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Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation
The myth of innovation is that brilliant ideas leap fully formed from the minds of geniuses. The reality is that most innovations come from a process of rigorous examination through which great ideas are identified and developed before being realized as new offerings and capabilities.
This book introduces the idea of design thinking‚ the collaborative process by which the designer′s sensibilities and methods are employed to match people′s needs not only with what is technically feasible and a viable business strategy. In short‚ design thinking converts need into demand. It′s a human−centered approach to problem solving that helps people and organizations become more innovative and more creative.
Design thinking is not just applicable to so−called creative industries or people who work in the design field. It′s a methodology that has been used by organizations such as Kaiser Permanente to icnrease the quality of patient care by re−examining the ways that their nurses manage shift change‚ or Kraft to rethink supply chain management. This is not a book by designers for designers; this is a book for creative leaders seeking to infuse design thinking into every level of an organization‚ product‚ or service to drive new alternatives for business and society.
This book introduces the idea of design thinking‚ the collaborative process by which the designer′s sensibilities and methods are employed to match people′s needs not only with what is technically feasible and a viable business strategy. In short‚ design thinking converts need into demand. It′s a human−centered approach to problem solving that helps people and organizations become more innovative and more creative.
Design thinking is not just applicable to so−called creative industries or people who work in the design field. It′s a methodology that has been used by organizations such as Kaiser Permanente to icnrease the quality of patient care by re−examining the ways that their nurses manage shift change‚ or Kraft to rethink supply chain management. This is not a book by designers for designers; this is a book for creative leaders seeking to infuse design thinking into every level of an organization‚ product‚ or service to drive new alternatives for business and society.
272 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2009
About the author
Tim Brown
3 books120 followersTim Brown is CEO and president of IDEO. He frequently speaks about the value of design thinking and innovation to business people and designers around the world. He participates in the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and his talks Serious Play and Change by Design appear on TED.com.
An industrial designer by training, Tim has earned numerous design awards and has exhibited work at the Axis Gallery in Tokyo, the Design Museum in London, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He takes special interest in the convergence of technology and the arts, as well as the ways in which design can be used to promote the well-being of people living in emerging economies.
Tim advises senior executives and boards of global Fortune 100 companies. He is a member of the board of trustees of IDEO.org and serves on the Mayo Clinic Innovation Advisory Council and the Advisory Council of Acumen, a non-profit global venture focused on improving the lives of the poor. In addition he chairs the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on the Creative Economy and writes for the Harvard Business Review, The Economist, and other prominent publications. His book on how design thinking transforms organizations, Change by Design, was released by HarperBusiness in September 2009.
An industrial designer by training, Tim has earned numerous design awards and has exhibited work at the Axis Gallery in Tokyo, the Design Museum in London, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He takes special interest in the convergence of technology and the arts, as well as the ways in which design can be used to promote the well-being of people living in emerging economies.
Tim advises senior executives and boards of global Fortune 100 companies. He is a member of the board of trustees of IDEO.org and serves on the Mayo Clinic Innovation Advisory Council and the Advisory Council of Acumen, a non-profit global venture focused on improving the lives of the poor. In addition he chairs the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on the Creative Economy and writes for the Harvard Business Review, The Economist, and other prominent publications. His book on how design thinking transforms organizations, Change by Design, was released by HarperBusiness in September 2009.
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December 29, 2012
Met Tim Brown at IDEO for the book launch party of this title, and was inspired to read it after listening to his talk about the subject. Some good high level frameworks and ideas, and it makes me wish that I could experience this process in action as part of an IDEO project team sometime!
Notes and key takeaways:
1) Design thinking starts with divergence (expand range of options).
2) Take a human-centered approach (vs existing business constraints or tech-based approach): observe real user behavior, and emotional meaning vs functional performance.
3) Fail early, fail often: rapid prototyping
4) Get input & study extreme users, leverage range of outside experts, crowdsourcing
5) Share the inspiration internally: collaboration with tangible output vs more meetings - focus on productivity, creativity and fun
6) Blend big & small projects: use variety of approaches, diversified portfolio of innovation
7) Budget to the pace of innovation: strategic venturing model?
8) Find talent any way you can! Use multiple perspectives from your internal team, weird backgrounds for fresh views/ideas
9) Design for the cycle- have people experience the whole cycle of a project
10) Don't ask what, ask why? Keep double-clicking "why" until new insight found
11) Open your eyes and observe the "super-normal" vs assume. Don't think, look.
12). Make it visual - sketch
13) Build on ideas of others
14) Demand options: don't settle for 1st good idea - let 100 flowers bloom, then x-pollinate for full divergent thinking.
15) Balance your portfolio, keep your prototypes, document the process
16) Design a life! How to treat Life as a prototype?
-"Design got small" - design became tool of consumerism: amusing, desirable, but not important. Ex: better woodworking machine or prettier fax machine...with products or whole indsutries becoming obsolete fast! From systems thinkers -> "priesthood of hipster industrial designers" (aesthetics, fashion)
-"design thinking": design used to be big. Ex: design of railway system by Brunell (UK) - led to new innovations such as best gradients, etc. Then did trans-atlantic transport system.
-starts with integrated thinking: balancing desirability + viability + feasability.
-starts with humans: more than ergonomics - have to understand culture & context. Ex: low-cost hearing aids for India on PDA, fitted by non-technicians (start with culture & people vs tech). Cross subsidizing those who can pay for those who can't.
- building to think vs "thinking to build": rapid prototypes speed up the process, iterative learning. Ex: $200 to $4 lenses using low cost CAD/CAM gear vs big western machines
* from Consumption to Participation: (like Media-as-a-Service? Or as-an-Experience?). Ex: Welfare participants vs Welfare Consumers?? Need to design participatory systems!
-"Design too important to be left to designers": ex: nurses exchanging ideas on how to change shifts -- led to new method for updates @ shifts in front of patients, meaning less time away from patients
-Change: times of change drives need for new solutions (ex: shift to industrial age for Brunell). Today: rapid tech changes are obsoleting prior systems. Design thinking encourages Divergence to create more choices (vs converge onto 1 option from multiple choices)
-key: what question are we answering? Shaping the right question is critical! Ex: Indian drinking water problem -- hosted competition for seed funding via Acumen Fund, pairing multiple disciplines and not just designers to think about design of business model, social marketing, in addition to product/tech. This is participation from local community too!
Design thinking is fundamentally exploratory process - should lead to surprises & unexpected discoveries! This means revisiting most basic assumptions
1) Inspiration: problem or opportunity that motivates search for solutions
2) Ideation: generating, developing and testing ideas
3) Implementation
-nimble team of design thinkers prototype from day 1 and self-correct along the way: "fail early to succeed sooner"
Mark of designer is willing embrace of constraints! Design thinker brings these into harmonious balance:
A) feasibility: what is functionally possible within foreseeable future
B) viability: what is likely to become part of sustainable business model
C) desirability: what makes sense to people and for people
Sad reality: companies start with
1) constraint of existing business model: but business systems designed for efficient, so new ideas are incremental, predictable, easy to copy
2) Tech-breakthrough: tech looking for problem and fit - very risky & unlikely to have near term payback of time, R&D $ (Xerox PARC, etc)
3) Estimation of basic human needs & desires
Design Project: has start/middle/end to create constraints, clear goal, and anchor to real world. Starts with design brief: framework with benchmarks, objectives (price point, available tech, market segment). BUT shouldn't be a pre-determined solution (hypothesis is not an algorithm) - should be open enough to allow for surprises, etc.
Art of the Brief: not too broad nor concrete. Often add additional constraints and refinements midcourse
Project teams: "all of us are smarter than any of us" - need diverse, complementary backgrounds, with people willing to go beyond own expertise.
T-shaped person: depth of skill for tangible contribution (difficult to acquire, easy to spot) + cross-discipline capacity. Multidisciplinary team (each member advocates own speciality, leading to protracted negotiation) is NOT same as Interdisciplinary one (collective ownership of ideas)
Team of teams: goal is to create interdependent networks of small teams.
Risk-taking culture: better to ask forgiveness after than permission before is key for formation of new ideas. Let people be "whole people" vs fragmented individuals. "Serious play" - skunk works not enough, as those folks still stifled when injected back to "normal org".
Project spaces: realworld dedicated spaces for projects + online collab spaces is ideal.
Design is too important to be left to specialized designers: management needs to think like designers, designers need to think strategically. How to look at every problem as a design problem?
Converting need into demand: putting people 1st: behaviors are never wrong but always meaningful (vs engineer response of RTFM).
- focus groups & surveys never lead to insights if asked "what do you want?", just "gimme a faster horse" -- conventional market research only good for incremental improvement
1) Insight: observe actual experiences of real people improvising their way through daily life - hunt for "thoughtless acts" (actual behaviors and emergent behaviors)
2) Observation: watch what people don't do, listen to what they don't say (quality, not quantity). Mass marketing is dead!
- but concentrating on center of bell curve only confirms what we already know vs new learnings or surprises. Need to head to the edges and find "extreme" users
- impact of social science/ethnographics (immersive experience, "go native"?): study emerging markets and fringes vs coolhunting/trendspotting
- analogous situations: Indy500 pit vs ER, firestation, or recess playground?
