Design Thinking is the Next Competitive Advantage for Your Company

Design Thinking is an effective, structured way to solving problems. It was developed by the innovation consulting firm IDEO. According to Tim Brown, the former CEO at IDEO, design thinking is “a human-centered 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.”

So, Design Thinking is a process that not only helps to better understand human problems but it also helps to solve them from the human, technology, and business perspective.

But what are the reasons Design Thinking could become a game-changer for every single company?

1. It’s highly efficient - no long discussions, no brainstorming, every single step is time-boxed. What other process allows you to develop 150 ideas in less than 10 minutes?

2. It’s about empowering employees - today, every single company tries to empower their employees, yet they don’t really know how. Design Thinking involves and empowers everyone in the process of understanding problems and solving them.

3. It uncovers the real problem behind the problem - if you think to know your customer’s problem, be prepared to be surprised. Design Thinking doesn’t stop after understanding the problem at hand. It goes deeper, the real issue often isn’t seen at face value.

4. It reduces risk - there is a place for being hugely creative in the Design Thinking process. But there’s also a place to be destructive, to run a pre-mortem, to kill our fantastic idea in order to find every relevant risk as early as possible. For me, the pre-mortem part is one of the biggest reasons for using Design Thinking. It’s the most convincing reason for C-Level.

5. It creates better solutions - starting with 100 ideas instead of one by definition leads to a better final solution in the end.

6. It’s hugely customer-centric - at the moment, so many companies try to become more customer-centric. Design Thinking involves the customers in a very structured way. It has two contact points to the target group, one to validate the problem, the second one to validate the solution. Both happen before the product even exists.