Design Thinking for Dummies

Innovate your business by incorporating design thinking 

Organizations that can innovate have an advantage over competitors who stick to old processes, models, and products. Design Thinking For Dummies walks would-be intrapreneurs through the steps of incorporating design thinking principles into their organizations. Written by a recognized expert in the field of design thinking, the book guides readers through the steps of adapting to a design thinking culture, identifying customer problems, creating and testing solutions, and making innovation an ongoing process.  

The book covers the crucial and central topics in design thinking, including: 

• Adopting a design thinking mindset 
• Building creative environments 
• Facilitating design thinking workshops 
• Working through the design thinking cycle 
• Implementing your solutions 
• And many more 

Design Thinking For Dummies is a great starting place for people joining design-oriented teams and organizations, as well as small businesses and start-ups seeking to take advantage of the same methods and techniques that large firms have used to grow and succeed. 

Prof. Dr. Christian Müller- Roterberg is a professor and lecturer in technology, management, and entrepreneurship at Ruhr West University. He heads the university's graduate program in business management. Prof. Dr. Müller-Roterberg has also been involved in a number of startups and IPOs. He is author of Handbook of Design Thinking

Introduction 1

About This Book 1

Conventions Used in This Book 2

Foolish Assumptions 2

What You Don’t Have to Read 3

How This Book Is Organized 3

Part 1: Getting Started with Design Thinking 3

Part 2: The Problem Phases 4

Part 3: The Solution Phases 4

Part 4: The Part of Tens 4

Icons Used in This Book 4

Beyond the Book 5

Where to Go from Here 5

Part 1: Getting Started with Design Thinking 7

Chapter 1: Everything You Need to Know About Design Thinking 9

This Is Design Thinking 9

More than just design 10

More than just a workshop 10

More than just brainstorming 11

More than just methods 11

Seeing What Design Thinking Can Do 12

Developing new products 12

Creating new services 12

Designing new business models 13

Designing social and organizational innovations 13

Establishing a culture of innovation 14

Understanding the Basics of Design Thinking 14

Following and communicating the principles 14

Getting an overview of the whole process 15

Going through the process in detail 17

Start Design Thinking Right Away 24

Assembling the team 24

Defining team roles and communication practices 25

Planning the project work 25

Furnishing the work environment 26

Asking for support 27

Chapter 2: Understanding the Principles of Design Thinking 29

Focusing on People Early On 30

More than Traditional Market Research 31

Finding the Lead User 32

Actively Involving the Lead User 35

Developing Empathy 36

Illustrating Ideas 37

Failing in Order to Learn 38

Ensuring Diversity on the Team 39

Offering Team-Oriented and Creative Workspaces 39

Making the Process Flexible Yet Focused 40

Chapter 3: Creating Ideal Conditions 43

Ensuring a Positive Attitude 43

Creating the vision for the project 44

Communicating the vision 44

Encouraging the Willingness to Change 45

Arousing Curiosity 45

Presenting the task as a challenge 46

Presenting the task as a reward 46

Presenting the task in a comprehensible fashion 47

Training curiosity 47

Asking For (and Receiving) Support from the Top 48

Asking For (and Receiving) Creative Freedom 49

Enabling Fast Decisions in the Design Thinking Process 49

Setting up the steering committee 50

Clarifying responsibilities 50

Preparing the decision in an efficient manner 50

Conducting the decision-making process in an efficient manner 51

Following up on decisions 52

Tolerating Mistakes During Design Thinking 52

Defining mistakes 53

Looking at mistakes in a differentiated way 54

Find the Competencies You Need for the Task at Hand 54

Determining the target competencies 55

Taking stock of the actual competencies 55

Comparing the target and actual competencies and coming up with the next steps 56

Checking the competencies on an ongoing basis 56

Ensuring that the work is appreciated 57

Chapter 4: Planning a Design Thinking Project 59

Defining the Project Goals 60

Compiling goals and determining their order 61

Clearly formulating goals 62

Communicating goals 63

Planning Work Packages 64

Planning work packages for incremental progress at just the right time 65

Formulating and determining the work package order from the user’s perspective 66

Using a task board 67

Correctly Planning for the Sequence 70

Estimating the required time 71

Creating a bar graph for a better overview 71

Correctly Planning for Your Resources 72

Correctly Planning for the Project Budget 74

Chapter 5: Supporting Teamwork in the Project 77

Assembling the Team 78

Relying on variety in team makeup 78

Defining roles on the team 80

Creating a matrix of responsibility 80

Applying the principle of self-organization 81

Clarifying Communication within the Team 81

Determining the project reporting format 82

Communicating is more important than documenting 83

Setting up communication rules 83

Arranging Workshops 85

Preparing a workshop 85

Holding workshops correctly 86

Providing equipment and materials 88

Designing Common Spaces 89

The right rooms promote communication and creativity 89

A flexible environment promotes flexible work 90

Part 2: The Problem Phases 93

Chapter 6: Understanding the Task 95

Finding the Right Search Area 95

Searching in the market segment 96

Searching in the area of technology 98

Searching in your own area of competence 98

A Well-Defined Task Is a Task Half-Solved 99

Clarifying what the task is and how it manifests itself 100

Clarifying who has the problem or wish 101

Clarifying where and when the problem or wish occurs 103

Clarifying why the problem or wish occurs 103

Identifying Knowledge Gaps 106

Systematically Closing Knowledge Gaps 107

Estimating Influences on the Task 108

Evaluating environmental influences 108

Identifying stakeholder influences 111

Reformulating the Task 114

Chapter 7: Putting Yourself in the Roles of Others 117

Recognizing Empathy as a Key to Success 117

Proceeding with Empathy 118

Create openness 118

Discount your own ideas/Tamp down your own biases 119

Share results 120

Proceed methodically 120

Collecting Information 120

Evaluating Information 121

Characterizing a customer using the Persona method 122

Understanding the situation with the help of an empathy map 125

Exploring the process with the customer journey 129

Describing the phases of the customer journey 130

Discovering the problems (and improvements) in the customer journey 131

Chapter 8: Observing People in Action 137

Putting Observations to Proper Use 137

Thoroughly Preparing Your Observations 139

Determine who should be observed 139

Determine what you should observe, whom you should observe, and when you should observe 140

