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Gastbeitrag: From Thinking to Design Alessandro Deserti / Francesca Rizzo / Onur M. Çobanlı

1 | Introduction: the birth and rise of components and the procedures and the beginning of the new century, the notion processes that activate (Dorst/ of Design Thinking progressively moved Dijkhuis 1995; Dorst/Cross 2001). Traditio- from the restrict field of the academic de- tarting from Archer’s idea that “there nally, this field of research is based on bate to a much wider audience, with the Sexists a designerly way of thinking analysing designers and design practice idea that companies can adopt it to cope and communicating that is both different to understand the “designerly” ways of with the challenges of innovation in con- from scientific and scholarly ways of thin- problem finding, setting and solving by temporary markets. A series of contribu- king and communicating, and as powerful observing the ways they approach the de- tions from design practitioners and as scientific and scholarly methods of en- sign of different artefacts (Cross 1982; scholars (Kelley 2001; Brown 2008, 2009; quiry when applied to its own kinds of Schön 1983). According to the most rele- Lockwood 2009) spread Design Thinking problems.” (Archer 1979: 17) and from vant studies, designers make use of em- as a process that companies can under- Lawson’s (1980) research on the mental pathic skills, envisioning capabilities, take to better compete and face the chal- process that architects undertake in sol- divergent idea generation, visualisation lenges of innovation. ving problems, Rowe (1987) popularised tools, synthesising and prototyping in the term “Design Thinking” by indicating their approach, just to mention some of These contributions supported the emer- the different ways in which designers face the skills and tools generally associated gence of design practices, which in most design situations. Even if Lawson’s stu- with designers and their cognitive style. cases were still confined in the technical dies reveal some biases, they opened a offices of enterprises to give shape to new field of research, meant to investi- A widely renown and accepted conclusion new tangible products, suggesting and gate and describe the specificity of the de- of these investigations is that designers sustaining their application to the much signerly approach to problem finding, can (or are used to) tackle ill-defined or in- wider scope of leading innovation pro- setting and solving. From then on, Design determinate problems with a solution-ori- jects and processes combining technolo- Thinking became an increasingly relevant ented attitude (Cross 1982; Buchanan gical and marketing issues. topic in . By using theo- 1992). ries, methods and tools from disciplines Design Thinking expands the “modern” such as psychology, cognitive sciences, The idea that design can be focused not definition of design that describes it as a anthropology and education, research on only on products but also on intangible complex process of coordination of multi- Design Thinking worked to elicit and mo- artefacts such as signs, interactions, pro- ple factors meant to give shape to new ar- del designers’ thinking processes and co- cesses, and services represents the first tifacts (Maldonado 1976). The famous gnitive style, the composition of the important expansion of the concept of De- IDEO scheme assumes this definition, int- design teams, the interaction among their sign Thinking (Buchanan 1992). From the roducing the idea of combining a user-

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centred perspective with marketing and In this frame, design shifts from a purely We can understand and interpret this manufacturing issues, and presents De- technical to a strategic role: Design Thin- transformation only if we place it within sign Thinking as an innovation process king stops being simply described as the the overall change of the economic frame- that integrates the ability to capture attitude of designers in facing and solving work, from an economy of products to an people’s needs and wants (desirability), problems, becoming an approach to inno- economy of services, and from a period with business goals (viability), and tech- vation that can be applied to a variety of of linear economic progress to a period of nological possibilities and capacities situations also by non-designers. uncertainty. The emergence of Design (feasibility). Thinking and design-enabled innovation processes are actually related to the fran- tic search of new tools to support strate- gic decision making, in an attempt to cope with the progressive decline of tradi- tional predictive models. The impossibility to rely on a linear progress from past, to present and future leads to the necessity of coping with an unpredictable future and fast-changing markets, challenging established innovation practices and ma- king strategic decision making much more complex. This is where Design Thin- king comes into play as a powerful solu- tion that companies can introduce to become more capable of facing uncer- tainty, managing existing businesses and generating new one (Boland/Collopy 2004; Osterwalder/Pigneur 2009).

