A Peek Behind the Curtains of Design Thinking in Business · In this report, I revisit the findings from my research on design thinking in business.3 The research primar-ily builds

Creativity in a Formula?A Peek Behind the Curtains of Design Thinking in Business

by Caroline Heerema

In recent years, design thinking has gained popularity as a problem-solving

method that can help “traditional” non-design companies unleash creativity

and cope with complexity. This Executive Report looks into the crucial activity

and thinking patterns that emerge from teams using the method. It uncovers

some of the positive team dynamics associated with the method and

discusses various factors that enable the successful execution of the design

thinking process.

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Creativity in a Formula? A Peek Behind the Curtains of Design Thinking in Business

Globalization, rapid technological developments,and increasing competition are some of the factorsthat characterize the current business environment inmany industries. Striving for optimization of the statusquo is no longer a viable long-term strategy for mostcompanies. Instead, they have to stay on their toes andneed the capabilities to anticipate or quickly adjust toa complex and ever-changing environment. If theydon’t, these companies might soon be out of the game.“Innovation” has therefore been the word on every-one’s tongue for the past few decades. More recently,“creativity” has followed suit and is perceived as akey driver of innovation.

A study by IBM, building on more than 1,500 inter-views with CEOs from 60 countries, showed that cre-ativity is seen as the single most important leadershipcompetence for dealing with today’s toughest businesschallenge: the increasing complexity of the global envi-ronment.1 However, almost half of the interviewedCEOs also indicated that their companies are underpre-pared to deal with this challenge. The quest for achiev-ing this valuable but also slightly mysterious creativecompetence may partly explain why the relatively newphenomenon of design thinking has gained popularityamong managers over the past few years.

For the purpose of this Executive Report, I define designthinking as a method for approaching innovation andproblem-solving that is inspired by the ways in whichprofessional designers2 work and think but can be prac-ticed by persons with no background in design. Themethod consists of a process, tools, and some guid-ing principles. The objective of the method is not forbusiness people to become actual designers, but ratherto build on the belief that much can be learned fromdesigners’ ways of working and thinking to spark cre-ativity and effectively address complex business issues.After all, a common denominator of these professionalsis that they concern themselves with creating solutionsthat are new and original, while dealing with what mayoften seem to be opposing requirements and constraintson functional, aesthetic, economic, and even socialdimensions.

THIS MONTH’S AUTHOR

2 Design Thinking ... Which One?

2 A Short Introduction to the Method

4 Case Studies

5 A Framework of Findings

14 Some Additional Thoughts

16 Wrap-Up

18 Endnotes

18 About the Author

Caroline Heerema

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In this report, I revisit the findings from my researchon design thinking in business.3 The research primar-ily builds on a case study of teams in two Danish com-panies implementing design thinking. It also draws onexisting literature in the field and on observations atDesign to Innovate (D2i), a publicly funded projectaimed at familiarizing companies in the region ofSouthern Denmark with design and design thinking.

In an area in which empirical research so far has beenlimited, I wanted to explore what lies behind designthinking methods, as they are taught and implementedin non-design companies. If design thinking methodsare indeed helping businesses find more innovativeand more relevant solutions to complex problems, itwould be highly valuable to better understand whatexactly within these methods’ process, principles, ortools is doing the job. Because process models and theirdescriptions vary between the different available ver-sions of the methodology, I look beyond these in orderto identify core activities and thinking patterns that ateam goes through when working with design thinking.I refer to these as “mechanisms.” Additionally, I iden-tify a number of factors that seem to play a primary rolein enabling teams in non-design companies to success-fully execute these design thinking mechanisms.

In this report, I first briefly clarify what I mean bydesign thinking. This is to avoid confusion that other-wise may arise from the different meanings associatedwith the term. Subsequently, I provide a short introduc-tion to the method itself. I then introduce my two casesand their design thinking practice. Next, I present aframework of findings and explain the different conceptsof the framework and their interconnections throughexamples from the cases. To extend this, I provide someadditional thoughts on the presented findings beforefinally wrapping it all up in an alternative visualizationof some of the key learnings from this report.

