This viewpoint has surfaced before. Many critics of design thinking strategies argue that it is “real design,” and that only true designers can, and should, do design.
As a trained designer, I understand this perspective. But I think the critics are missing the point.
There are many common misconceptions about design thinking that cause companies to miss out on the value it can bring because they look at it through the wrong lens. Here are a few misperceptions that come up a lot.
These workshops also help change the culture of the organization — which is a direct benefit for designers. By giving employees a common language and set of behaviors around the design process they are able to understand what designers do and how they can contribute to the process.
Design thinking isn’t an isolated department or job title, it’s a new way of doing things that should be part of everyone’s daily lives. Unless companies create an environment where these concepts can flourish disruption won’t happen no matter how good the training is.
There will always be critics of design thinking, and to me, that is just another sign that it is catching on.
Companies across industries are embracing design thinking methods to help them solve all kinds of problems because they need help figuring out how to put the customer at the center of the business. But it is important to remember that design thinking is a journey, and the training is only the first step. The organizations that embrace it as the new normal will find the disruptive ideas that they seek.
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Nathan Waterhouse is a keynote speaker and consultant on innovation and design strategy. At Treehouse Innovation he helps organizations grow their businesses through creating more human centred offerings in the world. Previously Nathan led new business ventures at world-renowned design and innovation firm IDEO. There he co-founded OpenIDEO.com, a social impact community of over 200,000 people, across 190 countries, that collaborate online to tackle big systemic challenges in our society. Inspired by this experience, he also co-founded OI Engine, an award-winning software platform that helps corporations tackle tough challenges collaboratively, rather than in isolation.
Nathan is an expert in organization design and has led organization design programs facilitated workshops with hundreds of participants that have helped shift the innovation strategy for 250 year old organizations like Generali. He also helped create HackFWD, a tech startup incubator for Europe. He has also led innovation programs for ABInBev, IKEA, T-Mobile, VISA, and Vodafone, amongst others.