The limitations, criticisms and new pathways for Design Thinking – Part two

August 7, 2017Posted inAdvancing innovation, Molecules, Shifting dynamics in innovation1 Comment

This is part two of my thoughts that came out of investigating and researching design thinking in the past couple of weeks. Part one is here

 

Within these two posts, I want to provide my thoughts, bridging the present and pointing towards a better design thinking future, one that in my opinion, is urgently needed.

These two posts are not intended as a mapping of the present DT landscape, they are reflective posts coming from what I researched.

The ‘product of my work’ itself is presently being worked through to be available as an e-book in the coming weeks. It has not been easy and often I found a level of confusion that kept forcing me to dig some more and I’m still not sure I have the answers, perhaps just lots of open questions. I think design thinking seems presently fairly messy and I feel is in need of a complete reset.

The intent of the e-book- direct link here ( design-thinking-improving-potential-innovation) is to offer a practical, direct takeaway of design thinking, more of the present practices and then where it is possibly heading. I tried to go linear, gone circular, gone holistic and at times ballistic and sought out tactical and strategic design, recognizing how its orientation has moved through product, service, experience, business model and is lifting design into new ways of orientation at tactical and strategic levels.

As I found out from my research, there is an awful amount of “noise” and “hype to work through to find the past, present and future positions of design thinking. In summary, I think design thinking is undergoing a revolution, a certain maturing but it is littered with a very messy, highly competitive present.

The limitations, criticisms and new pathways for Design Thinking – Part One

August 4, 2017Posted inBuilding Innovation Capability, Molecules5 Comments

Let me summarize where we are today in design thinking. In the past couple of weeks, I have been spending a fair amount of time on investigating design thinking.

This is part one of my thoughts that came out of investigating and researching design thinking Part two link is here.

In these two posts, I want to provide my outcomes, bridging the present and pointing towards a better design thinking future, in my opinion urgently needed.

The ‘product of my work’ itself is presently being worked through to be available as an e-book in the coming weeks.

The intent of the e-book with a direct link here ( design-thinking-improving-potential-innovation) is to offer a practical, direct takeaway of design thinking, the present practices and where it is possibly heading. I tried to go linear, gone circular, gone holistic and at times ballistic and sought out tactical and strategic design, recognizing how its orientation has moved through product, service, experience, business model and lifting design into new ways of orientation at tactical and strategic levels.

As I found out from my research, there is an awful amount of “noise and hype” to work through to find the past, present and future positions of design thinking. In summary, I think design thinking is undergoing a revolution, a certain maturing but it is littered with a very messy, highly competitive present.

I am suggesting that perhaps design thinking is a current ‘burning platform’ and the term ‘design thinking’ is so loaded it might need to be reworked under different banners to allow it to evolve as it equally needs to be restated and deepened in its skills, practices, uses, and methodologies.

Deeper read or quick summary- finding the time

January 28, 2016Posted inAdvancing innovation, Building Innovation Capability, Fresh thinking, Integrated Innovation Thinking, Polymers, Tackling innovation1 Comment

researching_innovation

I recently wrote a post “Delving into a complex world- helping to keep pace”.……to help us to keep pace, learn apply and adapt.

Finding time to read and extend our thinking is a real struggle and going that extra mile to read thought-leadership views can be a step to far, I know but I can’t help myself, it is part of my job and certainly for me, many are really worth it.

In that post I was recommending Deloitte and their thought leadership as a good place to visit.

Now I’m not sure how many of you actually did, so I thought in this post  to pick out specifically two great articles and make a post summary of these, as I feel both of these might be useful, as they challenge and break new ground in thinking.

Inspiration, Ideation and Implementation

October 21, 2014Posted inAchieving innovation engagement, Advancing innovation, amplifying the innovation signal, gaining innovation momentum, Improve Collaboration & Communication, Molecules, Shifting dynamics in innovation, Tackling innovation

SurrondedFinally, I am completely surrounded by inspiration, ideation and implementation. I have that feeling of being somewhat overwhelmed, I can’t twist and turn anymore, it simply will not go away.

Do I throw myself off the building or decide to listen a little longer? It really is forcing me to think.

Today it seems whenever I pick up a business book each chapter has a section on it.

Also, I seem not to be able to not fall over all the articles extolling its virtues, I mindlessly “Google it” and you can see your whole life flash before you, if you decided to investigate this seriously.

