Has the meaning of design thinking changed since the 1960s due to the different usage between the design and non-design due to the different usage between the design and non-design

sectors?

Archer (1967: 47-51) expressed the following views on the future of design management:

The growing complexity of design problems has caused designers to investigate the methodology of design only a little more recently than managers began to investigate the methodology of management. The time is rapidly approaching when design decision making and management decision making techniques will

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have so much in common that the one will become no more than the extension of the other. (1967: 51)

Looking back at Archer’s opinion and comparing it to the interest in integrating design thinking into businesses and other sectors, the predictions from the opinion back then were close to today’s situation.

With the interest in design thinking application and integration to other sectors (evidence in the form of published literature: Brown, 2009; Berger, 2009; Lockwood, 2010; Martin, 2009 and Verganti, 2009) it would be useful to look at other factors that caused the interest from non-design sectors.

According to Brown (2009: 165), the economic recession in 2008 was a

‘Black Swan moment’ (Taleb, 2007). ‘Black Swan’ (ibid) was a concept that means uncontrollable external factors or ‘game changers’ events that could affect an industry or the world. Brown (2009: 164-165) argued that in order to minimise the effects of ‘Black Swan’ events, companies should invest in innovation and use design thinking as a way of managing their innovation portfolios. Brown’s argument gave the impression that the application and integration of design thinking could counter the effects of

‘Black Swan’ events; perhaps the possibility of countering such events triggered the non-design sectors interests in design thinking.

Brown’s argument perhaps was similar to what the Council of Industrial Design (CoID, now the Design Council) did after World War II when the country needed rebuilding with the economy trying to recover. ‘Britain Can Make It’ was an exhibition created to showcase design and manufacturing (Ford and Davis, 2008). Another important contributor alongside the Design Council to the 1946 ‘Britain Can Make It’ festival was the Design Research Unit (DRU). The DRU was found in 1943 by Sir Misha Black and Milner Grey (Sir Misha Black Awards, 2012). This was one of the first international and multidisciplinary consultancies to be seen in the UK. It was the main driving force behind the 1951 Festival of Britain. Other iconic projects that the DRU was involved in included the Westminster’s street signs and British Rail train designs in the 60s and 70s (The Sir Misha Black Awards, 2012). An example of businesses interested in

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employing design after the economic crisis of 2008 was given by Mau (founder of Bruce Mau Design, Canada) during an interview with Berger (2009: 23). Mau stated (ibid) that an increased number of businesses were interested in employing his firm to solve their problems. In addition to the economic factor, Dorst (2011: 521-522) argued that the evolution of design industry was also a factor that triggered the non-design sector’s interest in design thinking. With many consultancies switching to a more strategic approach using design thinking as a tool, designers now participate from the start to the end of creative processes, turning design into a strategic tool for many from the non-design sectors (Berger, 2009:

6-7).

An example to support the evolution of the design industry would be the transformation of the design consultancy IDEO. Brown (2009: 103) commented that external factors caused IDEO to change its approach in business. According to Brown the major factors behind the evolution of IDEO was the end of the ‘dot-com supernova’ at the end of 2000 and ex-CEO David Kelly leaving to focus on his academic duties at Stanford University. In order to survive the company had to evolve into what Brown called ‘IDEO 2.0’. The brief was to reposition the company to suit the constant changing environments which the firm found itself in. During the transition period three ideas were brought forward and they would be the foundation of ‘IDEO 2.0’:

1. “Design with a small d” – using design as a tool to improve the quality of life at every level.

2. “One IDEO” – the notion that our future depended on our acting not as independent studios but as a single interconnected network.