Design Thinking starts being interpreted Fig. 1: Design Thinking (Source: IDEO) as a way of reshaping managerial compe- tences (Dunne/Martin 2006), leading to

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the opportunity for design to scale up holistic attitude, organisational manage- Japanese models and techniques, such as within companies and take part in strate- ment is often characterised by the adop- time-based competition, lean manufactu- gic conversations. This must surely be tion of models and techniques that seem ring, total quality management, kaizen seen as a mostly positive phenomenon, to be derived from a reductionist way of and quality control circles, can be connec- which made design increasingly popular thinking, thereby producing formulas that ted to the success of the Japanese indus- in fields where it was almost unknown. can be easily synthesised and turned into try during the 1980s and 90s. As Nonaka Nonetheless, the point that we would like slogans and procedures that can be ap- and Takeuchi (1996: 97) used to tell us: to raise is that this popularisation may ea- plied to a variety of situations with mini- “Much as manufacturers around the sily lead to turn Design Thinking into one mal adaptation. The rise and growth of world have learned from Japanese manu- of the many managerial formulas (and large managerial consultancies can also facturing techniques, any company that fads). The apparently simple structure that be associated to this phenomenon in that wants to compete on knowledge must stands behind Design Thinking is actually their business model is based on the stan- also learn from Japanese techniques of leading to the widespread idea that orga- dardisation of service, which is possible knowledge creation.” Considering the nisations can easily integrate it and leve- when there is a methodology and a set wide cultural distance expressed by Ja- rage on it to become more effective and of procedures that can be replicated pan, the case of Japanese managerial capable of serving their customers. To (Suddaby/Greenwood 2001). techniques can be seen as paradigmatic prevent simplification, we would then like in revealing the difficulty of transferring to compare (and combine) the idea of De- The development of these models is nor- models from one context to the other. sign Thinking with that of design culture mally based on the idea that in a certain Their adoption is often documented as a (Julier 2000; 2006), explaining how the in- period there is a winning practice, which misleading practice that would have re- troduction of design in an organisation can be abstracted and extracted from the quired a deep process of cultural change implies the change of its culture, or else a context that generated it through a pro- in the hosting organisation (Lillrank 1995). long-term process that cannot be repla- cess of generalisation, modelling, and Even in the best cases, enterprises went ced by easy formulas. operationalisation that offers the possibi- through a process of adaptation that lity to transfer and apply it to other secto- changed their very concepts and goals, 2 | Design Thinking as a managerial formula rial and geographical contexts. The “best and, in the worst cases, they simply failed practice” is then turned into a supposedly due to non-acceptance. While the me- While theories of organisational change transferrable model that is ready to be ad- thods’ success in their original context recognise the complexity of the pheno- opted in a number of different situations. can be measured and proven, their porta- menon of change within organisations bility and ability to be replicated are dif- and therefore display a systematic and ficult to demonstrate.

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Studies on the differences in the values consultancies. During the last two deca- while enforcing the idea that there exists and behaviour of people working in orga- des, a sort of middle ground seemed to some sort of capability or competence nisations located in different geographical take shape: the design consultancies mo- (i.e., the often abused term “creativity”) contexts (Hofstede, 1980) tell us that the ved towards strategy and entered the that precedes or can be divorced from a cultural specificity of a context can deeply area of management while the mana- knowledge on how to make things. affect the operation of a model or a pro- gerial consultancies moved towards inno- gram, and we must take into account that vation, new product/service development Defined at the beginning of its introduc- some models and techniques work be- and interaction, and entered the area of tion in the consultancy business as a new cause of the individual capabilities or cha- design. Design thinking was born within robust method to explore and exploit racter of people, a situation that is this framework. Although it was initially market opportunities to produce custo- impossible to reproduce. meant to introduce research on design mer , Design Thinking is expanding and processes, as a promising approach for dealing with Nevertheless, Japanese models are just it was subsequently turned into a mana- problems in different fields. Some au- one example: the increasingly shorter life- gerial approach through the process of thors go further and suggest that design cycle of the organisational and mana- abstraction from its original context that thinking can produce massive change that gerial models can be coupled with the we described. will improve our lives and solve the wi- shorter lifecycle of products and the fren- cked problems our society faces (Berman zied search for change that affects many Many consultancies are today focused on 2008; Tackara 2008). companies and markets. Even if there has sustaining innovation in companies been harsh criticism of the fast turnover through a focus on design, and many or- Behind the success of Design Thinking of managerial models and techniques that ganisations are embracing the idea of De- stands the idea that there is something led to describe many of them as fads sign Thinking as a way to accomplish this new to be learned from designers and (Miller/Hartwick 2002), the practice still goal. Following the expansion of its that managers should apply it to improve seems to prosper. scope, design thinking is moving away business (Kelley 2001). from design practice by employing forma- From a certain point of view, design thin- lised processes and techniques that can According to Brown (2009), thinking like a king can be seen as one of these fads: it be applied by professionals of all discipli- can help managers and organi- could be associated with the growth of nes, not necessarily by designers. Within sations to develop innovation in products, large design consultancies, just like many this framework, design thinking is now services, processes and strategy. managerial models and techniques are separating the process of conceptualising bound to the growth of large managerial ideas from that of actually making things