3) Empathy: standing in shoes of others
- ??? Could lifestream/lifecam be used to teach/share empathy (ex: 1st person cam showed insights on how to redesign ER check in process) - PUA? Foreign affairs?
- essential to identify latent needs (acute needs that people can't always articulate) - can create state of empathy, emphasize the new or reference the ordinary/familiar
- hard to watch cognitive vs behaviorial process...one approach is to ask consumers to draw images/metaphors as cognitive experiments
- emotional understanding can turn customers from adversaries into advocates!
- study not just individual but also group/social behavior: network analysis. How to understand a culture, and shift to "us with them" vs "us vs them"?
Louis Pasteur: "fortune favors the prepared mind"
Create with people vs create for them -- collaboration between creators and consumers vs pure UGC (IDEO uses "unfocus group" of extremists). Make consumers part of the design experience
??? How to apply for social games?
Convergent vs Divergent Thinking:
-Western: take inputs, analyze, converge upon single answer. Group think converges toward single outcome. Practical way to decide between existing alternatives. NOT good at probing future and creating new possibilities - more like a funnel. Eliminate options & make choices. William Faulkner: "process of good writing is killing off your little darlings"
-Divergent thinking: multiply options to create choices, widen the funnel first. Linus Pauling: "to have a good idea, you must first have lots of ideas"
-design thinking is rhythmic exchange between divergent and convergent phases, with each iteration phase less broad & more detailed
-Analysis vs Synthesis: analysis breaks apart complex problems into pieces to understand them better. Synthesis is collective act of putting pieces together to create whole ideas, sifting through to identify meaningful patterns (creative process).
- data and facts never speak for themselves: designer is master storyteller whose skill is measured by ability to craft compelling, consistent, believable narrative.
- 1st raw material synthesized into coherent, inspiring narrative, leading to higher level synthesis: another rhythmic back & forth between analysis and synthesis
* those most exposed to changing externalities are best placed to respond & most motivated to do so: new tech, shifting consumer base, strategic threats
- ideas should not be favoured based on who creates them. Ideas that create a buzz should be favored
* senior leadership should have "gardening skill": tend, prune, harvest ideas. Top-down vs bottom-up (ex: WholeFoods using each store's small teams to experiment with new ways to serve employees better) -- NOT employee suggestion box!!
- signs of optimistic culture: colorful messy disorder vs tidy beige cubicles. Bursts of laughter vs subdued conversation. Literal smell of excitement in the air.
Rules for brainstorming:
- defer judgment
- encourage wild ideas
- stay focused on topic
- build on ideas of others (so each member invested in process and moving things along)
- ex: little girls brainstorming vs boys -- focused listening, serial conversation = true collab vs fighting for own idea airtime!
- Post-it notes: design teams naturally diverge endlessly - Post-it note storyboards + Butterfly Test: post-it note ballots for each person to vote on best ideas and reach consensus
Integrative Thinking-- The Opposable Mind: thinkers who exploit opposing ideas to construct a new solution > thinkers who consider only one model at a time
- top leaders "embrace the mess" and allow complexity to exist during search for solutions, because complexity is most reliable source of creative of opportunities
Prototyping:
-early prototypes should be fast, rough, cheap - explore many ideas in parallel. Fail quickly and cheaply!
-Overinvestment in refined proto locks you into potentially mediocre realization, and inhibits discovery of new, better ideas at minimal cost
-only invest as much time, effort needed to get useful feedback & drive idea forward. Avoid "finished" proto - goal is not to create working model but to give form to an idea to learn its strengths & weaknesses, & identify new directions for more refined protos.
- limit scope of early proto- focus on seeing if an idea has functional value: "just enough prototyping"
-prototyping non-physical experiences: scenario storytelling, storyboarding - keep people at center of the idea: "transaction between people and things"
-study the "customer journey" (as opposed to assuming how people will behave or change behavior) from beginning of service experience to end. Ex: most of train travel experience does not involve train at all! Each step before/during/after is a chance to create positive interaction!
-acting out potential ideas: experiential prototyping (ex: fullscale model of hotel lobby & check in process, with designers going through each step of experience & noting what could be better)
-how to prototype an evolving organization? Not just "re-org" - constant change, and story has to be repeated many times before people understand how it applies to them & behavior change needed
- prototypes are paradoxical: they slow us down early on to speed us up later (try to discover failure points early!). Proto should inspire new ideas: start early in a project, be numerous, quick and ugly. Team members should make their own proto initially & not outsource (don't always need model shop for design thinkers to "build" proto)
-set goal for earlyt proto: time limit. One measure of innovative organization is average time to 1st proto.
-during ideation we build many protos. As project advances, # of proto decreases but resolution of each hoes up. Next stage is implementation (pilot)
Experience Design:
-Daniel Pink: Psychodynamics of Affluence ("A Whole New Mind") -- once our basic needs are met, people look for meaningful & emotionally satisfying experiences (in the experience economy)
-shift from consumption to participation (music used to be sold as sheet music for consumers to play before recorded music came along)
-Experience Engineering: Disneyland, WholeFoods are great at this- all the tiny nuances. Experience brands engage the customer at every possible opportunity (ex: Virgin America)
-SPARC: see, plan, act, refine, communcate
-Behavior change: get people to try something new by building on familiar behaviors (ex: "keep the change" program @ BofA)
-experience comes to life when personalized & customized - via smart technology, or providing something special or relevant at just the right time. Ex: Four Seasons, leveraging employees to identify opportunities and giving them tools to act upon them -- real experience culture is one of spontaneity
***Experience Blueprint: framework for working out details of a human interaction. Also captures how people travel through experience in time, and describes emotive elements. Goal: identify most meaningful points & turn them into opportunities! Connects the customer experience with the business opportunity
- base premises on observations, not assumptions! The a-ha moment may not be where you think it is (ex: "the exhale moment" of finally getting into your hotel room)
-successful experience requires 1) active consumer participation, 2) authentic, genuine, compelling feel delivered by employees within an experience culture, 3) experiences that are well executed - designed and engineered with precision
Storytelling:
-4th dimension of designer's toolkit: time (sequence of events). Different than designing with space: design thinker has to be comfortable in both space and time
-ex: designing interaction is designing verbs, not nouns -- allow a story to unfold over time. Use narrative techniques like storyboard and scenarios with user at the center
-Barry Schwartz, "Paradox of Choice": most people don't want more options, just want what they want, and paralyzed by fear if overwhelmed by choice (optimizers), or just put up with whatever works (satisficers)
-X-prize model: Revolution through Competition. Design challenges are a great story around an idea and way to unleash power of competition. People love the idea of following bands of adventurers competing on a quest for the impossible.
-effective storytelling has beginning (storytelling needs to begin early in a project, woven into every innovation effort) and end (story gains traction when picked up by intended audience and moved forward after design project is over). Ex: Red Cross blood donation experience was more about inviting people to share their stories and emotional reasons for giving blood, vs better signage and seating
- conventional advertising no longer works with less time, more choices; storytelling will resonate much better.
** Allow customers to write own last chapter of the story!
Corporate Design Thinking:
- Ways to Grow: 1) extend (evolutionary: new offerings to existing users), 2) create (revolutionary: new offerings to new users), 3) manage (incremental: existing offerings to existing users), 4) adapt (evolutionary: existing offerings to new users)
- most challenging innovation is "create": new mrkts and new products -- too risky. Revolutionary can work well: Sony Walkman, Apple iPod created new markets
- smash hits can be tempting, but too rare. Incremental projects are easy to forecast, but too shortsighted. Best approach is to invest across all four categories (diversift the portfolio)
Shift to Social Contracts:
- companies have to yield authority over market and engage in 2 way conversation with users: shifting to 1) product-as-service, 2) discrete products and services to complex systems, 3) industrial age and mindless consumption is no longer sustainable
- every product is now a service, yet service businesses are slower to innovate vs product companies!
Notes and key takeaways:
1) Design thinking starts with divergence (expand range of options).
2) Take a human-centered approach (vs existing business constraints or tech-based approach): observe real user behavior, and emotional meaning vs functional performance.
3) Fail early, fail often: rapid prototyping
4) Get input & study extreme users, leverage range of outside experts, crowdsourcing
5) Share the inspiration internally: collaboration with tangible output vs more meetings - focus on productivity, creativity and fun
6) Blend big & small projects: use variety of approaches, diversified portfolio of innovation
7) Budget to the pace of innovation: strategic venturing model?
8) Find talent any way you can! Use multiple perspectives from your internal team, weird backgrounds for fresh views/ideas
9) Design for the cycle- have people experience the whole cycle of a project
10) Don't ask what, ask why? Keep double-clicking "why" until new insight found
11) Open your eyes and observe the "super-normal" vs assume. Don't think, look.
12). Make it visual - sketch
13) Build on ideas of others
14) Demand options: don't settle for 1st good idea - let 100 flowers bloom, then x-pollinate for full divergent thinking.
15) Balance your portfolio, keep your prototypes, document the process
16) Design a life! How to treat Life as a prototype?
