Dave Robertson presents two case studies with the British Columbia Government (Canada). One with the Ministry of Transportation discussing their (public servant centered website), the other solving the problem of finding a solution to where to place a power substation.
Many Design Thinkers face the challenge of how to position and sell Design Thinking within their executive team. They face a number of issues from CEO buy-in to resource allocation for design thinking activities. There are two basic strategies that can be used to get buy in from the team.
In our recent design thinking survey, one of the most difficult things respondents found about design thinking was integrating it into their corporations. When not supported from the CEO on down, design thinking is unlikely to create real change for a corporation and this manifests itself in many ways as we saw from the survey.
Innovating through hackathons, bootcamps, brainstorming sessions, sprints and the like is a good start, creating a culture of innovation is what will set you apart. This has to do with leadership. It doesn’t mean that the leaders have all the good ideas, it means the leaders create the conditions in which creativity and innovation succeed.
Even though brainstorming groups don’t generate more or better ideas (research proves this), brainstorming is arguably more democratic than the alternatives, so it can enhance buy-in and subsequent implementation of the ideas generated, regardless of the quality of those ideas.
Why do you brainstorm and what do you expect its role is in your project?
Brainstorming for questions rather than answers makes it easier to push past cognitive biases and venture into uncharted territory. We’ve seen this dynamic in academic studies—in social psychologist Adam Galinsky’s research on the power of reframing during times of transition, for instance.
The association asked respondents what they found the most difficult thing about Design Thinking in our July 2020 Survey. 11% of respondents replied that convincing their bosses/CEO/Executive Management was the most difficult thing.
Learning Design Thinking requires both experiential and social learning. It is like learning to ride a bicycle, it is very much an experience of "doing" - experiential. You cannot learn how just by having someone explain it to you—you have to actually try to do it yourself to find your own balance. You also need to practice to get better.
Mark Curtis is the co-founder of Fjord, a design and innovation consultancy that was acquired by Accenture in May 2013. Curtis and Fjord operate under the rule of three for design, which incorporates design thinking, design doing and design culture, which he explained at Inspirefest 2016.