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Some common places characterising the For these and other reasons mentioned, different situations and stakeholders and debate on design are frequently drawn we think that it is necessary to take a criti- the constraints they bring about. This from these positions: cal look at Design Thinking. The ways in point was well defined by Betty Vanden- which it is evolving show all the typical bosh and Kevin Gallagher (see “The role • The contrast between design thinking characteristics of managerial fads: an of constraints”, in Boland/Collopy 2004): (also defined as intuitive, creative, inte- easy-to-communicate formula, straight- while contemporary managerial practice grative, abductive, and right-brained) forward implementation, not so radically is fraught with the idea of out-of-the-box and analytical thinking as the dominant novel as to discourage adoption, and thinking, what should be learned from de- problem-solving approach of managers quite a few gurus. sign is not a further push towards creati- and organisations; vity but the capacity of staying “inside the In our perspective, the de-contextualised box” and consider all the constraints. • The equation according to which De- nature of Design Thinking led to its intro- sign Thinking is the way in which desig- duction into companies as a set of The lack of contextualisation and situated- ners think (while we would underline (mainly) synthetic tools that can be adop- ness, combined with the split of the idea- that to design something we do not ted to generate many potential solutions, tion and the development processes and need just a creative and synthetic ap- rarely crossing the threshold of real deve- the idea of a top-down practice that prin- proach, but the integration of deduc- lopment, production and exploitation. The cipally affects the management rather tive, inductive and abductive thinking); gap between the phases of generation of than the whole enterprise, are in our opi- new ideas and those of development is, in nion the main faults of Design Thinking as • The definition of creativity as a profes- our practice of applied research, one of it was extended to the management. sion (while we would underline that the most critical aspects of the design ac- creativity is an attitude that everyone tivity. 3 | Connecting Design Thinking to manifests and can cultivate); Design Culture The generation of new ideas is in fact • The separation between thinking and pretty simple whenever we reduce the In our view, to become effective within or- doing (while we would suggest that number of constraints: we might produce ganisations, design must become part of one of the major traits of originality of a great number of innovative ideas, but their culture: enterprises and other orga- design is that of assuming a bottom-up we miss the point that the design proces- nisations should develop their own de- perspective on problem solving). ses (just like the managerial ones) can be sign culture by integrating design through effective only through the necessary me- continual processes of negotiation and diation and negotiation for dealing with