Determine how you want to observe 142

Determine who should do the observing 144

Your Observations in a Systematic Fashion 145

Observing the right thing 146

Observing correctly 148

Avoiding observation errors 151

Applying Consistent Observational Methodologies 153

Artifacts analysis: Analyzing the customer’s objects 154

Behavioral mapping and tracking: Documenting the customer’s movements and activities 155

Mental models: Describing the real behavior of the customer 156

Mystery shopping: Detecting shopping behavior 156

Chapter 9: Redefining the Problem 159

Finding the Task 159

Preventing a search field that’s too broad or too narrow 160

Avoiding the temptation to prescribe solutions 161

Formulating a meaningful and challenging question 161

Writing clearly from a user’s perspective 162

Formulating tasks clearly and comprehensibly 162

Focusing On the Right People 163

Recognizing the Needs of Your Target Users 165

Analyzing Needs as Tasks 166

Determining the problems of the target person 168

Identifying the target person’s wishes 169

Comprehending the reasons for particular problems and wishes 170

Selecting the Most Important Wishes and Problems 172

Determining the Right Point of View 175

Part 3: The Solution Phases 177

Chapter 10: Finding Ideas 179

Mastering the Creative Process 179

Opening Up Sources of New Ideas 181

Taking advantage of employee skills and knowledge at your own company 181

Surveying and observing customers and involving them in developing solutions 182

Surveying and working with suppliers 182

Keeping up with what the competitors are doing 182

Evaluating publications and patent information 183

Participating in trade fairs and conferences 183

Collaborating with experts 183

Understanding the Creative Principles 184

The decomposition principle 184

The associative principle 184

The analogy and confrontation principles 184

The abstraction and imagination principles 185

Know the Success Factors for Increasing Creativity 185

Questioning the conventional wisdom 185

Simplifying products and processes 186

Starting where others left off 186

Observing everything and everyone in every possible place 187

Experimenting with ideas 187

Networking 188

Overcoming obstacles to creativity 188

Selecting the Appropriate Creativity Techniques 190

Structuring the topic with mind-mapping 191

Systematically finding solutions with a morphological box 192

Chapter 11: Developing Ideas Intuitively and Creatively 195

Solving Difficult Problems Intuitively and Creatively 195

Generating Ideas by Brainstorming 196

Giving the flow of ideas a new boost 197

Getting to know the different brainstorming variants 199

Written brainstorming 201

Inspiring with Random Words 204

Getting New Stimuli through Provocations 205

Changing Perspectives with the Walt Disney Method 205

Assuming Different Mindsets with the Six Hats Method 207

Chapter 12: Evaluating Ideas 211

Selecting the Right Evaluation Method 211

Relying on Diversity in the Team for Your Evaluations 212

Quickly Selecting Ideas 212

Evaluating the Advantages of (and Barriers to) Ideas 213

Evaluating Ideas with Checklists 215

Determining feasibility 215

Estimating the fit 217

Testing your idea’s desirability from the customers’ perspective 217

Considering the economic viability and scalability of your idea 218

Ensuring sustainability 220

Determining adaptability 220

Making the Chances for Success Measurable 221

Finding and weighting appropriate evaluation criteria 222

Weighing criteria against each other 225

Evaluating and selecting ideas 226

Chapter 13: Designing Prototypes 227

Understanding the Benefit of Experiments 228

Clarifying Tasks in the Prototype Phase 228

Developing and Using Prototypes Efficiently 229

Plan less, experiment more 230

Minimize effort 230

Correct at an early stage 231

Tolerate errors 232

Using Different Prototypes 232

Making Ideas Clear and Tangible 233

Telling stories 233

Visualizing stories 235

Performing stories 236

Using digital prototypes 237

Demonstrating instead of presenting 238

Chapter 14: Testing Ideas and Assumptions 241

Clarifying Tasks in the Test Phase 241

Checking assumptions about the target users 242

Checking assumptions about problems and needs 243

Testing assumptions about the benefits of the idea 245

Testing with Interviews 247

Asking the right people 247

Asking the right questions 248

Asking the questions correctly 249

Testing with Online Studies 250

Comparing user behavior 250

Evaluating user behavior with key figures 251

Learning from Test Results 252

Part 4: The Part of Tens 255

Chapter 15: Ten Success Factors for Interviews 257

Ensuring Good Preparation 257

Finding the Right Entry 258

Taking Notes Correctly 258

Listening Actively 259

Paying Attention to Emotions 259

Always Following Up 259

Concluding Discussions Successfully 260

Completing a Sufficient Number of Interviews 260

Postprocessing Interviews 261

Using Every Opportunity 261

Chapter 16: Ten Success Factors for Implementing Your Idea 263

Prepare the Structures 263

Encourage Collaboration and Communicate Openly 264

Complete the forming phase in a positive way 265

Master the storming phase 265

Support the norming phase 266

Use the performing phase efficiently 266

Successfully prepare the adjourning phase 267

Create a Sense of Urgency 267

Establish a Leadership Coalition 268

Communicate a Vision for the Culture of Innovation 269

Establish a Company Culture Tolerant of Mistakes 269

Broadly Empower Employees 270

Overcome Resistance 271

Counter Objections 272

Curb Euphoria 273

Index 275

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