Jun 4th 2010
Loading ...Interpreting design thinking
Design thinking offers real and really great value for organisations. But the idea is threatened by its own success, suggests Professor Kees Dorst.
I am deeply concerned with the current trend of combining disparate, vaguely creative activities under the label of ‘design thinking’, and presenting these as a panacea for all business innovation woes.
In order to get beyond the hype, it is important that we articulate the different kinds of design thinking that exist, and outline the different ways they can be applied in the context of innovation and organisational change. I offer for discussion here a framework for positioning design thinking. The model uses a basis of formal logic combined with common notions from design research to clarify the nature of design reasoning and distinguish between different kinds and levels of design thinking.
A view from logic: kinds of reasoning
To initially position design thinking we build on the way fundamentally different kinds of reasoning are described in formal logic. The simplest way to describe the reasoning patterns is through comparing different settings of the knowns and unknowns in the equation:
In deduction, we know the ‘what’, the ‘players’ in a situation we need to attend to, and we know ‘how’ they will operate together. This allows us to safely predict results. For instance, if we know that there are stars in the sky, and we are aware of the laws of gravity that govern their movements, we can predict where a star will be at a certain point in time.
Alternatively, in induction, we know the ‘what’ in the situation (stars), and we can observe results (position changes across the sky). But we do not know the ‘how’, the laws that govern these movements. The proposing of ‘working principles’ that could explain the observed behaviour (aka hypotheses) is a creative act.
These two forms of analytical reasoning help predict and explain phenomena that are already in the world. What if we want to create valuable new things for others? The basic reasoning pattern then is abduction:
Abduction comes in two forms, and what they have in common is that we actually know the value we want to achieve.
In the first form of abduction (which is often associated with ‘problem solving’) we also know the ‘how’ (the ‘working principle’ that will help achieve the value). The only thing missing is a ‘what’ (an object, a service, a system), so we set out to create it. This is often what designers and engineers do – create an object that works within a known working principle, and within a set scenario of value creation. This scenario for value creation, the implication that by applying a certain working principle we will create a specific value, is called a ‘frame’ within design literature.
In the second form of abduction, we only know the end value we want to achieve. So we have to figure out ‘what’ to create, while there is no known or chosen ‘working principle’ that we can trust to lead to the aspired value. That means we will most likely have to develop a new frame that helps us to create a ‘working principle’ and a ‘thing’ (object, service, system). Performing this complex creative feat is often seen as the core of design thinking.
A view from practice: applying design thinking
In the real world, problematic situations arise when the equation (‘what’ plus ‘how’ leads to ‘value’) that an organisation has been operating under somehow doesn’t work anymore. It can be very hard to fathom what’s wrong: should the ‘what’ be changed? The ‘how’? Perhaps the ‘frame’ is faulty, or maybe we are misreading the values in the world? There are different ways of dealing with this problematic situation.
Initially, organisations often react in a way that requires the least effort and resources: they set out to create a new ‘something’ that will save the day while keeping the ‘how’ and ‘frame’ constant. Alternatively (if this really doesn’t work) the organization could be going to the second abduction mode and also create a new ‘how’. The organisation might do this by just applying one of the other frames that it has in its repertoire. The collection of frames that an organization has at its disposal defines its total practice.
Alternatively the organisation might hire a consultant or designer that uses her experience to bring a new frame to the problematic situation. That frame could be added on to the practice of the organisation for this particular project, quite superficially.
If a new frame is adopted into the practice of the organisation itself, extending that practice, we talk about true innovation. Radical innovations can happen when an organisation goes beyond just adopting frames, breaks away from its current ways of working and world view, and sets out to create a completely new frame. This final case is the where the processes of design thinking and business innovation are most intimately linked.
To conclude
We have seen that design thinking can take many forms and impact an organisation in many different ways – ranging from problem solving within an existing frame, to in-depth innovation that changes the practice of an organisation. The basis of design thinking is more or less the same in all cases, but design research has shown that there are great differences in the kinds of design reasoning, the nature of the design activities (formulating, representing, moving, evaluating, managing), design processes and design skills needed on these different levels. It would be unwise to gloss over these differences. The framework presented above could be the backbone of a new, much more detailed articulation of design thinking for business innovation.
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