that enhances its applicability across a vast array of scenarios. This framework is articulated through five iterative and non-linear phases: Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, and Test, allowing for continuous refinement towards achieving predefined objectives.

Each phase represents a critical step in the design thinking process.

Empathize

The first moment is the understanding of the problem, in order to best identify it. In design, this phase very often corresponds with user research, where empathy becomes the fundamental quality in the context of a human-centred process. Compared to the traditional approach, the design thinker must, at least in the first instance, leave aside his or her own point of view in order to focus on the needs of the people he or she is referring to. Only with this approach does it become possible to develop, throughout the process, a truly human-centred solution to the problem, capable of putting people at the centre of the experience far beyond the rhetorical aspects of this famous mantra.

Define

After sifting through the first impressions, the information obtained empathically must be acquired and analysed in order to obtain a more mature understanding of the problem. In other words, this information must be translated into the concrete definition of the problems to be addressed. Various techniques are adopted at this stage, including the definition of personas useful in defining the human-centred component of the needs being addressed.

This is an essential moment in the design thinking process, since from a well-defined problem it is possible to obtain more than one effective solution, while it is extremely critical to tackle the resolution of a problem whose contours appear uncertain or, in the worst case scenario, completely irrelevant to the actual situation. When, in the introduction, we stated that design thinking is a process that requires a lot of practice and experience, we were primarily thinking of this aspect.

Ideate

Once the problem has been defined with certainty, the time comes to think about possible solutions. The plural is a must, as the nature of design thinking eschews a rigid cause-and-effect relationship, and instead evaluates various possibilities, subsequently weighing up all their pros and cons, as well as their actual feasibility from a technological and economic point of view.

Design thinking means thinking ‘outside the box’, looking for alternatives based on human-centred design. This approach is all the more capable of generating value and innovation the more accurately the knowledge process carried out in the first two phases was able to describe the problem to be solved. One of the most widely used techniques for devising solutions is brainstorming, which involves a wide variety of stakeholders in a cross-disciplinary manner, facilitated by a professional expert (facilitator).

Prototype

From ideas to practice. Prototyping of the main ideas developed allows one to see or touch the hypothesised solutions to solve the problem. Depending on the field in which one is acting, prototyping can be expressed in various techniques, ranging from a simple post-it wall, when working on the organisation of processes, to highly accurate physical or virtual simulations, capable of making use of the contribution of various emerging technologies, including Artificial Intelligence and Virtual Reality, when getting to the heart of interactive products and experiences.

The prototyping phase expresses what we mean by claiming that design thinking is a non-linear iterative process. It is very common that the feedback obtained from a solution at work, even if only in its primordial stages, allows us to evaluate certain criticalities in the problem definition carried out previously and to retrace our steps to unravel unresolved knots.

Test

Once the prototypes have been produced, we move on to field testing, which essentially closes the operational loop of design thinking, without prejudice to the opportunity to act recursively on the other four phases at any point in the process to progressively improve the result. The test is carried out precisely with this in mind, to go into even more detail about any possible redefinition or refinement of the solution design process.

Tests should involve all relevant stakeholders in order to assess in detail how the developed solution specifically meets the needs of the users for whom it was conceived. In fact, some models of design thinking explicitly envisage that the test is carried out in direct relationship with the end users. However, this is not always a prerequisite and can be circumvented by resorting to various techniques.

This structured approach underscores design thinking’s adaptability and iterative nature, fostering solutions that are deeply aligned with user needs and objectives.

Design Thinking’s Impact on Businesses

Design thinking offers a robust framework for addressing a wide range of business challenges, streamlining the path to innovative solutions. It employs empathy-driven techniques to deepen customer understanding, utilizing digital interaction data to pinpoint user needs. Brainstorming fosters cross-stakeholder collaboration for new initiatives or rejuvenating dated offerings, while rapid prototyping and testing effectively minimize time to market and cut development costs for products, services, or internal processes.

This approach redefines traditional business models by prioritizing human needs, making businesses and technologies serve these needs. Consequently, design thinking not only enhances customer satisfaction but also amplifies the contributions of all involved parties towards achieving business success.

Business Applications of Design Thinking Models

Creative Problem Solving

The most adopted Design Thinking approach in Italian businesses, Creative Problem Solving, enables a deep understanding of user needs and fosters the creative envisioning of solutions that respond effectively to market demands from a human-centric viewpoint. This model, inspired by Anglo-Saxon methodologies, alternates between divergent and convergent thinking phases to boost creativity in problem-solving and solution design, making it highly valued for consultants aiming to innovate based on comprehensive user insights.

Sprint Execution

Sprint Execution aims for rapid development and market launch of products or services that accurately meet user requirements. It highlights the importance of prototyping and testing, with a significant focus on direct feedback from end-users, setting it apart from Creative Problem Solving. This approach is notably dominant in the realm of digital application development, prioritizing user involvement throughout.

Creative Confidence

Tailored to encourage entrepreneurial spirit within organizations, Creative Confidence involves staff directly to cultivate a collective, solution-oriented creative mindset. It extends Creative Problem Solving by emphasizing confidence in engaging with creative and innovative processes, particularly in digital transformation contexts. The model combats innovation adoption barriers and champions empathetic understanding, tolerance of failure, and managing uncertainty, making it ideal for supporting change management and innovation initiatives.

Innovation of Meaning

Dedicated to transforming corporate vision and offering value propositions, Innovation of Meaning seeks to deliver substantial benefits to both the organization and its users through innovation. This approach, distinct from Creative Problem Solving and Sprint Execution, prioritizes strategic vision development over immediate solution-seeking. Though the least prevalent among the models identified by the Design Thinking Observatory, its focus on reevaluating brand and product positioning is drawing growing attention for companies undergoing significant strategic shifts.

Creative Problem Solving in Business Contexts

Creative problem solving has become instrumental for businesses not only in product and service design but also in achieving broader organizational objectives, including staff development and cultivating an innovative culture. This strategy, grounded in empathy and definition, helps companies preempt market trends and cater to both current and potential customer needs, a process greatly enhanced by leveraging emerging technologies like AI for in-depth user data analysis.

Addressing organizational inefficiencies is another area where creative problem solving excels. It aids in the identification and diagnosis of latent process issues, fostering a culture of introspection and stakeholder engagement for targeted problem resolution and process innovation.

Moreover, creative problem solving strengthens team cohesion and enhances internal communication, applying methodologies proven in large enterprises to the context of SMEs.

These instances underscore the daily significance of design thinking in business, emphasizing its outcome-driven, human-centric nature. Facilitators of design thinking meticulously evaluate each situation to recommend specific, effective solutions, drawing on their extensive experience in navigating innovation challenges.

As businesses increasingly adopt design thinking, they are also exploring the potential of Futures Thinking to enrich their strategic approaches. For further insight, see “What is futures thinking and how to apply its principles.”