-"Design got small" - design became tool of consumerism: amusing, desirable, but not important. Ex: better woodworking machine or prettier fax machine...with products or whole indsutries becoming obsolete fast! From systems thinkers -> "priesthood of hipster industrial designers" (aesthetics, fashion)
-"design thinking": design used to be big. Ex: design of railway system by Brunell (UK) - led to new innovations such as best gradients, etc. Then did trans-atlantic transport system.
-starts with integrated thinking: balancing desirability + viability + feasability.
-starts with humans: more than ergonomics - have to understand culture & context. Ex: low-cost hearing aids for India on PDA, fitted by non-technicians (start with culture & people vs tech). Cross subsidizing those who can pay for those who can't.
- building to think vs "thinking to build": rapid prototypes speed up the process, iterative learning. Ex: $200 to $4 lenses using low cost CAD/CAM gear vs big western machines
* from Consumption to Participation: (like Media-as-a-Service? Or as-an-Experience?). Ex: Welfare participants vs Welfare Consumers?? Need to design participatory systems!
-"Design too important to be left to designers": ex: nurses exchanging ideas on how to change shifts -- led to new method for updates @ shifts in front of patients, meaning less time away from patients
-Change: times of change drives need for new solutions (ex: shift to industrial age for Brunell). Today: rapid tech changes are obsoleting prior systems. Design thinking encourages Divergence to create more choices (vs converge onto 1 option from multiple choices)
-key: what question are we answering? Shaping the right question is critical! Ex: Indian drinking water problem -- hosted competition for seed funding via Acumen Fund, pairing multiple disciplines and not just designers to think about design of business model, social marketing, in addition to product/tech. This is participation from local community too!
Design thinking is fundamentally exploratory process - should lead to surprises & unexpected discoveries! This means revisiting most basic assumptions
1) Inspiration: problem or opportunity that motivates search for solutions
2) Ideation: generating, developing and testing ideas
3) Implementation
-nimble team of design thinkers prototype from day 1 and self-correct along the way: "fail early to succeed sooner"
Mark of designer is willing embrace of constraints! Design thinker brings these into harmonious balance:
A) feasibility: what is functionally possible within foreseeable future
B) viability: what is likely to become part of sustainable business model
C) desirability: what makes sense to people and for people
Sad reality: companies start with
1) constraint of existing business model: but business systems designed for efficient, so new ideas are incremental, predictable, easy to copy
2) Tech-breakthrough: tech looking for problem and fit - very risky & unlikely to have near term payback of time, R&D $ (Xerox PARC, etc)
3) Estimation of basic human needs & desires
Design Project: has start/middle/end to create constraints, clear goal, and anchor to real world. Starts with design brief: framework with benchmarks, objectives (price point, available tech, market segment). BUT shouldn't be a pre-determined solution (hypothesis is not an algorithm) - should be open enough to allow for surprises, etc.
Art of the Brief: not too broad nor concrete. Often add additional constraints and refinements midcourse
Project teams: "all of us are smarter than any of us" - need diverse, complementary backgrounds, with people willing to go beyond own expertise.
T-shaped person: depth of skill for tangible contribution (difficult to acquire, easy to spot) + cross-discipline capacity. Multidisciplinary team (each member advocates own speciality, leading to protracted negotiation) is NOT same as Interdisciplinary one (collective ownership of ideas)
Team of teams: goal is to create interdependent networks of small teams.
Risk-taking culture: better to ask forgiveness after than permission before is key for formation of new ideas. Let people be "whole people" vs fragmented individuals. "Serious play" - skunk works not enough, as those folks still stifled when injected back to "normal org".
Project spaces: realworld dedicated spaces for projects + online collab spaces is ideal.
Design is too important to be left to specialized designers: management needs to think like designers, designers need to think strategically. How to look at every problem as a design problem?
Converting need into demand: putting people 1st: behaviors are never wrong but always meaningful (vs engineer response of RTFM).
- focus groups & surveys never lead to insights if asked "what do you want?", just "gimme a faster horse" -- conventional market research only good for incremental improvement
1) Insight: observe actual experiences of real people improvising their way through daily life - hunt for "thoughtless acts" (actual behaviors and emergent behaviors)
2) Observation: watch what people don't do, listen to what they don't say (quality, not quantity). Mass marketing is dead!
- but concentrating on center of bell curve only confirms what we already know vs new learnings or surprises. Need to head to the edges and find "extreme" users
- impact of social science/ethnographics (immersive experience, "go native"?): study emerging markets and fringes vs coolhunting/trendspotting
- analogous situations: Indy500 pit vs ER, firestation, or recess playground?
3) Empathy: standing in shoes of others
- ??? Could lifestream/lifecam be used to teach/share empathy (ex: 1st person cam showed insights on how to redesign ER check in process) - PUA? Foreign affairs?
- essential to identify latent needs (acute needs that people can't always articulate) - can create state of empathy, emphasize the new or reference the ordinary/familiar
- hard to watch cognitive vs behaviorial process...one approach is to ask consumers to draw images/metaphors as cognitive experiments
- emotional understanding can turn customers from adversaries into advocates!
- study not just individual but also group/social behavior: network analysis. How to understand a culture, and shift to "us with them" vs "us vs them"?
Louis Pasteur: "fortune favors the prepared mind"
Create with people vs create for them -- collaboration between creators and consumers vs pure UGC (IDEO uses "unfocus group" of extremists). Make consumers part of the design experience
??? How to apply for social games?
Convergent vs Divergent Thinking:
-Western: take inputs, analyze, converge upon single answer. Group think converges toward single outcome. Practical way to decide between existing alternatives. NOT good at probing future and creating new possibilities - more like a funnel. Eliminate options & make choices. William Faulkner: "process of good writing is killing off your little darlings"
-Divergent thinking: multiply options to create choices, widen the funnel first. Linus Pauling: "to have a good idea, you must first have lots of ideas"
-design thinking is rhythmic exchange between divergent and convergent phases, with each iteration phase less broad & more detailed
-Analysis vs Synthesis: analysis breaks apart complex problems into pieces to understand them better. Synthesis is collective act of putting pieces together to create whole ideas, sifting through to identify meaningful patterns (creative process).
- data and facts never speak for themselves: designer is master storyteller whose skill is measured by ability to craft compelling, consistent, believable narrative.
- 1st raw material synthesized into coherent, inspiring narrative, leading to higher level synthesis: another rhythmic back & forth between analysis and synthesis
* those most exposed to changing externalities are best placed to respond & most motivated to do so: new tech, shifting consumer base, strategic threats
- ideas should not be favoured based on who creates them. Ideas that create a buzz should be favored
* senior leadership should have "gardening skill": tend, prune, harvest ideas. Top-down vs bottom-up (ex: WholeFoods using each store's small teams to experiment with new ways to serve employees better) -- NOT employee suggestion box!!
- signs of optimistic culture: colorful messy disorder vs tidy beige cubicles. Bursts of laughter vs subdued conversation. Literal smell of excitement in the air.
Rules for brainstorming:
- defer judgment
- encourage wild ideas
- stay focused on topic
- build on ideas of others (so each member invested in process and moving things along)
- ex: little girls brainstorming vs boys -- focused listening, serial conversation = true collab vs fighting for own idea airtime!
- Post-it notes: design teams naturally diverge endlessly - Post-it note storyboards + Butterfly Test: post-it note ballots for each person to vote on best ideas and reach consensus
Integrative Thinking-- The Opposable Mind: thinkers who exploit opposing ideas to construct a new solution > thinkers who consider only one model at a time
- top leaders "embrace the mess" and allow complexity to exist during search for solutions, because complexity is most reliable source of creative of opportunities
Prototyping:
-early prototypes should be fast, rough, cheap - explore many ideas in parallel. Fail quickly and cheaply!
-Overinvestment in refined proto locks you into potentially mediocre realization, and inhibits discovery of new, better ideas at minimal cost
-only invest as much time, effort needed to get useful feedback & drive idea forward. Avoid "finished" proto - goal is not to create working model but to give form to an idea to learn its strengths & weaknesses, & identify new directions for more refined protos.
- limit scope of early proto- focus on seeing if an idea has functional value: "just enough prototyping"
-prototyping non-physical experiences: scenario storytelling, storyboarding - keep people at center of the idea: "transaction between people and things"
-study the "customer journey" (as opposed to assuming how people will behave or change behavior) from beginning of service experience to end. Ex: most of train travel experience does not involve train at all! Each step before/during/after is a chance to create positive interaction!
-acting out potential ideas: experiential prototyping (ex: fullscale model of hotel lobby & check in process, with designers going through each step of experience & noting what could be better)
-how to prototype an evolving organization? Not just "re-org" - constant change, and story has to be repeated many times before people understand how it applies to them & behavior change needed
- prototypes are paradoxical: they slow us down early on to speed us up later (try to discover failure points early!). Proto should inspire new ideas: start early in a project, be numerous, quick and ugly. Team members should make their own proto initially & not outsource (don't always need model shop for design thinkers to "build" proto)
-set goal for earlyt proto: time limit. One measure of innovative organization is average time to 1st proto.
