Design Thinking for Social Innovation By Tim Brown & Jocelyn Wyatt Stanford Social Innovation Review Winter 2010 Copyright 2007 by Leland Stanford Jr. University All Rights Reserved Stanford Social Innovation Review 518 Memorial Way, Stanford, CA 94305-5015 Ph: 650-725-5399. Fax: 650-723-0516 Email: [email protected], www.ssireview.com In an area outside Hyderabad, India, between the suburbs and the countryside, a young woman—we’ll call her Shanti—fetches water daily from the always-open local borehole that is about 300 feet from her home. She uses a 3-gallon plastic container that she can easily carry on her head. Shanti and her husband rely on the free water for their drinking and washing, and though they’ve heard that it’s not as safe as water from the Naandi Foundation-run community treatment plant, they still use it. Shanti’s family has been drinking the local water for generations, and al- though it periodically makes her and her family sick, she has no plans to stop using it. Shanti has many reasons not to use the water from the Naandi treatment center, but they’re not the reasons one might think. The center is within easy walking distance of her home—roughly a third of a mile. It is also well known and aff ordable (roughly 10 rupees, or 20 cents, for 5 gallons). Being able to pay the small fee has even become a status symbol for some villag- ers. Habit isn’t a factor, either. Shanti is forgoing the safer water because of a series of DESIGN fl aws in the overall design of the system. Although Shanti can walk to the facility, she can’t carry THINKING the 5-gallon jerrican that the fa- cility requires her to use. When filled with water, the plastic FOR SOCIAL INNOVATION rectangular container is sim- ply too heavy. The container isn’t designed to be held on the hip or the head, where she likes to carry heavy objects. Shanti’s husband can’t help carry it, ei- DESIGNERS HAVE TRADI- ther. He works in the city and TIONALLY FOCUSED ON doesn’t return home until after the water treatment center is ENHANCING THE LOOK closed. The treatment center AND FUNCTIONALITY OF also requires them to buy a monthly punch card for 5 gal- PRODUCTS. RECENTLY, THEY lons a day, far more than they HAVE BEGUN USING DESIGN need. “Why would I buy more TOOLS TO TACKLE MORE than I need and waste money?” asks Shanti, adding she’d be COMPLEX PROBLEMS, SUCH more likely to purchase the AS FINDING WAYS TO By Tim Brown Naandi water if the center al- PROVIDE LOW-COST HEALTH & Jocelyn Wyatt lowed her to buy less. The community treatment CARE THROUGHOUT THE Illustration by center was designed to pro- WORLD. BUSINESSES WERE John Hersey duce clean and potable water, FIRST TO EMBRACE THIS and it succeeded very well at doing just that. In fact, it works NEW APPROACH—CALLED well for many people living DESIGN THINKING—NOW in the community, particu- NONPROFITS ARE BEGIN- larly families with husbands or older sons who own bikes NING TO ADOPT IT TOO. and can visit the treatment Winter 2010 • STANFORD SOCIAL INNOVATION REVIEW 31 plant during working hours. The designers of the center, however, The Sternins and colleagues from Save the Children surveyed missed the opportunity to design an even better system because four local Quong Xuong communities in the province of Than Hoa they failed to consider the culture and needs of all of the people and asked for examples of “very, very poor” families whose children living in the community. were healthy. They then observed the food preparation, cooking, This missed opportunity, although an obvious omission in hind- and serving behaviors of these six families, called “positive devi- sight, is all too common. Time and again, initiatives falter because ants,” and found a few consistent yet rare behaviors. Parents of they are not based on the client’s or customer’s needs and have never well-nourished children collected tiny shrimps, crabs, and snails been prototyped to solicit feedback. Even when people do go into the from rice paddies and added them to the food, along with the greens fi eld, they may enter with preconceived notions of what the needs from sweet potatoes. Although these foods were readily available, and solutions are. This fl awed approach remains the norm in both they were typically not eaten because they were considered unsafe the business and social sectors. for children. The positive deviants also fed their children multiple As Shanti’s situation shows, social challenges require systemic smaller meals, which allowed small stomachs to hold and digest solutions that are grounded in the client’s or customer’s needs. This more food each day. is where many approaches founder, but it is where design thinking— The Sternins and the rest of their group worked with the posi- a new approach to creating solutions—excels. tive deviants to off er cook- Traditionally, designers focused their attention on improving the ing classes to the families look and functionality of products. Classic examples of this type of Design thinkers look of children suff ering from design work are Apple Computer’s iPod and Herman Miller’s Aeron for work-arounds and malnutrition. By the end chair. In recent years designers have broadened their approach, cre- improvise solutions of the program’s fi rst year, ating entire systems to deliver products and services. 