DESIGN THINKING … WHICH ONE?

In the broadest sense, a distinction can be madebetween two meanings of design thinking. The firstuse of the term, which has also been called “designerlythinking” discourse,4 stems from the academic field ofdesign. It evolved from the design methods movementand was used to refer to the ways in which professionaldesigners think. Soon the term was also applied ina more general sense, to refer to the comprehensivepractice of professional designers.5 Over the pastfew decades, an increasing number of authors havepromoted the broad applicability of designers’ skills,

suggesting that these could also be applied to solvingproblems that lie outside the traditional fields of design,such as problems in business, education, and socialsystems.6 The idea within this designerly thinkingdiscourse remains that design thinking is to be carriedout primarily by designers.

However, a newer discourse has also emerged inwhich design thinking is not something exclusivelypracticed by professional designers. Instead, it is under-stood as a specific problem-solving method, inspired bythe processes and methods that professional designersemploy, but explicitly tailored for use by people withbackgrounds other than design. While the idea thatvarious types of professionals could benefit from usingdesigners’ tools themselves had already been aroundbefore,7 IDEO’s Tim Brown was the first to call this wayof working “design thinking”8 in 2008. It is this newermeaning of the term that I adhere to in this report.

A SHORT INTRODUCTION TO THE METHOD

This section is far from a complete guide to practicingdesign thinking. However, I wanted to provide a briefintroduction to what the design thinking method entailsbefore delving deeper into the underlying mechanismsand their facilitating factors.

Process

A remarkable variety of process models for designthinking exists, with differences in the amount ofphases, visual representations of the process, andterminology used. The various institutions and con-sultants that use and teach the method each have theirown way of presenting it. Furthermore, many com-panies that implement design thinking devise theirown process to fit their specific situation. Despite theirapparent differences, most of the process models arevery similar when it comes to their activities and tools.

The flow of activities starts with thoroughly explor-ing the problem and its context. Various ethnographictechniques for observing and interacting with users intheir natural surroundings are applied. Furthermore, adeeper understanding of the issues at hand is achievedby looking for inspiration from analogous situationsand talking to a wide variety of experts and stakehold-ers. A range of tools exist for capturing data from thefield and sharing these across the team. Next, varioustechniques are used to make sense of the gathereddata. A team works to see through the complexityof the problem and defines its core. This resultsin a reframed problem that serves as a point of

departure for ideation sessions, in which a large quan-tity of potential directions for solutions is developed.Very early, various low-resolution prototyping tech-niques are employed in order to develop abstract ideasinto somewhat more concrete initial concepts. Such pro-totypes may also be taken out into the field at an earlystage, despite the fact that they may not at all resemblean end product or solution yet, in order to elicit userfeedback and test the concepts’ underlying the assump-tions. The aim is only to convey the overall experiencethat a concept is meant to create and not yet focus onspecific parts or features. Based on its learnings, a teamthen seeks to identify the (still broad) concept that itbelieves may have the most potential to successfullyaddress the defined problem. Once the team pinpointsthe general direction for the solution, it continues togo through numerous rounds of prototyping and testingto make the concept more concrete and develops its spe-cific features until the solution takes its final form. Thedesign thinking process has an iterative character, oftenlooping back through parts or all of the process.

Many readers of this report are familiar with Agiledevelopment methods and may notice some overlapbetween these and design thinking — especiallythe later stages of solution development in the designthinking process, in which specific features of a con-cept are defined and developed, bearing a strong resem-blance to the iterative development and testing practicesof Agile. If combined right, these two methods mayfunction well alongside each other.

Additional Characteristics

Apart from largely consisting of the same sequenceof activities, the various versions of design thinkingmethodology also share some additional characteristics,with a few highlighted below. Some of these character-istics, such as co-creation, working visually, experiment-ing and failing early, and working in multidisciplinaryteams, build on similar values of the Agile movement,which further underlines the compatibility of the twomethods.

