GENERALIZING DESIGN THINKING

Designers’ focus on holistically resolving complex problems by integrating
information from diverse fields provides them with an approach to problem solving that is receiving increasing attention and respect as
more and more business, medical, and other professionals see the benefit
of applying this approach to the “wicked problems” in their own work
processes.
Roger Martin, dean of the Rotman School of Management at the University
of Toronto and the author of The Design of Business: Why Design Thinking
Is the Next Competitive Advantage, feels that the thinking style that
designers perfect is key to the success of businesspeople—and that businesspeople
must learn to think the way that designers do.6 He is far from alone in
this sentiment. Martin believes that future economic greatness is more likely
to flow from thinking about possibilities (or abductive reasoning) in ways that
integrate new and current knowledge than from proof-based analytical thinking.
Designers are masters of abductive reasoning:
Abductive logic.…[is] that it is not possible to prove any new thought,
concept, or idea in advance: all new ideas can be validated only through
the unfolding of future events. To advance knowledge, we must turn
away from our standard definitions of proof—and from the false certainty
of the past—and instead stare into a mystery to ask what could be.
The answer…[will] come through making a ‘logical leap of the mind’ or
an ‘inference to the best explanation’ to imagine a heuristic for understanding
the mystery.7
In the June 2008 issue of the Harvard Business Review, Tim Brown discussed
using design thinking to solve nondesign problems.8 Brown, CEO of
IDEO and author of Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms
Organizations and Inspires Innovation, understands that while design thinking
relies on empathic, intuitive, and emotional capacities, it must be balanced
with rational and analytical skills to make it truly effective as an integrated
thinking strategy.9 He describes design thinking as the skill that designers
possess because of their professional mission to match human needs with technical
resources within practical business constraints. IDEO has even developed
a complementary guide to design problem solving for leaders of social
action groups.
The growing realization that the design-thinking process is valuable has,
as Brown describes, much to do with the changing economic climate of the
developing world. As the shift from industrial manufacturing to knowledge
creation and service takes hold in the world economy, innovation is critical for
success. Innovation is no longer relegated to the physical object or place alone.
Now, innovation is reflected in new processes, services, experiences, ways of
communicating, and working.
Design thinking is an exploratory research process. A systematic approach
to design, which centers on a research-based methodology, is self-adjusting,
thoughtful, analytical, integrative, and highly valued today.