80 percent of the 1,000 Design thinking incorporates constituent or consumer insights and fi nd ways to in- children enrolled in the in depth and rapid prototyping, all aimed at getting beyond the corporate those into program were adequately assumptions that block eff ective solutions. Design thinking—in- the offerings they nourished. In addition, the herently optimistic, constructive, and experiential—addresses the create. They con- eff ort had been replicated needs of the people who will consume a product or service and the sider what we call within 14 villages across infrastructure that enables it. the edges, the places Vietnam.4 Businesses are embracing design thinking because it helps them where “extreme” The Sternins’ work is a be more innovative, better diff erentiate their brands, and bring their people live differently, good example of how pos- products and services to market faster. Nonprofi ts are beginning to itive deviance and design use design thinking as well to develop better solutions to social prob- think differently, and thinking relies on local lems. Design thinking crosses the traditional boundaries between consume differently. expertise to uncover local public, for-profi t, and nonprofi t sectors. By working closely with the solutions. Design thinkers clients and consumers, design thinking allows high-impact solutions look for work-arounds and to bubble up from below rather than being imposed from the top. improvise solutions—like the shrimps, crabs, and DESIGN THINKING AT WORK snails—and they fi nd ways Jerry Sternin, founder of the Positive Deviance Initiative and a profes- to incorporate those into the off erings they create. They consider sor at Tufts University until he died last year, was skilled at identify- what we call the edges, the places where “extreme” people live dif- ing what he called outsider solutions to local problems. His approach ferently, think diff erently, and consume diff erently. As Monique to social innovation is a good example of design thinking in action.1 Sternin, now director of the Positive Deviance Initiative, explains: In 1990, Sternin and his wife, Monique, were working in Vietnam “Both positive deviance and design thinking are human-centered ap- to decrease malnutrition among children in 10,000 villages. At the proaches. Their solutions are relevant to a unique cultural context time, 65 percent of Vietnamese children under age 5 suff ered from and will not necessarily work outside that specifi c situation.” malnutrition, and most solutions relied on government donations One program that might have benefi ted from design thinking of nutritional supplements. But the supplements never delivered the is mosquito net distribution in Africa. The nets are well designed hoped-for results.2 As an alternative, the Sternins used an approach and when used are eff ective at reducing the incidence of malaria.5 called positive deviance, which looks for solutions among individuals The World Health Organization praised the nets, crediting them and families in the community who are already doing well.3 with signifi cant drops in malaria deaths in children under age 5: a 51 percent decline in Ethiopia, 34 percent decline in Ghana, and 66 Tim Brown is the ceo and president of ideo, a global innovation and design 6 fi rm. He is author of Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organi- percent decline in Rwanda. The way that the mosquito nets have zations and Inspires Innovation (HarperBusiness, 2009), a newly published book been distributed, however, has had unintended consequences. about how design thinking transforms organizations and inspires innovation. In northern Ghana, for instance, nets are provided free to preg- Jocelyn Wyatt leads ideo’s Social Innovation group, which works with enter- nant women and mothers with children under age 5. These women prises, foundations, nongovernmental organizations, and multinationals to build capabilities in design thinking and design innovative off erings that meet the needs can readily pick up free nets from local public hospitals. For every- of local customers. one else, however, the nets are diffi cult to obtain. When we asked a 32 STANFORD SOCIAL INNOVATION REVIEW • Winter 2010 well-educated Ghanaian named Albert, who had recently contracted through inspiration, ideation, and implementation more than once malaria, whether he slept under a mosquito net, he told us no—there as the team refi nes its ideas and explores new directions.