Human- and User-Centered

One of the core elements of the design thinking processis that it is human- or user-centered. The idea is thatmost problems in business and elsewhere essentiallyrevolve around people, such as customers, employees,suppliers, and other stakeholders. To fully grasp theproblems, it is crucial to develop a deep understanding,or empathy, for these people since they will ultimatelybe the users affected by a solution. Design thinking

methods create multiple touchpoints with the usersthroughout the process.

Co-Creation

Partly in extension to the above, co-creation can be prac-ticed at various points of the design thinking process. Ateam may work together with users, experts, and otherstakeholders on activities such as ideation and prototyp-ing in order to ensure the developed solutions are asrelevant as possible.

Working Visually

A fundamental part of design thinking is workingvisually. Throughout a project, all information andsteps taken are made visual through photographs,sketches, diagrams, storyboards, Post-it Notes, tangi-ble artifacts and prototypes, and so on. Visual elementsare often displayed on whiteboards and walls in a proj-ect space so all relevant information is readily availableto a team. Team members are more likely to be on thesame page if they can refer to something visual or tan-gible. Also, the act of making a thought visual forcesteam members to be very concrete. As Brown says:“To draw an idea, decisions have to be made thatcan be avoided by even the most precise language.”9

Future-Oriented

Design thinking promotes the development of newand bold ideas without fearing the unknown. Thisrequires a certain naivety and optimism, in whichideas are not scrutinized using knowledge from thepast. Existing knowledge can only reliably predict thesuccess or failure of existing solutions. One cannot reli-ably foresee the potential of really new ideas. Instead,these must be validated or dismissed through futureevents. This brings us to the next characteristic of exper-imenting, which may generate such future events at anearly stage and at relatively low cost.

Experimentation and Failing Early

Experimentation plays an important role in the designthinking process. It is most obvious during solutiondevelopment stages, where users interact with proto-types in a real-world context. Such experiments allowfor testing of the underlying assumptions of ideas andconcepts. When concepts become more specific, numer-ous approaches to achieving specific functions can betried. Experimentation may also take place during earlystages of the process, using empathy prototypes toverify or further deepen insights about users and theproblem context.

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To avoid confirmation bias during testing, there isa strong focus on disconfirming assumptions andelements of ideas rather than validating them. A well-known phrase, also from Brown, is “fail early to succeedsooner.”10 The idea is that failing is a more valuablesource of learning than succeeding, and failure is there-fore celebrated for the valuable insights it generates forsubsequent iterations.

Multidisciplinary Teams

Finally, working in multidisciplinary teams is a centralfeature of design thinking. Bringing people togetherfrom different backgrounds is key to producing relevantsolutions for today’s complex reality. Another interest-ing take on this matter comes from Jeanne Liedtka,who suggests that it may in fact be the design thinkingmethod and its tools that help multidisciplinary teamsfunction better — instead of the other way around.11

Application

Design thinking is applied in areas such as education,medical care, business, and tackling social problems. Inthe business realm, the method was originally mainlypracticed by innovation and design consultants whoused it to address problems for and with their clientcompanies. It is now also increasingly practiced within“traditional” non-design companies. The method istypically used for product and service innovation,improving organizational processes and addressingvarious levels of strategic issues.

CASES STUDIES

My case studies focus on two teams from two differentcompanies implementing design thinking into certainspecific business processes. There are some clear differ-ences between the teams and their companies on para-meters such as company size, industry, position of theteam in the company, and the type of process in whichthey use design thinking. However, as shown later inthe report, the teams revealed a number of remarkablysimilar insights into the practice of design thinking.

IT-I Innov

IT-I Innov is the pseudonym for my first case company(it did not want its identity revealed for confidentialityreasons). I have also changed the names of departmentsand interviewees. IT-I is a large Danish IT and softwarecompany that develops and delivers IT solutions forthe central government, local governments, and theprivate sector. This case focuses on one departmentwithin the company, called “Innov.” This departmentwas established in 2011 to help IT-I explore potentialnew markets and achieve more radical innovation thanthe existing, primarily incremental development takingplace in the various business units (BUs). Innov consistsof five employees, with diverse educational and pro-fessional backgrounds.