-during ideation we build many protos. As project advances, # of proto decreases but resolution of each hoes up. Next stage is implementation (pilot)
Experience Design:
-Daniel Pink: Psychodynamics of Affluence ("A Whole New Mind") -- once our basic needs are met, people look for meaningful & emotionally satisfying experiences (in the experience economy)
-shift from consumption to participation (music used to be sold as sheet music for consumers to play before recorded music came along)
-Experience Engineering: Disneyland, WholeFoods are great at this- all the tiny nuances. Experience brands engage the customer at every possible opportunity (ex: Virgin America)
-SPARC: see, plan, act, refine, communcate
-Behavior change: get people to try something new by building on familiar behaviors (ex: "keep the change" program @ BofA)
-experience comes to life when personalized & customized - via smart technology, or providing something special or relevant at just the right time. Ex: Four Seasons, leveraging employees to identify opportunities and giving them tools to act upon them -- real experience culture is one of spontaneity
***Experience Blueprint: framework for working out details of a human interaction. Also captures how people travel through experience in time, and describes emotive elements. Goal: identify most meaningful points & turn them into opportunities! Connects the customer experience with the business opportunity
- base premises on observations, not assumptions! The a-ha moment may not be where you think it is (ex: "the exhale moment" of finally getting into your hotel room)
-successful experience requires 1) active consumer participation, 2) authentic, genuine, compelling feel delivered by employees within an experience culture, 3) experiences that are well executed - designed and engineered with precision
Storytelling:
-4th dimension of designer's toolkit: time (sequence of events). Different than designing with space: design thinker has to be comfortable in both space and time
-ex: designing interaction is designing verbs, not nouns -- allow a story to unfold over time. Use narrative techniques like storyboard and scenarios with user at the center
-Barry Schwartz, "Paradox of Choice": most people don't want more options, just want what they want, and paralyzed by fear if overwhelmed by choice (optimizers), or just put up with whatever works (satisficers)
-X-prize model: Revolution through Competition. Design challenges are a great story around an idea and way to unleash power of competition. People love the idea of following bands of adventurers competing on a quest for the impossible.
-effective storytelling has beginning (storytelling needs to begin early in a project, woven into every innovation effort) and end (story gains traction when picked up by intended audience and moved forward after design project is over). Ex: Red Cross blood donation experience was more about inviting people to share their stories and emotional reasons for giving blood, vs better signage and seating
- conventional advertising no longer works with less time, more choices; storytelling will resonate much better.
** Allow customers to write own last chapter of the story!
Corporate Design Thinking:
- Ways to Grow: 1) extend (evolutionary: new offerings to existing users), 2) create (revolutionary: new offerings to new users), 3) manage (incremental: existing offerings to existing users), 4) adapt (evolutionary: existing offerings to new users)
- most challenging innovation is "create": new mrkts and new products -- too risky. Revolutionary can work well: Sony Walkman, Apple iPod created new markets
- smash hits can be tempting, but too rare. Incremental projects are easy to forecast, but too shortsighted. Best approach is to invest across all four categories (diversift the portfolio)
Shift to Social Contracts:
- companies have to yield authority over market and engage in 2 way conversation with users: shifting to 1) product-as-service, 2) discrete products and services to complex systems, 3) industrial age and mindless consumption is no longer sustainable
- every product is now a service, yet service businesses are slower to innovate vs product companies!
February 11, 2010
This was easy to read and on occasion insightful, but it felt like a really long advertisement/infomercial for IDEO. It would have been much better if he concentrated on just a few clients/ideas rather than trying to say everything in one book. Felt like I was at a party stuck in a corner with someone doing a lot of name dropping!
His very brief chapter on sustainable design was pathetic and not worth his effort. What is the point in telling a story about finding a discarded toothbrush you designed on a pristine beach in Mexico if all you say is "We can't control what people do with stuff after we design it"? A seriously irresponsible response and why even bring it up if that's your response?
His very brief chapter on sustainable design was pathetic and not worth his effort. What is the point in telling a story about finding a discarded toothbrush you designed on a pristine beach in Mexico if all you say is "We can't control what people do with stuff after we design it"? A seriously irresponsible response and why even bring it up if that's your response?
January 26, 2011
Sorry sir, you are an amazing designer, philanthropist and inspiration to us all, but you are not a good writer. The book attempts to introduce the philosophies that propelled IDEO to the top of the world in design strategies and innovations, not at the level of making something look pretty, but at radical shifts in perception and usage. Brown equally emphasizes the importance of market success and global povery-reduction, successfully arguing that design problems should encompass childhood obesity as well as the next gen ipod. A portion of the book discusses the importance of visual thinking and prototyping in an overly verbal world. Well, i'm sure he must be a GREAT visual thinker, but the writing stuff... meh. The problem is that the book reads like a powerpoint presentation (blech), going point by point IDEO's various successes, without being intriguing or inspiring. (oh, you did that too, and you were great, awesome, snore) maybe i'm still too much of an east coaster still, but while in the REAL WORLD an untarnished resume and countless successes are the mark of acheivement, in the LITERARY WORLD, it is still confusion, struggle, pain, failure, and redemption that capture the imagination.
Dish: TBD.
Dish: TBD.
July 10, 2015
A bit disappointing.
My expectations may have been set too high due to recommendation I've got but the honest truth is that if you're aware of modern practices in software development, you won't find anything new here. Even if this book is filled with plenty of real-life cases, I just couldn't help myself missing the 'substance'.
All of them seemed so ... obvious: Experiments? Yes! Prototyping? Yes! Get out of the ivory tower and touch the real life? Yes! Cooperate with users? Yes! Service instead of product? Yes!
This may be innovative, refreshing & new in non-IT industries, I admit.
Btw., book is a bit outdated & ... actually it's a bit funny :) Netflix is mentioned, but ... author is referring to times when Netflix was sending DVDs & has just started experimenting with on-line videos :) Or - Nokia is mentioned as a successful & innovative company ;D
My expectations may have been set too high due to recommendation I've got but the honest truth is that if you're aware of modern practices in software development, you won't find anything new here. Even if this book is filled with plenty of real-life cases, I just couldn't help myself missing the 'substance'.
All of them seemed so ... obvious: Experiments? Yes! Prototyping? Yes! Get out of the ivory tower and touch the real life? Yes! Cooperate with users? Yes! Service instead of product? Yes!
This may be innovative, refreshing & new in non-IT industries, I admit.
Btw., book is a bit outdated & ... actually it's a bit funny :) Netflix is mentioned, but ... author is referring to times when Netflix was sending DVDs & has just started experimenting with on-line videos :) Or - Nokia is mentioned as a successful & innovative company ;D
July 1, 2018
Tim Brown's seminal paper on Design Thinking is almost a holy text to me. So when the author talks of transformation change by design, it is a must read on my shelf!
There's a lot right with the book. As a practitioner, you are able to relate to the very real challenges of applying design thinking to transformation and the real life case stories are rewarding. The different chapters are thought through and explains the critical tenets of design thinking of human-centered approach, prototyping, divergence and design for 'Spaceship Earth'. Some of the examples relating to culture are bang-on especially the ability to let go and the culture for failures.
It's almost an easy to read course book for all change management professionals. Where it misses out is the blueprint - the sequence of activities. The storytelling is to the exact point but it does not give the full picture. For example Nokia did a breakthrough in early 2000s to diversify into mobile phones, but the book doesn't talk of the same traits leading to the downturn. It talks about wikipedia's business model but does not talk about how or why other similar companies fail. The initial parts were a tough read compared to the latter half.
It's a good book, but not an eye opener. If you are a beginner, it is a good book to start with for Design thinking.
There's a lot right with the book. As a practitioner, you are able to relate to the very real challenges of applying design thinking to transformation and the real life case stories are rewarding. The different chapters are thought through and explains the critical tenets of design thinking of human-centered approach, prototyping, divergence and design for 'Spaceship Earth'. Some of the examples relating to culture are bang-on especially the ability to let go and the culture for failures.
It's almost an easy to read course book for all change management professionals. Where it misses out is the blueprint - the sequence of activities. The storytelling is to the exact point but it does not give the full picture. For example Nokia did a breakthrough in early 2000s to diversify into mobile phones, but the book doesn't talk of the same traits leading to the downturn. It talks about wikipedia's business model but does not talk about how or why other similar companies fail. The initial parts were a tough read compared to the latter half.
It's a good book, but not an eye opener. If you are a beginner, it is a good book to start with for Design thinking.
July 18, 2011
Tim Brown preaches the virtue of the designer and asks people and businesses responsible for hiring them to give them more time, money, and resources to do their job while at the same time claiming that operating within tight, unforgiving constraints is the realm in which the designer thrives.
Although there were a few valuable insights regarding the design process here, it wasn't anything that couldn't have fit in a one hour lecture and written on a standard square yellow sticky note.
Many businesses care about innovation and design, but must figure out how to do it with limited budget and resources. If these businesses didn't have those constraints, they wouldn't need Tim Brown's book.
I can only imagine Tim wrote this as a self-pat-on-the-back for himself, his company, and designers alike.
