Design Thinking
I sit on a lot of phone calls throughout my workday. And today, during another series of endless meetings, someone spoke about the consultants they’re enlisting to run a Design Thinking workshop. As a graduate of one of the most prestigious design schools on the planet (according to my professors), I’m fascinated and also somewhat skeptical when people say they are going to run a Design Thinking workshop., The school I attended is not about design as it’s traditionally thought of in the context of art, colors, fonts, and layouts. Of course, there is nothing wrong with these types of design skills. However, a Design Thinking workshop has nothing to do with these skills. Design Thinking is Strategy, Innovation, and Leadership as they relate to developing products and services grounded in end-user empathy. Design Thinking also requires skills in Behavioral Economics, Service Design, and Portfolio Planning among many other skills. With all of that, to be a designer, you just need a willingness to observe, find empathy, create a solution, test it, and then improve, Design school is not the price of entry.
Research - Analysis - Background
Putting a bunch of people in a room to brainstorm is clearly the easiest way to generate ideas, but is it effective? As many say, to come up with one great idea you have to have many ideas. However, the ideas inherent in a brainstorming session held among a homogenous team without outside influences tend to be on the less innovative side. As one of my mentors said once, ideas trend toward the average or mundane. Creating real innovation that goes beyond just superficial naval gazing requires Design Tradecraft. You need to do some basic research and formulate a “how might we statement” to inform your next steps. The how might we statement is the hypothesis that you want to research and validate with real users.
Research - Analysis - Finding Empathy
By having a “how might we” statement, you establish a clear foundation and set your project up for success. But honing in on the right statement can only come from observing people in their natural habitat. You can’t simply ask them what they do, you have to watch them do it. One of my professors has a story on conducting research by watching vs asking. She asked her research subject what he does at home to work out and keep fit. The subject responded that he works out with weights nearly every day. My professor asked him where those weights were, and the subject responded that they were in his bedroom. My professor asked if she could see the weights, and the subject said yes. My professor reported that the weights had a ¼ inch of dust on them. Do you know how long it takes to get that much dust on something? I am guessing it’s measured in years and the subject hadn’t actually lifted them in quite some time.
Quantitative vs Qualitative Data
By seeing the weights you now have some Qualitative data on which to ground more studies. How many projects have failed because the marketing team or engineering team brought in piles of quantitative data to the team? How many leaders make decisions purely on quantitative grounds? It makes us feel great as leaders, armed with stats and math, however, that data is never as simple as it seems. Understanding the why behind actions will give you countless insights into what you should create. In other words, no amount of quantitative data, usually gathered by surveys or interviews, will uncover the key insights you need to get to the right questions. Areas of research can only be defined by breaking down the challenges and opportunities all stakeholders have. This journey will not be linear by definition but is always insightful to all that partake in it. Getting out and seeing real people, doing real things, will give you countless areas to do incremental and game-changing innovation.
Scale
You probably aren’t going to watch hundreds of users use your product. That isn’t scalable. However, 5-6 interviews will give you all the insights you need, and that qualitative data will be infinitely more telling than thousands of surveys. . Zoom and other screen-sharing and recording technology make observing your user super easy. Finding the why for your user will pay huge dividends no matter what it is you are looking to innovate on; and will certainly be more informative than simply asking your developers to brainstorm new ideas.
1 Tip:
Qualitative Data is key for figuring out why someone is doing what they are doing.
Thank You
Jim ‘The Designatic’ Tyrrell