Despite its original objective, the Innov team founditself supporting various incremental innovation proj-ects within the BUs over the past years. It also ended upfollowing products beyond concept development intofinal development and marketing. This inhibited themore explorative work that was Innov’s intended focus.Therefore, the team initiated a shift back to its originalpurpose with the support of its division manager andtop management. As part of this shift, the team decidedto adopt design thinking methods to direct its innova-tion process. It participated in an online design think-ing course and spent several months practicing withdesign thinking methods. Recently, the team took partin a one-day, tailor-made design thinking workshopthat focused on further developing the team’s under-standing of its innovation process and adding newdesign thinking tools to its existing repertoire.

Drawing on the learnings from the course and work-shop, Innov created its own innovation process modelthat merges parts of its original practices with the newlylearned design thinking methods. While the processactivities are organized into five consecutive phases, theprocess has an iterative nature, revisiting earlier phasesif necessary. The five phases of Innov’s process are:

1. Explore the world. The team takes a very broadview to explore what is currently going on in theworld. It looks for interesting developments andtrends and tries to imagine whether these couldpotentially be relevant for IT-I in order to identifya field of interest for further investigation.

2. Radical curiosity. During this phase, the team is outin the field to talk to and observe a broad variety ofusers, including both its direct clients and potentialend users. During this phase, the team progressivelynarrows down its focus in order to arrive at a clear


Failing is a more valuable source of learning than

succeeding, and failure is therefore celebrated for

the valuable insights it generates for subsequent

iterations.

framing of the problem that it wants to address. Firstit defines so-called perspectives, which it in turn nar-rows down to programs. These are then developedinto a number of distinct challenges.

3. Creative co-creation. While taking departure in oneof the identified challenges, the team and users workside by side in co-creation workshops. The focus ison interaction and joint ideation, through which theteam develops an understanding of the direction inwhich solutions could be taken.

4. Intuitive design. The team develops solution con-cepts through prototyping and testing. The objectiveis to make the concepts as concrete as possible inorder to learn from them.

5. Original solution. This is not so much a phase butstands for Innov’s output, which should be an “origi-nal solution” that can be handed over to one of IT-I’sBUs that performs the final development and bringsit to market.

While the various process phases dictate the type ofactivity performed in general terms, Innov’s teamdetermines its choice of specific tools on an ad-hocand as-needed basis before each session.

I conducted various interviews with “Jane,” a teammember of Innov, and the team leader, “Joe.”

Alivestyle

Alivestyle is a small Danish company that importsframes for glasses and sunglasses from a number ofhigh-end brands and sells them to opticians throughoutScandinavia. It also offers consulting services on prod-uct optimization, interior design and advertising cam-paigns for optician shops, and trainings for opticianpersonnel.

Since the company was founded in 2005, it has gonethrough both expansion and cutbacks and has beenespecially challenged by the effects of the 2008 finan-cial crisis and a buy-out of one owner. The companyis now led by a management team of three people, ofwhom two are the remaining owners of the company.The management team members have been very busyin the past years, which meant that they did not alwaystake sufficient time to communicate effectively withinthe team and develop clear strategies. In recognitionof this, the team decided to adopt design thinkingto improve its strategy development and decision making processes.

To familiarize itself with the method, the team partici-pated in a six-day design thinking course, spread out

over a period of three months. It subsequently engagedin a process of further developing its design thinkingpractices in cooperation with design thinking experts.This effort is still ongoing. While Alivestyle is clearlyat an earlier stage of implementation than IT-I Innov,we can still draw valuable lessons from this company’sdesign thinking practices.