Kudos on your book deal. I was one of the suckers who bought it.
Although there were a few valuable insights regarding the design process here, it wasn't anything that couldn't have fit in a one hour lecture and written on a standard square yellow sticky note.
Many businesses care about innovation and design, but must figure out how to do it with limited budget and resources. If these businesses didn't have those constraints, they wouldn't need Tim Brown's book.
I can only imagine Tim wrote this as a self-pat-on-the-back for himself, his company, and designers alike.
Kudos on your book deal. I was one of the suckers who bought it.
December 17, 2017
This is a more narrative book about "Design Thinking" with different examples of successful start-ups or companies. I wanted from the book what kind of recommendations or techniques of using in practice "Design Thinking".
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Это более повествовательная книга про "Design Thinking" с разными примерами удачных стартапов или компаний. Хотелось от книги каких то рекомендаций или методик, техник использования на практике "Design Thinking".
I read books on Scribd or Google Books by
Readlax Chrome Extension
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Это более повествовательная книга про "Design Thinking" с разными примерами удачных стартапов или компаний. Хотелось от книги каких то рекомендаций или методик, техник использования на практике "Design Thinking".
I read books on Scribd or Google Books by
Readlax Chrome Extension
September 29, 2019
Definitely should’ve read this 10 years ago as it would have changed the way I thought of design and what you can design. Now, it really didn’t contain that much new stuff. Good reference cases though as the book is really a sales portfolio for Ideo. The last chapter contained the refreshed stories looking at the situation in 2019 and the story has definitely changed: we are facing the need to redesign design as the world has definitely run with design thinking to a point of saturation. Also, now we’re turning a page to a chapter focused on designing for a sustainable world, one converted organisation and community at a time.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 19, 2016
This is a good book if what you're looking for is an introduction to design thinking. If you're a bit familiar with the concept, though, or have been using it to some extent, it's mostly a series of quick examples by Tim Brown of IDEO, none of which are highly illustrative. Also, given that this book came out in 2009, some of the examples are no longer current. (E.g., Nokia a leader in mobile devices?)
Still, it's useful to hear about design thinking from one of its originators.
Still, it's useful to hear about design thinking from one of its originators.
November 10, 2016
Хорошая книга, в которой отмечена важность дизайна ВСЕГО! Расширяет видение и понимание, почему некоторые процессы и продукты принимаются легко и экологично, не "царапая" потребителя своими острыми углами, и иногда наоборот! Так же описано в книге, как сделать и как мыслить при производстве новых "продуктов".
January 2, 2019
A few years ago, I attended a "design thinking" workshop at an administrator's conference. The presenter began by stating that a person who goes into a hardware store looking for a quarter-inch drill bit doesn't really want a quarter-inch drill bit. They want a quarter-inch hole. A design thinker is someone who starts with the question "how do we produce a quarter-inch hole" instead of "where do we find a quarter-inch drill bit." At the time, this struck me as an important observation.
Flash forward to the early days of 2019, when I have been tasked with leading a design-thinking workshop for university administrators who need, in effect, a whole lot of quarter-inch holes and are finding that their quarter-inch drill bits no longer work. A colleague recommended that I start with Tim Brown's Change by Design. I'm glad I did, and there are some good insights in the book. But I still don't have a better way to explain the whole concept of design thinking that is better than the quarter-inch hole analogy.
First, the problems with the book. Through no fault of its own, it is now ten years old, and it shows its age. Brown is an executive at the fabled IDEO firm in Palo Alto, which designed, among other things, the original Apple mouse and the Palm Pilot. This is good stuff, but this particular book sacrifices timelessness for a sense of cutting-edgeness that does not particularly wear very well. Ten years later, it is hard to think of the Blackberry as the apex of handheld technology or Best Buy as the cutting edge of retail experience.
So much has happened since the book was written, that all of the advantages of being at the cutting edge in 2009 disappear and a lot of the examples are stale. A better strategy, I think (and Brown does this a little bit) would have been to stay away from the tech industry as much as possible and talk about breakfast cereal and Carnation milk, and instant coffee and all sorts of other things that illustrate the same points in a less time-bound fashion.
The book also suffers, in my view, by a sort of hyperactive, throw-stuff-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks approach to its subject matter. The chapters are not very well focused, and the author moves from example to example without really settling in on anything. In his defense, he tells us that this is what he is doing, and he says that it is consistent with what design thinking is all about, but he does not make many concessions to the linear thinkers among us, which I, as a very linear thinker, find alienating.
Of course, the right answer is that I need to stop being such a stuffed shirt, but it is probably too late for me. The best I can do is try to design a curriculum that will stop my children's generation from being such stuffed shirts, and there are some good ideas here for what that might look like. Among the takeaways:
--Innovate fearlessly. Structure safe environments for brainstorming and experimentation, and cultivate a high tolerance for failure. Innovation comes when people do not see their jobs as contingent on not screwing up.
--Prototype everything. Create models, illustrations, storyboards, trial runs, and other opportunities for people to visualize the end result.
--Focus on what human beings will be doing, not on what, ideally, they should be doing. This was probably the most important point for me. A whole lot of really wonderful ideas have failed because their designers did not do a good job of imagining what human beings would really be doing with the product or the service.
--Create options. At every stage of the process, but especially the early stages, design thinkers should be brainstorming, asking probing questions, and creating multiple possible ways of solving the problem.
--Communicate with everybody all the time. This is another extremely important element of organizational culture. Silos discourage innovation. Turf wars keep organizations locked into old patterns. The only way to break free is to create a culture where people are always talking to each other and sharing ideas. And where people aren't afraid of stepping out of bounds. Nearly all of the good stuff is out of bounds.
These are all good suggestions, but I am not sure that they go very far beyond common sense. Are they "design thinking"? Is this actually a thing and not just a trendy word for being open to innovation and intentional about change? There is probably some there there, but this book doesn't entirely define it. But I am still pretty sure it has to do with quarter-inch holes.
Flash forward to the early days of 2019, when I have been tasked with leading a design-thinking workshop for university administrators who need, in effect, a whole lot of quarter-inch holes and are finding that their quarter-inch drill bits no longer work. A colleague recommended that I start with Tim Brown's Change by Design. I'm glad I did, and there are some good insights in the book. But I still don't have a better way to explain the whole concept of design thinking that is better than the quarter-inch hole analogy.
First, the problems with the book. Through no fault of its own, it is now ten years old, and it shows its age. Brown is an executive at the fabled IDEO firm in Palo Alto, which designed, among other things, the original Apple mouse and the Palm Pilot. This is good stuff, but this particular book sacrifices timelessness for a sense of cutting-edgeness that does not particularly wear very well. Ten years later, it is hard to think of the Blackberry as the apex of handheld technology or Best Buy as the cutting edge of retail experience.
So much has happened since the book was written, that all of the advantages of being at the cutting edge in 2009 disappear and a lot of the examples are stale. A better strategy, I think (and Brown does this a little bit) would have been to stay away from the tech industry as much as possible and talk about breakfast cereal and Carnation milk, and instant coffee and all sorts of other things that illustrate the same points in a less time-bound fashion.
The book also suffers, in my view, by a sort of hyperactive, throw-stuff-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks approach to its subject matter. The chapters are not very well focused, and the author moves from example to example without really settling in on anything. In his defense, he tells us that this is what he is doing, and he says that it is consistent with what design thinking is all about, but he does not make many concessions to the linear thinkers among us, which I, as a very linear thinker, find alienating.
Of course, the right answer is that I need to stop being such a stuffed shirt, but it is probably too late for me. The best I can do is try to design a curriculum that will stop my children's generation from being such stuffed shirts, and there are some good ideas here for what that might look like. Among the takeaways:
--Innovate fearlessly. Structure safe environments for brainstorming and experimentation, and cultivate a high tolerance for failure. Innovation comes when people do not see their jobs as contingent on not screwing up.
--Prototype everything. Create models, illustrations, storyboards, trial runs, and other opportunities for people to visualize the end result.
--Focus on what human beings will be doing, not on what, ideally, they should be doing. This was probably the most important point for me. A whole lot of really wonderful ideas have failed because their designers did not do a good job of imagining what human beings would really be doing with the product or the service.
--Create options. At every stage of the process, but especially the early stages, design thinkers should be brainstorming, asking probing questions, and creating multiple possible ways of solving the problem.
--Communicate with everybody all the time. This is another extremely important element of organizational culture. Silos discourage innovation. Turf wars keep organizations locked into old patterns. The only way to break free is to create a culture where people are always talking to each other and sharing ideas. And where people aren't afraid of stepping out of bounds. Nearly all of the good stuff is out of bounds.
These are all good suggestions, but I am not sure that they go very far beyond common sense. Are they "design thinking"? Is this actually a thing and not just a trendy word for being open to innovation and intentional about change? There is probably some there there, but this book doesn't entirely define it. But I am still pretty sure it has to do with quarter-inch holes.
February 5, 2024
Автор книги — Тим Браун, пишет про важность дизайн-мышления. Что дизайн-мышление позволяет создавать решения, которые не только технически эффективны, но и соответствуют реальным потребностям и контексту конкретных пользователей.