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alignment. This calls for a different per- culture of the end-user. The concept exp- are primarily driven to consider the cul- spective, where design culture can be de- lains that culture can be seen as a catalyst ture of the end-user, but if we look at the scribed as a system of knowledge, com- for designing innovative products if and original context as the main force that in- petences and skills in use within a situa- when designers are able to incorporate a fluences the design process, then we are ted context to develop new solutions and specific culture into the design of pro- primarily driven to consider the culture of pursue innovation (Deserti/Rizzo 2014). ducts thereby giving to the inter- the organisation. pretation of local characters in contrast The discourse on the relation between de- with the globalisation of solutions. This In our view, new products and services sign and culture is usually based on the line of thinking can be associated with the result from the complex interaction bet- idea that we should link design to the cul- vast literature on the reasons and modes ween these two levels: the user-centricity tural context where it occurs/operates to of making design interact with the context of contemporary design is in constant better understand or guide it. The cultural of destination, primarily but not only re- tension with the fact that organisations do context is then interpreted as a recipient presented by the end-user, leading to so- what they are able to, and what they be- for the design of products or services, lutions that properly solve a specific set of lieve is right to do. Quite often this is not which will be better conceived (if we look problems and fit a specific context (Nor- perfectly correspondent to the needs and at the process from a professional per- man 1988; Bannon 1991; Jordan/Green wants of consumers, but introducing a spective) or interpreted (if we look at the 1999; Frascara 2006). more user-centred perspective is not al- process from an historical perspective) by ways simple and fast, as it calls for the linking them with the cultural context. While we do not want to neglect the im- transformation of the culture of the orga- Therefore, culture is referred to the end- portance of the cultural context of desti- nisation. user at an individual or at a social : nation, we would like to note a gap: a products can be interpreted as the result product can be interpreted not just as the Conclusions of their context of destination in its multi- result of its context of destination but faceted dimensions, including the cultural also, and in some cases primarily, as the Design can (and should) be interpreted as one. result of its original context. If this is true, part of the culture of an organisation, or as we will try to note, a new product or of a place and time. We can thus discuss Some scholars introduced the concept of service must also be seen as the result of about Apple design culture in opposition “culture-oriented ” the culture of the organisation that produ- with Samsung design culture, or about (Moalosi/Popovic/Hickling-Hudson 2010), ces and delivers it. If we look at the con- Italian versus Scandinavian design in the assuming the idea that designers should text of destination as the main force that ‘70s. not just focus on needs but also on the influences the design process, then we

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Both Design Thinking and design culture At the same time, the concept of Design solutions, while continuously searching can be described as concepts, but while Thinking should not be seen only in oppo- for new and better ones. the first tends to be fixed, the latter is va- sition with that of design culture, but as riable and constantly changing. The con- potentially integrated or embedded into Design is often projected towards explo- cept of design culture is based on the idea it. ration, while companies are often in that design is not only an attitude, but search and in need of exploitation, which also and first of all a system of know- What is important, particularly for non-de- makes the tension stronger. Becoming ledge, competences, and skills that opera- signers, is that Design Thinking as the aware of these tensions, and capable of tes in a specific context to develop new promise of an easy formula to cope with coping with them, is in our view the main products and services (Julier 2000; the difficulties of innovation in contem- challenge that design must overcome to Deserti/Rizzo 2014). This system must be porary markets should not be seen as se- be integrated in organisations. At the acquired, integrated and combined with rious and realistic. Considering the recent same time, becoming aware that design the processes of organisations to lead to evolution and expansion of the field of is a much more complex and stratified the improvement of innovation perfor- application of design, the same can be concept than what is commonly percei- mances (Bertola/Teixeira 2003). said for the introduction of design in pub- ved, and that there is no easy formula to lic bodies to cope with the transformation integrate it as a source of value, is the In other words, the notion of design cul- of public services and the need of making main challenge that organisations must ture is context-dependent, and emphasi- them more user-centred. As many cases overcome to include it as a stable and re- ses the peculiar “way of doing things” of and research reports show (Design Coun- levant part of their culture. an organisation or system. By conse- cil 2015), design and Design Thinking can quence, there is not one design culture, actually be powerful engines of innova- References but many different that depend tion, but their integration in organisations on a variety of factors that characterise a is complex and requires time and com- Archer, B. (1979): Design as a Discipline. particular organisation, the place where it mitment. , 1(1): 17-20 is located, and the overall culture in which it is embedded. Here, it is important to consider the cons- Bannon, L.J. (1991): From Human Factors tant tension between exploitation and ex- to Human Actors. In: Greenbaum, J./Mor- ploration, and the need of finding that ten, K. (eds): Design at Work: Cooperative difficult balance that makes organisations Design of Computer Systems. Hillsdale: able of relying on efficient and profitable Lawrence Erlbaum Associates: 25-44

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Nonaka, I./Takeuchi, H. (1996): The Know- ledge Creating Company. Oxford Alessandro Deserti Politecnico di Milano Norman, D.A. (1988): The Psychology of Everyday Things. New York: Basic Books

Osterwalder, Al./Pigneur, Y. (2009): Busi- ness Model Generation. Self Publishing

Rowe, P.G. (1987): Design Thinking. Cam- Francesca Rizzo University of Bologna bridge, MA: The MIT Press Schön, D.A. (1983): The Reflective Practiti- oner: How Professionals Think in Action. New York: Basic Books

Onur M. Çobanlı Politecnico di Milano

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