At this stage, the team does not yet have a clearlydefined process model to direct its specific way ofworking with design thinking. The team works with avariety of session types (e.g., sessions for informationgathering, knowledge sharing, ideation, or decisionmaking), instead of consecutive phases. The order ofsession types may vary, but the outcome from one ses-sion often serves as a starting point for the next. Beforeeach session, the team jointly defines what type of ses-sion it will have in order to establish a clear sense of itspurpose and determine the relevant tools to work with.Alivestyle’s team created a special “design thinkingroom,” which is where all its team-based design think-ing activity takes place. As l discuss in more detail later,the room plays an important role in enabling the teamto work effectively with the method.

I conducted a number of interviews with Kim Ravnand Karsten Laugesen, both management team mem-bers and owners of the company.

A FRAMEWORK OF FINDINGS

My in-depth conversations with interviewees from thetwo case companies revealed two core mechanisms ofthe design thinking process that are key to achievingan effective process with a successful outcome. The firstmechanism is the separation of activities that serve toexplore the problem from activities for solution devel-opment. The second mechanism is the balancing andseparation of opening and closing mental modes.

I also repeatedly encountered three factors that pro-mote these two mechanisms. These are a commonunderstanding of the design thinking method withinthe team, the separation of design thinking activityfrom daily operations, and team dynamics throughwhich the first two factors exert their influence on thecore mechanisms.

The framework in Figure 1 shows how the mentionedmechanisms and facilitating factors interconnect. Thefollowing sections explain each of these concepts andtheir interconnections, illustrated by examples fromthe two cases.



Activity Types

Separating Problem Exploration and Solution Development

For both case company teams, it is key to have aclear separation between activities that serve toexplore and define the problem and activities that arepart of the development of solutions for that problem.It is important for the teams to have a clear consensusabout where they are in the process and to avoid mixingthese two activity types. We can conceive of problemexploration and solution development as the two mainparts of which a design thinking process consists (seeFigure 2).

Generally speaking, a design thinking process startswith various activities that serve to explore and definethe problem or challenge that is to be addressed. The

team first puts extensive effort into understanding theproblem, taking into account all its possible facets, thedifferent users, and context. The aim of this part of theprocess is to arrive at a holistic understanding of theissue at hand, which can be channeled into a clear defin-ition of the problem. While it may seem like a paradox,it is only when the full complexity of a situation is takeninto account that it can be (re)framed in a concise andmeaningful way. During this part of the process, it ishighly counterproductive to already think in terms ofpossible solutions. After all, you cannot develop a reallyrelevant solution if you do not yet understand the realcore of the problem it should solve. By mixing in ele-ments of solution development, teams risk narrowingtheir view too early and committing to a direction thatcauses them to miss out on meaningful and valuableopportunities.

Upon properly understanding and clearly framing theproblem, a design thinking process progresses intoactivities for solution development. These typicallyinclude various rounds of ideation, prototyping, andtesting of solutions. These activities take outset in theproblem definition and keep this definition and theunderstanding that has been developed as a frame ofreference. That way, a team can stay on track and on thesame wavelength while venturing into the developmentof a myriad of ideas, new concepts, and concept ele-ments. Amidst these activities, it would be counterpro-ductive if the team, or single members of a team, startedquestioning the framing of the problem or were to bringin ideas for solutions that address a different problemthan the one defined. This punctures the team’smomentum and gets it out of sync.

Now, this does not mean that new insights must becompletely disregarded and a problem definition cannever be adapted. The process as portrayed above is anoversimplification. In reality, such a process is rarely aone-off that plays out in a linear way. A team can moveback from solution development into problem explo-ration if this turns out to be necessary. But before itdoes so, it is important to stick with a problem defini-tion long enough so it may be properly explored andreveal qualified insights as to why it might make senseto change the angle of approach. Such insights maycome from learnings during prototyping or feedbackduring testing, which prove some earlier-made assump-tions wrong.

A switch between the activity types must always bea conscious decision and not something that the teamor individual team members do arbitrarily. Thisapplies both for advancing from finished exploration


Figure 1 — A framework of findings from the case studies.

Figure 2 — The design thinking process can be dividedinto activities for problem exploration and activities

for solution development.

to starting solution development and for circling backto exploration.