Первая глава книги про то, что массовый маркетинг мёртв и нужен новый подход к разработке продуктов. Пару примеров из истории – Ford и Apple.
Во второй главе про то, что “настала эра потребителя”, но не надо спрашивать чего хотят люди, пример с Ford: “если бы я спросил у людей, что им нужно, они бы попросили более быструю лошадь”. Тут про важность наблюдения, что важно стараться дать им то, что решает их потребности.
Дальше глава про “прототипирование”. В этой главе Тим Браун описывает важность этого этапа при разработке продукта. То есть если вы нашли что-то, что как вам кажется будет работать, но чего еще никто не делал — найдите любую возможность опробовать это на “черновом” макете. И нет разницы что конкретно вы пробуете, новый дизайн телефона, новая функциональная стойка ресепшена в гостинице или дизайн парохода — найдите возможность сделать это из чего угодно и попробовать. Вот про это вся 4-я глава.
Но! Все примеры были обобщенными. Его описание кейсов выглядит вот так: «Нам поставили задачу улучшить работу больницы, наш дизайнер прикрепил скрытую камеру и пошел в эту больницу, дальше мы собрали весь полученный материал и переработали, нашли основные проблемы, нам было трудно, но мы их решили.» А как решили?! Вы описали проблемы, вы описали процесс, но что вы сделали-то? Интересно же решение! На эти вопросы ответа в книге нет. Большинство кейсов имеют именно такую структуру — много всего, но ничего конкретного.
Всё, что в этой книге можно послушать на лекциях с TED.
Первая глава книги про то, что массовый маркетинг мёртв и нужен новый подход к разработке продуктов. Пару примеров из истории – Ford и Apple.
Во второй главе про то, что “настала эра потребителя”, но не надо спрашивать чего хотят люди, пример с Ford: “если бы я спросил у людей, что им нужно, они бы попросили более быструю лошадь”. Тут про важность наблюдения, что важно стараться дать им то, что решает их потребности.
Дальше глава про “прототипирование”. В этой главе Тим Браун описывает важность этого этапа при разработке продукта. То есть если вы нашли что-то, что как вам кажется будет работать, но чего еще никто не делал — найдите любую возможность опробовать это на “черновом” макете. И нет разницы что конкретно вы пробуете, новый дизайн телефона, новая функциональная стойка ресепшена в гостинице или дизайн парохода — найдите возможность сделать это из чего угодно и попробовать. Вот про это вся 4-я глава.
Но! Все примеры были обобщенными. Его описание кейсов выглядит вот так: «Нам поставили задачу улучшить работу больницы, наш дизайнер прикрепил скрытую камеру и пошел в эту больницу, дальше мы собрали весь полученный материал и переработали, нашли основные проблемы, нам было трудно, но мы их решили.» А как решили?! Вы описали проблемы, вы описали процесс, но что вы сделали-то? Интересно же решение! На эти вопросы ответа в книге нет. Большинство кейсов имеют именно такую структуру — много всего, но ничего конкретного.
Всё, что в этой книге можно послушать на лекциях с TED.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 8, 2021
¿Piensas que las buenas ideas caen del cielo o que estas provienen de personas que han estudiado arte o comunicaciones? Tim Brown en su libro Diseñar el Cambio, te dice que eso no es así. Que es posible sistematizar la creatividad y la innovación a través del Design Thinking para que cualquiera independientemente de su profesión genere una solución a los problemas de una empresa u organización. Incluso expone la importancia del DT en la solución a desafíos más grandes como la contaminación ambiental, la pobreza o la precariedad de la educación. Es un libro que te motiva a mejorar el mundo en el que vivimos.
August 26, 2012
Замечательная книга! Была прочитана запоем :) Пропитана глобальным оптимизмом и творчеством, и вдохновляет не по-детски :)
Но это эмоции... Если серьёзно, то дизайн-мышление - подход к инновациям, который может быть применен максимально широко: и для развития организаций, и для бизнес-новаций, и для решения социальных проблем, и даже для разрешения глобальных проблем, вроде экологической катастрофы. Масштаб инноваций может быть любым - от самого себя, до планеты Земля.
В том числе не важна граница "малый / крупный" бизнес. Дизайн-мышление - если его ценность принимается, а навыки наличествуют - работет везде! И оптимизма становится ещё больше :)))
Кстати, в книге приводится несколько десятков кейсов (в конце книге есть их полный список), иллюстрирующих, как именно дизайн-мышление было применено в бизнес (и не только!) целях. Могу сказать, что для меня лично читать про эти самые кейсы было наиболее увлекательно. Каждый из них начинался с описания проблемы, и моя голова тут же включалась: "А как бы подошёл к решению этой проблемы я?". Не скажу, что все мои ответы были "верными" (т.е. совпавшими с авторскими), но процентов на 80 я точно дизайн-мыслитель! :) Почитайте, попробуйте при этом порешать изложенные в книги дизайн-проблемки, м.б. ваш результат будет выше? ;)
Несмотря на постоянные оговорки автора о том, что дизайн-мышление - это творчество, которое формализовать и алгоритмизировать крайне сложно, в книге присутствует вполне стройная методология этого самого дизайн-мышления, включая общий алгоритм действий по разработке инновационного продукта, а также описание конкретных методов/техник дизайн-мышления.
Методология дизайн-мышления (IMHO) - проста, эклектична, в ней нет ничего принципиально нового :) - но при всём при этом она гениальна! Гениальность часто возникает "на стыке", как нечто неожиданно-междисциплинарное :) Вот и здесь, чего только не намешано! К примеру:
А) Дизайн-мышления стартует с антропоцентрического наблюдения за будущими пользователями продукта. Надо без искажений (привнесённых домыслами наблюдателя) зафиксировать реальное поведение людей; понять, какие когниции связаны у человека с этим поведением; эмпатически прочувствовать, что испытывают эти самые люди.
Ииии? Абсолютно ничего нового! Типовой метод всех социальных наук (антропологии, социологии, психологии) :) Вопрос только в смене "точки зрения" разработчиков продукта (чаще всего это маркетологи): чтобы видели продукт не с точки зрения производства и продаж, а глазами конечного потребителя.
Б) Большой фрагмент в книге посвящен прототипированию... Ничего против дизайнерского термина не имею :), но мне вот как-то ближе традиционный термин "моделирование" :) Понятно, что моделирование исторически, наверное, изобрели технические дизайнеры-конструкторы, но за последние лет 100 видов и методов моделирования появилось множество!
Идея автора про возврат к простейшему имитационному моделированию и визуализации ("думанию руками" - рисованию, лепке и т.п.) хороша, но, как мне кажется, нельзя отбрасывать и другие виды моделирования (особенно в бизнесе).
В) В книге очень много про то, что инновационный продукт должен разрабатываться не только с учётом потребностей конечного пользователя, но и всех, участвующих во взаимодействии с продуктом сторон - производители, продавцы, окружение потребителя и т.д. и т.п.
Ииии? Снова ничего нового - и в проектном менеджменте, и в стратегическом давно уже известо про стейкхолдеров; про необходимость анализа и учёта противо- или содействия ВСЕГО заинтересованного окружения.
...Этот перечень можно продолжать ещё долго :) Вообще, вся книга - сплошное "дежа-вю" из уже где-то виденного, слышанного, прочитанного, использованного.... Здесь чуток из маркетинга, здесь немного из психологии креативности, здесь кусочек из CEM, здесь из проектного менеджмента... (и т.д.). Но то, КАК это всё объединено, КАК это всё вместе работает, и - главное! - какие инновационные РЕЗУЛЬТАТЫ при этом получаются - вызывает восхищение!
PS Кстати, несмотря на то, что процентов на 80 я и так уже дизайн-мыслитель :))) , лично для себя (и для своей работы) почерпнул из книги кучу идей и заметок "сделать!" на будущее.
Например, я понял, что даже несмотря на то, что я профессиональный наблюдатель, в некоторых ситуациях и проектах (особенно долгосрочных) глаз всё же "замыливается" :( Т.е. периодически надо себя встряхивать и "надевать пробковый шлем антрополога" :) /цитата из книги/
Например, я понял, что перекачанный :) интеллект приводит к тому, что становится лень "мыслить руками" и содавать модели (в любом виде). Возникает очень много соблазнов сразу выбрать подсунутый интеллектом "правильный ответ", вместо того, чтобы запустить творческий поиск и отбор посредством прототипирования.
...ну, и так далее :) Это я пишу к тому, что книга замечательная - не только дала кучу полезных знаний, примеров и инструментов, но и запустила процесс работы над собой (а это дело я люблю ;)) Чего и вам желаю :)
Но это эмоции... Если серьёзно, то дизайн-мышление - подход к инновациям, который может быть применен максимально широко: и для развития организаций, и для бизнес-новаций, и для решения социальных проблем, и даже для разрешения глобальных проблем, вроде экологической катастрофы. Масштаб инноваций может быть любым - от самого себя, до планеты Земля.
