The world we’re currently living is one in which information is everywhere. Content is easily accessible to the extent that any company aspiring to remain relevant and competitive needs to win in this fierce battle for attention.
People are increasingly seeking out products and services with which they feel personally connected on a meaningful level. Many select only those that can speak directly to their human needs and experiences. In other words, many of us no longer believe in the marketing hype the way we once did. Hence, companies all around the globe are being forced to rethink and reinvent their next business moves.
The ability to comprehend and act on changes fast enough -- be it change in the environment or change in human behaviour -- is becoming crucial for leaders and managers of today’s businesses.
In this context, “design thinking” offers a means to tackle all these changes, not least because of its human-centred approach.
Tim Brown, CEO of the international design consultancy firm IDEO, makes this point in the introduction of his book Change by Design: “[A] purely technocentric view of innovation is less sustainable now than ever, and a management philosophy based only on selecting from existing strategies is likely to be overwhelmed by new developments at home or abroad.
“What we need are new choices -- new products that balance the needs of individuals and of society as a whole; new ideas that tackle the global challenges of health, poverty and education; new strategies that result in differences that matter and a sense of purpose that engages everyone affected by them. It is hard to imagine a time when the challenges we faced so vastly exceeded the creative resources we have brought to bear on them.”
Now, one of the first questions people ask when they hear about design thinking is,
“What is design thinking best used for? “Which problems can it help us solve?” To answer this, you have to understand that design thinking is appropriate for addressing an extensive range of challenges and is best used for bringing about innovation in contexts that affect diverse groups of people, involve multiple systems, cope with swift social or market changes or problems that data can’t solve, and so on.
So, how is it possible that design thinking can address all these issues? What makes it stand out from other approaches in dealing with such circumstances? Let’s look at some of its characteristic to answer these questions.
Design thinking is best suited to addressing complex problems with multiple layers or factors involved. It is seen as a holistic approach to dealing with problems that have no definite or resolute answer.
Moreover, design thinking works best when we need to make human sense of things. It entails a fundamental process in which we apply “empathy” to help us surface the unmet, often unrealised, needs that have true value for people. Through this, it allows us to face challenges in ways that best suit human needs in spite of the scale or gravity of the challenge. Thus, we will eventually come up with human-centred innovation, breaking out of the old moulds we’ve often become stuck in, with a fresh look at the world around us.
Also, design thinking seems suitable when one encounters a state of uncertainty and volatility where no data exists. This is because design thinking doesn’t rely on data; instead it is an approach that enables us to explore, surface and define the unserved and high-value needs of humans and then quickly develop and iterate ideas to serve them until we find the solution.
Because we don’t know what lies around the next corner in a world where everything can be easily disrupted, if you want to be sure what the future will be like, you need to create it. This is the power of design thinking.
In sum, in an ever more multifaceted and challenging world where information is everywhere and people are demanding much more than before, you need to solve never-before-seen and highly complex problems. Design thinking can offer a holistic approach to tackling these challenges with a daring and systematised, non-linear and human-centred approach that integrates logic and research for optimum results.
Arinya Talerngsri is Chief Capability Officer and Managing Director at SEAC (formerly APMGroup) Southeast Asia’s leading executive, leadership and innovation capability development centre. She can be reached by email at arinya_t@seasiacenter.com or www.linkedin.com/in/arinya-talerngsri-53b81aa
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