The fierceness of competition in business – which is now global – requires high speed innovation. Design Thinking is a well-established process of creating new and innovative ideas that can be applied across all manner of challenges in any business environment. It’s both a problem-solving mindset and a practical methodology for innovation, providing a repeatable framework by which anyone can be creative.
Formalized by the US consulting firm IDEO and the Hasso-Plattner-Institute of Design at Stanford University in California, design thinking focuses on 1) understanding the underlying needs of users, 2) developing the most innovative way to address those needs in a manner both feasible and viable, and 3) testing concepts in an iterative progression that leverages a “fail fast, fail early” philosophy.
Design Thinking attempts to inspire the essential element of creativity, the ability to take an abstract idea and create something with it. It’s based upon the fundamental belief that an unexecuted idea, one that is never realized, is a worthless proposition and that doing is equally as valuable as thinking.
The interesting part of Design Thinking is like the creativity it attempts to foster, the very concept itself is continually evolving. One example of a design thinking process could have several stages: Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype and Test. Within these steps, problems can be framed, the right questions can be asked, more ideas can be created, and the best answers can be chosen. The steps aren’t linear; they can occur simultaneously and can be repeated.
Want to learn more? Please click here to find out how you can implement design thinking process to really understand your customers and come up with innovative ideas to solve their problems, and achieve your business success.
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