В том числе не важна граница "малый / крупный" бизнес. Дизайн-мышление - если его ценность принимается, а навыки наличествуют - работет везде! И оптимизма становится ещё больше :)))
Кстати, в книге приводится несколько десятков кейсов (в конце книге есть их полный список), иллюстрирующих, как именно дизайн-мышление было применено в бизнес (и не только!) целях. Могу сказать, что для меня лично читать про эти самые кейсы было наиболее увлекательно. Каждый из них начинался с описания проблемы, и моя голова тут же включалась: "А как бы подошёл к решению этой проблемы я?". Не скажу, что все мои ответы были "верными" (т.е. совпавшими с авторскими), но процентов на 80 я точно дизайн-мыслитель! :) Почитайте, попробуйте при этом порешать изложенные в книги дизайн-проблемки, м.б. ваш результат будет выше? ;)
Несмотря на постоянные оговорки автора о том, что дизайн-мышление - это творчество, которое формализовать и алгоритмизировать крайне сложно, в книге присутствует вполне стройная методология этого самого дизайн-мышления, включая общий алгоритм действий по разработке инновационного продукта, а также описание конкретных методов/техник дизайн-мышления.
Методология дизайн-мышления (IMHO) - проста, эклектична, в ней нет ничего принципиально нового :) - но при всём при этом она гениальна! Гениальность часто возникает "на стыке", как нечто неожиданно-междисциплинарное :) Вот и здесь, чего только не намешано! К примеру:
А) Дизайн-мышления стартует с антропоцентрического наблюдения за будущими пользователями продукта. Надо без искажений (привнесённых домыслами наблюдателя) зафиксировать реальное поведение людей; понять, какие когниции связаны у человека с этим поведением; эмпатически прочувствовать, что испытывают эти самые люди.
Ииии? Абсолютно ничего нового! Типовой метод всех социальных наук (антропологии, социологии, психологии) :) Вопрос только в смене "точки зрения" разработчиков продукта (чаще всего это маркетологи): чтобы видели продукт не с точки зрения производства и продаж, а глазами конечного потребителя.
Б) Большой фрагмент в книге посвящен прототипированию... Ничего против дизайнерского термина не имею :), но мне вот как-то ближе традиционный термин "моделирование" :) Понятно, что моделирование исторически, наверное, изобрели технические дизайнеры-конструкторы, но за последние лет 100 видов и методов моделирования появилось множество!
Идея автора про возврат к простейшему имитационному моделированию и визуализации ("думанию руками" - рисованию, лепке и т.п.) хороша, но, как мне кажется, нельзя отбрасывать и другие виды моделирования (особенно в бизнесе).
В) В книге очень много про то, что инновационный продукт должен разрабатываться не только с учётом потребностей конечного пользователя, но и всех, участвующих во взаимодействии с продуктом сторон - производители, продавцы, окружение потребителя и т.д. и т.п.
Ииии? Снова ничего нового - и в проектном менеджменте, и в стратегическом давно уже известо про стейкхолдеров; про необходимость анализа и учёта противо- или содействия ВСЕГО заинтересованного окружения.
...Этот перечень можно продолжать ещё долго :) Вообще, вся книга - сплошное "дежа-вю" из уже где-то виденного, слышанного, прочитанного, использованного.... Здесь чуток из маркетинга, здесь немного из психологии креативности, здесь кусочек из CEM, здесь из проектного менеджмента... (и т.д.). Но то, КАК это всё объединено, КАК это всё вместе работает, и - главное! - какие инновационные РЕЗУЛЬТАТЫ при этом получаются - вызывает восхищение!
PS Кстати, несмотря на то, что процентов на 80 я и так уже дизайн-мыслитель :))) , лично для себя (и для своей работы) почерпнул из книги кучу идей и заметок "сделать!" на будущее.
Например, я понял, что даже несмотря на то, что я профессиональный наблюдатель, в некоторых ситуациях и проектах (особенно долгосрочных) глаз всё же "замыливается" :( Т.е. периодически надо себя встряхивать и "надевать пробковый шлем антрополога" :) /цитата из книги/
Например, я понял, что перекачанный :) интеллект приводит к тому, что становится лень "мыслить руками" и содавать модели (в любом виде). Возникает очень много соблазнов сразу выбрать подсунутый интеллектом "правильный ответ", вместо того, чтобы запустить творческий поиск и отбор посредством прототипирования.
...ну, и так далее :) Это я пишу к тому, что книга замечательная - не только дала кучу полезных знаний, примеров и инструментов, но и запустила процесс работы над собой (а это дело я люблю ;)) Чего и вам желаю :)
October 22, 2016
My professional development group at work read this, and in the interest of a speedy review for a book that is unmercifully long for what little insight it provides, I just wish to say three things:
(1) Tim Brown's own table of contents that he provides in the inside cover of the book (don't worry, the classic format is still there in the usual place) fails the test of design thinking. It's visual, yes, and it maps the book. But it is not functional because the damn thing doesn't even include page numbers. How is a table of contents without page numbers, visual or not, designed well?
(2) I'll spare examples, but the first seven chapters are rife with dreadful execu-speak and deprived of meaningful examples. In the event of an example, it, too, is described in vague language that doesn't translate to anything readers could absorb and apply. Oftentimes the examples of the prototypes and solutions Tim Brown's company provides aren't accompanied by any viable metrics or viable results, leaving the reader wondering whether or not it was successful in any meaningful way. That's the necessary final point to any argument as to why design thinking is crucial: it yields significant positive results. Yet the book doesn't really give the how and why convincingly.
(3) Chapters 8, 9, and 10 are an OK attempt at doing what the first seven chapters failed to do (outside of a nifty quote here and there).
The best way to read this is probably to photocopy Chapter 10 and use the examples from Chapters 8 and 9 as integrated examples into that chapter. If I were to Thomas Jefferson-with-a-razor this book, I'd probably cut the examples and place them within Chapter 10 as supporting evidence or as endnotes/footnotes. I'd ditch the first seven chapters altogether, and recommend 'further reading' at the end. That way it's a much stronger, sleeker essay.
Thanks, Tim Brown, for equipping me with the skill set to understand why your book doesn't do a good job of utilizing the skill set it champions.
(1) Tim Brown's own table of contents that he provides in the inside cover of the book (don't worry, the classic format is still there in the usual place) fails the test of design thinking. It's visual, yes, and it maps the book. But it is not functional because the damn thing doesn't even include page numbers. How is a table of contents without page numbers, visual or not, designed well?
(2) I'll spare examples, but the first seven chapters are rife with dreadful execu-speak and deprived of meaningful examples. In the event of an example, it, too, is described in vague language that doesn't translate to anything readers could absorb and apply. Oftentimes the examples of the prototypes and solutions Tim Brown's company provides aren't accompanied by any viable metrics or viable results, leaving the reader wondering whether or not it was successful in any meaningful way. That's the necessary final point to any argument as to why design thinking is crucial: it yields significant positive results. Yet the book doesn't really give the how and why convincingly.
(3) Chapters 8, 9, and 10 are an OK attempt at doing what the first seven chapters failed to do (outside of a nifty quote here and there).
The best way to read this is probably to photocopy Chapter 10 and use the examples from Chapters 8 and 9 as integrated examples into that chapter. If I were to Thomas Jefferson-with-a-razor this book, I'd probably cut the examples and place them within Chapter 10 as supporting evidence or as endnotes/footnotes. I'd ditch the first seven chapters altogether, and recommend 'further reading' at the end. That way it's a much stronger, sleeker essay.
Thanks, Tim Brown, for equipping me with the skill set to understand why your book doesn't do a good job of utilizing the skill set it champions.
March 26, 2019
I got this book as a gift from OpenIDEO at their Gather seminar in California and it's got handwritten messages from my global Chapter friends in it so I'm tempted to give it a four out of sentimentality but...
I can't.
While this book contains many underline-worthy statements, questions and case studies it falls short of showing you "the how".
What's irritating about it is the seemingly infinite amount of organisation names you have to read which creates a kind of stop-start-y reading experience.
There was also no big plot, manifesto or philosophy, just case study after case study.
It's also about IDEO, make no mistake.
That being said, this book may be useful to someone who's never heard of design thinking or to someone who'd like to convince others of the benefits of following this practice.
I can't.
While this book contains many underline-worthy statements, questions and case studies it falls short of showing you "the how".
What's irritating about it is the seemingly infinite amount of organisation names you have to read which creates a kind of stop-start-y reading experience.
There was also no big plot, manifesto or philosophy, just case study after case study.
It's also about IDEO, make no mistake.
That being said, this book may be useful to someone who's never heard of design thinking or to someone who'd like to convince others of the benefits of following this practice.
March 12, 2023
I’m not sure why I keep buying and reading books like this when it is obvious that I’m not the target market.
Change by Design is an instruction manual on design thinking in the same way Harry Potter is an instruction manual on magic. The reader is taken on the great successes that Tim Brown and colleagues have experienced with design thinking, barely digging into the methods used to reach those heights. It’s not really a ‘how’ design thinking transforms organizations and more like a ‘what happened’.
IDEO is a great company and Tim Brown has done a lot for the world of design, but the idealistic view of how design can change organizations is achievable only to the likes of the Browns and the Spools of the world. So, while the stories are great, they are simply out of reach for most people on the ground floor.