3. Abandon the original “studio” model for the “global practice”

structure. Brown (2009: 9, 102–105)

‘IDEO 2.0’ fitted well into Archer’s work in the late 1970s when he was defining design as a discipline. The papers and journal articles that were written in that period mentioned design’s potential to shape the future and being applied to a much wider context. Looking at this example of a

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design consultancy reinventing itself, the evidence suggested the change was caused by external factors. Perhaps the design industry needed external game changing factors, such as the end of the ‘dot-com supernova’ (Brown, 2009: 102) and changes in people’s and businesses’

behaviour (Esslinger, 2009: 9-10) to force itself to reorganise, rethink and move on to the next level.

In order to map the possible changes in design thinking, the contexts that design thinking has been applied in must be examined. Exploring design thinking’s application contexts could help understand where the difference viewpoints originate from.

As previously discussed (Chapter 2.2.1), the literature evidence suggested that design thinking is the solution-focused process, which designers employ to tackle design problems that are ill-defined. Therefore, it is an ability that all designers have as it is a vital component for the design industry to function. However, in the last decade with some design consultancies repositioning themselves in a more strategic light, design thinking became a tool that the design industry uses to create the separation between those operating at a ‘higher’ level with a strategic approach from those that operate further downstream in the creative process.

Those who operate at ‘a higher level’ could argue that the hierarchy was a natural part of the evolution of the design industry as it expands its influence and methods into other sectors. If this is the case then design thinking could be a useful indicator for those from the non-design sectors who are interested in hiring designers to tackle non-design problems.

However, it would be inappropriate to claim using design thinking will guarantee innovation and success as Martin (2009: 57–78) commented that thinking like a designer and applying abductive reasoning to problems of business would create a sustainable advantage. Martin appeared to be sure about design thinking giving a ‘competitive advantage’ and so a closer look at the Research In Motion (RIM) case study (ibid: 51–78) from the book was required.

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RIM is the technology company that designed and created the Blackberry smartphones. According to Martin, thinking abductively within the company was one of the competitive advantages for innovation RIM had over its competitors. By employing design thinking, RIM was able to identify an opportunity in the mobile communication market with laptop users demanding smaller devices that required a standard QWERTY keyboard. The BlackBerry launched in early 1999 was a product that slotted into the market gap. The device had a QWERTY keyboard, which would become the signature feature of the BlackBerry brand and email capability. With the BlackBerry entering the market RIM grew sharply from 50 million USD in revenue in 1999 to 11 billion USD in revenue by 2009 (Martin, 2009: 57-61 and 69).

For a decade, applying design thinking gave RIM a competitive advantage over its competitors. When the book was published back in 2009, the RIM case study was a convincing pitch regarding the potential of design thinking (ibid: 57-78). Looking at the RIM in 2012 the company’s fortunes have turned dramatically since 2009. The BlackBerry devices are no longer the dominant force that they once were in the smart phone market.

The BlackBerry 10 operating system was not launched until late 2012 and Lazaridis the founder of RIM resigned from the company (BBC News, 2012). The events occurred within RIM since 2009 suggested that design thinking can open up new opportunities on the market but it is not a guarantee in sustaining success.

However, Martin (2009: 79–103) did list a successful case study of applying design thinking in changing a company. The transition of Procter

& Gamble (P&G) was the case study he chose to show how powerful design thinking is. P&G was in a transformation period at the beginning of the 21^st century. During the restructuring process a merger with Warner-Lambert and Wyeth failed and the share price dropped 30% in a single day. As a result, the board members fired the CEO. The company then appointed Lafley as CEO and tasked him to turn the company around to be more innovative and win back its customers. With this goal the company started the process of transforming itself into a design thinking

51 moved on, a prototype design thinking training course emerged for P&G business leaders and according to the program these are the three essential parts to design thinking in a business context:

 Deep and holistic user understanding

 Visualisation of new possibilities, prototyping, and refining

 The creation of a new activity system to bring the nascent idea to reality and profitable operation (Martin, 2009: 88) The training course was designed specifically for business teams to get hands on experience in applying design thinking into their daily tasks. As soon as the course was refined and P&G learnt how to run it designers seemed to be phased out. The course has successfully delivered a design thinking tool kit for the managers at P&G. The company then went on to adopt the design thinking approach into other parts of the company such as Research and Development and Global Business Services. Overall the transformation of P&G was successful as it became one of the top ten most valuable companies in the world.