What am I talking about? 

Well, nothing other than Design Thinking. I know, most of you are so heavily into this you feel you might as well ‘flip’ over to the next article but are you, really?

Are you evolving the innovation function and design

March 26, 2014Posted inAchieving innovation engagement, Advancing innovation, Building Innovation Capability, gaining innovation momentum, Integrated Innovation Thinking, Leading innovation, Shifting dynamics in innovation, Tackling innovation
source: prophet.com
image credit www.prophet.com

Organizations are struggling to forge a new path in innovation function and design that captures opportunities fast and also exploits the increasing need of being adaptive and flexible.

Organizations are looking at structures for their innovation activity that are taking a more agile and focused approach, wanting to push for constantly accelerating the process. New practices are emerging.

This is demanding more radical redesigns of the function, processes and structures around innovation. Innovators are being more challenged.

Against this need for new, more radical designs there still lies that underlying concern, often at the top of our organizations, on how to manage innovation risk without significant organisational disruption.

There is this lingering fear that pushing for more radical innovation can create significant upheaval within the organization. Innovation is being challenged by the view of “we want predictable innovation but radical enough to make sure we grow.”

Innovation has to manage within this conflicting message. It is through the well-designed system, processes and function that this can happen but this needs redesigning fairly radically to adjust to today’s world of wanting innovation faster than ever.

Finding our true purpose

November 14, 2013Posted inAchieving innovation engagement, Advancing innovation, amplifying the innovation signal, Fresh thinking, gaining innovation momentum, Integrated Innovation Thinking, Shifting dynamics in innovation, Tackling innovation



Finding True PurposeDon’t let anyone tell you it is easy to run your own business, it is far from that. I thought I’d write about what and where it has meaning for me in this “finding our true purpose”.

Here are some of my thoughts, some a little raw, others well-baked, even some half-baked!.

Running your own business is full of uncertainty, doubt and risk. Equally, though, you have a level of independence and this does permit you to respond quickly.

It can offer higher degrees of flexibility, allows you to pursue what you think clients really want, not what others above you are imposing as template solutions, or their personal views.

Finally, you can explore the options to deliver, as in my case,  services, in your own unique style that often work far better for clients needs.

You are not accountable to anyone, apart from the wife and the bank manager, always looking a little harder at you, that small business owner needing to deliver.

Different perspectives of thinking can influence your innovating future

February 11, 2013Posted inAchieving innovation engagement, Advancing innovation, amplifying the innovation signal, Building Innovation Capability, gaining innovation momentum, innovation execution delivery, Integrated Innovation Thinking, Leading innovation, Molecules, Shifting dynamics in innovation, Tackling innovation

Following on from the Innovation Futures project (www.innovation-futures.org) that I’ve been exploring recently, I would like to pick up on the way the authors clustered innovation into broad forms that give us different perspectives and thinking of innovation.

They felt these offered the major trends and innovation patterns and I felt are worth high-lightening here so we can begin to think through the different innovation options we have available to us.

So we can test innovations future within our own activities in a number of different ways.

The broad forms of ‘emerging’ innovation

Placing Design into the Innovation Equation

November 18, 2010Posted inAchieving innovation engagement, Advancing innovation, amplifying the innovation signal, Fresh thinking, Innovation strategy, Leading innovation, Shifting dynamics in innovation, Tackling innovation

Let me be clear, this is not my blog entry I really wish it was. It is the relevant part of a blog written by Sarah Stein Greenberg (http://ideas.economist.com/blog/design-mind) that just seemed to hit one of those ‘buttons’ that sum something up so well, and in this case, I think the best compliment is to just share it. I’ve put in what I feel are appropriate headings for ease of reading only.

It is about the power of design and interaction to make something new happen fast.

Tackling messy problems

“A pressing question for more established economies… is how to foster more entrepreneurship and innovation despite greater stability and predictability.

One method that companies and individuals are adopting is design thinking—the approach of scaling or “group-sizing” the way that solo designers have always worked to enable to cross-functional teams tackle messy problems that don’t fit neatly into any one person’s job description or academic discipline.

Design thinking is one way to simulate some of the extremely dynamic conditions of an emerging economy and foster entrepreneurship in the US.

Forcing direct contact with users