Change by Design is an instruction manual on design thinking in the same way Harry Potter is an instruction manual on magic. The reader is taken on the great successes that Tim Brown and colleagues have experienced with design thinking, barely digging into the methods used to reach those heights. It’s not really a ‘how’ design thinking transforms organizations and more like a ‘what happened’.
IDEO is a great company and Tim Brown has done a lot for the world of design, but the idealistic view of how design can change organizations is achievable only to the likes of the Browns and the Spools of the world. So, while the stories are great, they are simply out of reach for most people on the ground floor.
June 15, 2016
Nice overview of design thinking and how it can be applied to all facets of life. Fun and informative stories by one of the industry leaders. Shows how everyone can (and probably should) be a design thinker in whatever their life's endeavors are. Good summer read and organized to be able to review, when actually trying to use the ideas in your own life.
September 12, 2015
One of my reference books for integrity and simplicity of the processes that I will be creating.
January 29, 2021
Lovely book on design thinking, optimism, changing what it means to be human and enviromentalism.
September 12, 2019
طوری که مسائل رو قصه میکنه و تعریف میکنه برام خیلی جذابه. کلا اگه کسی میخواد محصولی برای بقیه بسازه و قراره به درد کسی بخوره یهدور خوبه که اینو بخونه.
March 18, 2019
I think IDEO may be one of the coolest companies around today and was hoping that reading Tim Brown's "Change by Design" would provide a technicolor version of not only numerous specific projects IDEO has undertaken, but how they do what they do. Unfortunately this book was disappointing which may be due to several things.
- First, seems that Brown provided enough detail describing several projects, but then he'd stop short before one could glean the details of what they accomplished and how they did it...I found myself yearning/grasping to get more color. For example, in Chapter 6, "Spreading the Message", he raises the issue of "adherence" in the pharma sector...there may be great medicines out there but patients don't take them. OK...interesting...how did IDEO's design thinking processes help to address that problem??? Two paragraphs later he moves on. I'd rather have learned about fewer interesting projects, but go into more depth on each.
- Second, and related to the above, felt like too much "intellectualizing" about the value of design thinking. Got it in the introduction and first chapter or two...no need to keep lecturing. Show us more specific examples.
- Third, the original book was published in 2009, and this edition is revised and updated. But seems that very little was updated, and while I have no doubt that IDEO has consistently done great work, there was a shopworn feeling reading about developments that happened 10, 15 or 20 years ago. (Every now and then he'd insert some updates. For example, in Chapter 7, "Design Thinking Meets the Corporation". when discussing Nokia, they added some commentary about Nokia's pivot from hardware manufacturer to service provider and MSFT's 2014 acquisition.)
The one new chapter is the very last one: "Redesigning Design", written by both Tim Brown and Barry Katz. Now this has some real promise and I wish Brown would have taken the opportunity to generate a complete new book going into much more detail on their initiatives over the last 5 years or so. The six "redesigning" topics he focuses on in this chapter deserve much more than they got here: 1) Institutions, 2) Democracy, 3) Cities, 4) AI, 5) Life (and death), and 6) the Future. For example, in (2), IDEO has worked with Los Angeles county to come up with a new design for voting machines addressing the numerous issues we've witnessed over the last 18 years, and 31,000 machines will be delivered in time for the 2020 elections. HOW DID THEY DO THAT??? TELL ME MORE!
I continue to be mesmerized by IDEO the company, and am wondering how their methods could be used to completely redesign the industry I've spent my career: media audience and advertising measurement which is sorely in need of a reboot. This book didn't do much to unleash any creativity on this topic, but regardless I have a sense that IDEO's approaches could play a powerful role in addressing that industry's forward-looking requirements.
- First, seems that Brown provided enough detail describing several projects, but then he'd stop short before one could glean the details of what they accomplished and how they did it...I found myself yearning/grasping to get more color. For example, in Chapter 6, "Spreading the Message", he raises the issue of "adherence" in the pharma sector...there may be great medicines out there but patients don't take them. OK...interesting...how did IDEO's design thinking processes help to address that problem??? Two paragraphs later he moves on. I'd rather have learned about fewer interesting projects, but go into more depth on each.
- Second, and related to the above, felt like too much "intellectualizing" about the value of design thinking. Got it in the introduction and first chapter or two...no need to keep lecturing. Show us more specific examples.
- Third, the original book was published in 2009, and this edition is revised and updated. But seems that very little was updated, and while I have no doubt that IDEO has consistently done great work, there was a shopworn feeling reading about developments that happened 10, 15 or 20 years ago. (Every now and then he'd insert some updates. For example, in Chapter 7, "Design Thinking Meets the Corporation". when discussing Nokia, they added some commentary about Nokia's pivot from hardware manufacturer to service provider and MSFT's 2014 acquisition.)
The one new chapter is the very last one: "Redesigning Design", written by both Tim Brown and Barry Katz. Now this has some real promise and I wish Brown would have taken the opportunity to generate a complete new book going into much more detail on their initiatives over the last 5 years or so. The six "redesigning" topics he focuses on in this chapter deserve much more than they got here: 1) Institutions, 2) Democracy, 3) Cities, 4) AI, 5) Life (and death), and 6) the Future. For example, in (2), IDEO has worked with Los Angeles county to come up with a new design for voting machines addressing the numerous issues we've witnessed over the last 18 years, and 31,000 machines will be delivered in time for the 2020 elections. HOW DID THEY DO THAT??? TELL ME MORE!
I continue to be mesmerized by IDEO the company, and am wondering how their methods could be used to completely redesign the industry I've spent my career: media audience and advertising measurement which is sorely in need of a reboot. This book didn't do much to unleash any creativity on this topic, but regardless I have a sense that IDEO's approaches could play a powerful role in addressing that industry's forward-looking requirements.
July 21, 2021
While this book provides some great examples of how to apply design in a broad-based manner in business settings, I would have liked to see a bit more detail in the case studies presented, not to mention maybe a case study covering an unsuccessful design attempt that helped to place design in the context of other forms of planning, executing, etc. (i.e. not every task is a design task, although a lot of tasks can benefit from design). This underlies this book's biggest fault. With the author's exuberant selling of design throughout this work, the narrative often comes off sounding like an advertisement for design in general and his organization IDEO specifically. It is said that novices tend to "know it all" while the mark of experts is their ability to know what is unknown or unproven. While I think Mr. Brown is truly a design expert with a great grasp of the interplay between history, technology, and human nature; he really does not show it by presenting a strictly rosy view of design as the cure-all for every problem. Just because design does not work well in some situations or has not been applied well to some problem sets is not a condemnation of design, instead it would have given a much richer view of this challenging but potentially world changing endeavor. Unfortunately, we're stuck with something between a sales pitch for IDEO and overly optimistic view of design's applicability to absolutely everything. I recommend this book as an introduction to basic principles of design, but caveat this recommendation with the warning serious students of design will need to quickly move on to continue their learning adventure.
May 21, 2022
While living in San Francisco almost a decade ago, I have always heard about the work of IDEO, Tim Brown and his process of rigorous examination through which great ideas were identified and developed before being realized as new offerings and capabilities.
On this book, Tim Brown explains design thinking to creative leaders seeking to infuse the process into every level of an organization, product, or service to drive new alternatives for business and society.
The book is full of examples and case studies, which sometimes might take longer than needed for the author to prove his point.
On this book, Tim Brown explains design thinking to creative leaders seeking to infuse the process into every level of an organization, product, or service to drive new alternatives for business and society.
The book is full of examples and case studies, which sometimes might take longer than needed for the author to prove his point.
February 19, 2024
It has to be the most painful book that I have ever read.
It was 268 pages worth of rambling about IDEO without really getting into the premises of design thinking and its various approaches. There were many real-world examples quoted in the book but the lack of detail made them useless.
Ironically, a book about design thinking that promotes user-centricity didn’t keep the very user/reader in mind. Highly disappointed.
It was 268 pages worth of rambling about IDEO without really getting into the premises of design thinking and its various approaches. There were many real-world examples quoted in the book but the lack of detail made them useless.
Ironically, a book about design thinking that promotes user-centricity didn’t keep the very user/reader in mind. Highly disappointed.
December 6, 2017
Good introduction to design thinking
Had no idea about ideo or this kind of design but this book was a kind introduction. The first half had much more meat on the bone - for me - than the second. If you find yourself reading it and notice you're bored, you're probably done with this book.
Had no idea about ideo or this kind of design but this book was a kind introduction. The first half had much more meat on the bone - for me - than the second. If you find yourself reading it and notice you're bored, you're probably done with this book.
June 26, 2021
Good book. The story of IDEO’s Tim Brown and how design thinking would shape our industrial future.
February 21, 2022
DNF - made it about 75% through, and finally just had to give up. I did not find it to be presenting new approaches or interesting stories and overall it was just not engaging writing
Read
July 27, 20221st book for the MBAe program 🤪
June 3, 2023
A pleasant presentation of the plethora of possibilities where design thinking can be applied. The possibilities and endless.
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