The P&G example was a compelling case study of design thinking transforming a global company. Despite P&G’s successful application and integration of design thinking, Burdick’s (2011) viewpoint of design thinking being used as a branded phrase for innovation can be identified.

Examining the later part of the case study, the training course is a good example of suggesting design thinking can guarantee innovation. The description of the training course appeared to give the impression that upon the completion of the course; the participants would be granted the ability of employing design thinking to generate innovations. In addition,

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looking at the timeline of the case study from 2000 to 2009, it suggested that designers were only involved at the beginning to share the knowledge.

There was no indication of designers participating in other activities during the reform process. The lack of evidence seemed to suggest designers were only involved at the beginning rather than throughout. The outcome of the case study gave the impression that businesses were embracing design thinking as an innovation tool.

Martin’s views on design thinking did not reference the academic origins of design thinking. Martin’s viewpoint of design thinking appeared to focus on the application and linking it to creating innovation. Overall there was enough evidence to suggest design thinking had turned into a phrase relating to innovation for non-design sectors.

Other than Martin, some believed in applying design thinking would yield innovation (Berger, 2009; Brown, 2009; Lockwood, 2010; Verganti, 2009). A number of academics and practitioners jumped on to the trend of believing design thinking was too important to be left with designers as they were keen to take advantage of the growing interest in design thinking’s application. The P&G case study showed there are no guarantees that employing design thinking would change any business’

fortunes overnight.

Perhaps because of design thinking being linked to guarantee innovation, it led some to call design thinking a myth or as Nussbaum (2011) called it:

a failed experiment and stated it was time to move away from design thinking. Nussbaum was one of the advocates of design thinking from the business sector. He was once quoted asking the question ‘Is design too important to be left only to designers? (Nussbaum, 2009).’ Back then Nussbaum believed design was only at the beginning of turning into a more powerful medium as the discipline absorbs more new knowledge.

Moving forward to 2011, Nussbaum was publicly criticising design thinking and questioning the abilities of design consultancies saying the success rate of design thinking is very low.

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Nussbaum claimed the success rate of creating innovation by using design thinking was too low (no evidence was provided in any of his publications); therefore, it was time to move on to the concept of creative intelligence (CQ). CQ (Nussbaum, 2013) was a concept created by Nussbaum and he claimed it is next evolution of design thinking. From Nussbaum’s perspective design thinking was no longer useful; therefore it was time to move onto CQ. However, the CQ concept was based on design thinking therefore it seemed to be contradictory to base the new concept on ‘a failed experiment’ as suggested by Nussbaum. The CQ concept can be seen as an example of practitioners from non-design sectors of portraying design thinking in a different light.

Looking from the design practitioners’ point of view the most notable advocate for design thinking would be Brown (2009), the CEO of IDEO.

From his viewpoint design thinking is a powerful approach for innovation that is effective and accessible to any industries or sectors that wish to employ it. According to him, businesses around the world need to integrate this approach as innovation is the key to long term survival. The integration of design thinking will ensure that. Brown presented a convincing case on how powerful design thinking is. However, as Roozenburg (2010) pointed out Brown failed to show the following:

‘In summary, we can state that Brown’s (2009) ‘new’ design thinking approach presents a prescriptive or even idealistic view, which is ultimately formulated at a rather low resolution level. The instructions are not empirically nor theoretically supported; they are a generalization of his own experience packed in a kind of popularized management problem solving approach.’

Brown could be seen as an example of a design practitioner portraying design thinking in an innovation-biased vision. As a result of this, design thinking was presented as a process that almost guaranteed innovation.

Despite portraying design thinking in such a manner, it could argued that Brown has brought some welcome attention from the non-design sectors to the design industry by showcasing the potential of design thinking, regardless of the lack of theory from his approach.

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