Design thinking is a human-centred approach to innovation that draws from the designer’s toolkit to integrate the needs of people, the possibilities of technology, and the requirements for business success.
—TIM BROWN, EXECUTIVE CHAIR OF IDEO
The only certainty is uncertainty. Turns out innovation is quite a messy business which is why it it seems incredibly hard for some individuals and many companies. If you can tune your mind into, and embrace exploration rather than execution, it makes all the difference.
Also turns out designers thrive on exploration. It's what we do every day. Learning to think like a designer can transform your approach to problem solving and reveal new and unique ways to resolve product, service, process and strategy issues.
Immersing ourselves in the functional and emotional facets of the customer journey, helps us to better empathise with what they really need, creating best-in-class products and experiences.
There are five stages in the Design Thinking process. Although they appear linear, the actual hard work can be messy, and exciting, as you weave your way back and forth before deciding on a definitive answer. Innovation is messy because information for a solution does not exist. We need to create ideas and test them out. We need to create new answers.