Feb. 16 “Designing for Growth”: I cut out this
article by Harvey Schachter back in Sept.
7, 2011. I cut this article
because there was this istock photo of light bulbs being grown from plants like
an idea growing. The book is about
design and creative thinking. Here's the whole article:
By Jeanne Liedtka and Tim Ogilvie
Columbia Business
School
Publishing, 227 pages, $28.25)
One of the hot ideas in management circles these days is
design thinking.
This is the notion that we need to move away from the
analytical thinking methods we have learned in school, including business
school, and apply the techniques of designers so that we can be more
innovative, launching more growth from within our company - organic growth -
rather than having to lurch for mergers and acquisitions.
It sounds attractive, but design thinking can seem
mysterious, if not mushy, and certainly daunting.
"Design thinking can do for organic growth and
innovation what TQM [total quality management] did for quality - take something
we always have cared about and put tools and processes into the hands of
managers to make it happen," Jeanne Liedtka, a professor at the
University of Virginia's Darden Graduate School of Business Administration, and
Tim Ogilvie, an innovation strategy consultant, write in Designing for Growth.
Not all designers are in favour, they note. Designers spend
years learning their craft, and worry that managers can only learn enough to
make them dangerous. But the authors argue that design thinking is different
from design itself.
"Gifted designers combine an aesthetic sensibility
with deep capabilities for visualization, ethnography, and pattern recognition
that are well beyond the grasp of most of us - managers included.
But when it comes to fostering business growth, the talent
that we are interested in is not rooted in either natural gifts or studio
training - it lies with having a systematic approach to problem solving. That
is, to us, design thinking, and it can be taught to managers," they write.
With that in mind, they distill design thinking down to four
questions to ask when attacking a problem.
They begin with "What is?" In developing new
ideas, we often rush to engage the future, but in fact we find clues to the
future in dissatisfactions with the present. The second question - "What
if?" - launches us into pursuing possibilities for change. The third
question - "What wows?" - encourages us to winnow down the ideas
generated into something that packs a wallop. The final question - "What
works?" - requires us to test our ideas in the real world.
In each of those stages, we call upon certain tools that
help with the task at hand:
Visualization
We use imagery to envision possibilities and bring them
to life. That involves taking text, numbers, or data, and transforming them
into sketches and other pictures.
"Visualization makes ideas tangible and concrete,
often sweeping away ambiguity with the stroke of a pencil. It brings a
different part of your brain into play; it's a different way of knowing,"
they write.
Journey mapping
The customer experience with your company is mapped in a
flow chart or other graphic format. "If we could add only one design
tool to a manager's repertoire, it would be journey mapping. The number one
reason growth ideas fail is that we misjudge what customers want," the
authors observe.
Value chain analysis
The equivalent mapping must now be done on the business side,
studying the organization's interaction with its partners to produce, market,
distribute and support its offering. This ensures you have the capability to
handle the new ideas that come forth.
Mind mapping
You'll probably have generated a ton of data and now must
look for patterns and insights, separating what is important from what is not.
Brainstorming
The "What if?" stage begins with generating ideas.
The authors stress the importance of trigger questions that focus your
thinking, and questioning assumptions.
Concept development
The best ideas developed are chosen and assembled into
detailed solutions. Then they are evaluated according to the customer and
business criteria previously developed.
Assumption testing
The "What wows?" phase begins with identifying the
assumptions required to be true for your new ideas to succeed. Then they are
tested, since the authors note "when growth projects fail, it is always
because reality turns out different than you thought it would be."
Rapid prototyping
Next, you create prototypes, visual or experiential
manifestation of the concepts you have developed, so you can see and understand
them better. The goal is to learn from this quick and simple representation.
Customer co-creation
The "What works?" stage begins by getting
customers to participate in creating the solution that best meets their needs.
Learning launch
Finally, you create an affordable experiment that lets some
customers experience the new solution over an extended period of time, allowing
you to test your key assumptions with market data.
It's a more rigorous approach than the term "design
thinking" might suggest, with room for free thinking but also a carefully
crafted process that has its own analytical flavour.
The book is rich with information on each tool, taking you
through the elements clearly and crisply.
If design thinking intrigues you, this would be a good place
to start.
POSTSCRIPT
Andrew Clancy, a senior editor at Soundview Executive Book
Summaries, offers lessons from people such as Marshall Goldsmith, Seth Godin,
Daniel Pink, Stephen Covey and David Allen in The Success Gurus (Portfolio, 278
pages, $31.00)
Consultant Beverly Behan, who has worked with more than 100
boards in Canada
and the U.S.,
gives advice in Great Companies Deserve Great Boards (Palgrave, 175 pages,
$40.00).
In Governance, Risk Management, and Compliance (John Wiley,
312 pages, $59.95) governance expert Richard Steinberg helps you to get things
in order so you can avoid corporate disaster.
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