The culture of design thinking for innovation

Abstract

Design thinking has been adopted widely as a tool for innovation by companies and other organizations. However, statements by researchers and practitioners about what design thinking is are often seemingly conflicting with each other. This paper aims to improve our understanding of what design thinking for innovation is and under which conditions it can be implemented successfully. It discusses design thinking for innovation in the broader perspective of organizational culture. A framework of nine innovation culture dilemmas or ‘tensions’ is used as an organizing device to analyse the existing literature on design thinking for innovation and accounts of using design thinking for innovation in practice. It is argued that the power of design thinking is in the tension between seemingly opposite ways of thinking, such as analytic thinking versus intuitive thinking, and linear thinking versus thinking in iterative processes. For design thinking to flourish, it needs to be embedded in an organizational culture capable of maintaining a dynamic balance on a number of fundamental tensions in innovation processes. It is shown that the innovation dilemmas framework can be used as an analytical tool to evaluate to what extent organizations are equipped to benefit from design thinking for innovation.

Acoustic Comfort in Learning Spaces: Moving Towards Sustainable Development Goals

“…For the purpose of a proper planning and design of a school, it is necessary to know first-hand the use that each space will have [37], and for this reason we should turn to participatory processes [34][35][36]. Particular efficiency is being demonstrated by the methodology of design thinking [13,[39][40][41].…”

Design Thinking in Leading European Companies—Organizational and Spatial Issues

“…Innovation and customer centricity are seen as central factors behind the implementation of design thinking. The induction of design competence into the management context has an effect on innovation and can lead to competitive advantages (Brown, 2008;Johansson-Sköldberg et al, 2013;Carlgren et al, 2016b;Prud'homme van Reine, 2017). Martin (2009, p.38) argued that design thinking "enables leaders to innovate along the path of the knowledge funnel (mystery, heuristic, algorithm) and the firms that master it can gain long-term business advantages."…”

“…In its essence, design thinking refers to a reflective practice, a problem-solving activity, and a practice-based activity toward design as the creation of meaning (Buchanan, 1992;Kimbell, 2011Kimbell, , 2012Johansson-Sköldberg et al, 2013;Carlgren et al, 2016a;2016b;Prud'homme van Reine, 2017). The idea is to bring design practice and competence into the managerial and/or learning context and find new ways to deal with a complex reality (Johansson-Sköldberg et al, 2013).…”

Reconciling the Academic and Enterprise Perspectives of Design Thinking

“…Research findings also suggest that DT allows to understand better the customers' needs [4,8,[11][12]16], although the benefits of this increased customer-centricity are not always clear. Furthermore, it has been shown that DT can be used in organizations not only for the development of innovative customer-facing products, but also to improve their own internal processes [14,16].…”

“…Existing literature has analyzed the challenges of DT implementation in enterprises and suggested some approaches to address them. The challenge most commonly mentioned when applying DT was the difficulty to handle the flexibility and unpredictability of DT [1][2]8,12], attributes which may defy the existing structures, roles and responsibilities, particularly in large and strictly rigid companies. Two distinct perspectives to address this challenge have emerged from the articles reviewed: (1) The structure and culture of enterprises clashes inevitably with DT, or (2) DT can co-exist with existing structures, practices or methods until it is assimilated.…”