Separation of Activity Types at Innov

For Innov, problem exploration takes place duringthe first two phases of its process, in which it workstoward concrete challenges. The team then selects onesuch challenge that functions as the starting point forthe next two phases in which solutions are developed.

Both interviewees felt that it requires particular effortto avoid solution development before the challengesand their context are thoroughly understood. For exam-ple, Jane said, “This thing about avoiding looking forsolutions all the time is challenging because somehowyou’ve just developed an autopilot for that.” But whenthey succeed, it pays off. Jane described how, during arecent project, Innov was able to develop many moreideas eventually, by first exploring the problem spacethoroughly. She explained, “So in the end, we came upwith many more ideas and got a much broader perspec-tive on things because we didn’t narrow down by start-ing to develop ideas and concepts right away.”

Joe explained that while it may be tempting for theteam to start chasing an idea that comes up early, itwould just risk developing something that in the endwould not fly in the outside world. Instead, it is morehelpful to accept the fact that proper problem explo-ration may be time-consuming. In his experience, it iskey to keep the team’s focus on the process, instead ofits eventual results. Ultimately, the extra time spent willbe well worth it. According to Joe:

So if we can take a step back and develop this empathyand feeling of what kind of reality this will have to workin, before we start designing the products, then there maybe a better chance of creating something that actuallymeets a need and therefore gets adopted faster andis more profitable.

Separation of Activity Types at Alivestyle

While Alivestyle’s management team may not yetfollow a process with clearly defined phases or steps,it does distinguish between activities for problemexploration and those for solution development.

Kim explained that keeping the two apart and beingconscious about what type of activity the team isin helps its members see through the complexity ofstrategic questions. He finds that in order to reallyunderstand a situation, it is important to collect allrelevant facts and the team members’ experiencesand knowledge. The process of problem exploration,which Kim described as “this emptying out of the brain,

getting it written down on Post-its, getting them upand clustered on a wall, prioritizing what’s important,what’s not important. What’s most important for you,what’s most important for me,” serves to objectify thechallenges at hand and reveals the real issues to beaddressed. Only once the team feels that these are wellunderstood, does it move toward talking about poten-tial solutions.

Similar to Innov, Alivestyle’s interviewees particularlystressed the importance of putting off solution develop-ment until finishing problem exploration. According toKarsten, it can, however, be quite challenging to holdback and not start jumping to solutions too early. “Ithink it’s something most people in businesses tend todo. You rush too quickly toward where you think youought to be going and then you just rule out a lot ofopportunities,” he said.

Both interviewees are convinced that the managementteam is able to make better decisions because they firstdevelop a thorough understanding of the issues thatneed to be addressed. Furthermore, they believe that theimproved outcomes would make up for the extra timespent. Kim explained:

You may find out that what you thought was mostimportant, maybe really isn’t because suddenly you seethat there’s another person in the company with a biggerproblem, and, of course, that should be addressed first.That insight is worth gold. You end up making muchbetter decisions for both the team and the company.

Mental Modes

A second core mechanism that lies behind the designthinking process involves the use of mental modes:opening mode and closing mode. The two teams wereintroduced to the principle of mental modes during thedesign thinking training that they received through theearlier mentioned D2i project. Both teams found theprinciple highly useful and made it a key element intheir way of working with design thinking.

What the case teams call opening and closing mode isalso referred to as “divergent” and “convergent” modeor thinking in some other versions of design thinkingmethodology.12 Interestingly, the principle is onlyexplicitly explained in a few versions of design think-ing methodology, while it does lie implicitly in mostprocess descriptions and tools.

The idea of divergent and convergent thinking is farfrom exclusive to design thinking. A substantial bodyof literature on divergent and convergent thinking canbe found in the academic fields of organizational cre-ativity and creativity in general.13 Divergent thinking



alone, but also especially when performed in combina-tion with convergent thinking, has long been recognizedas an important creative ability and source of creativeoutcomes. Throughout this report, I will continue refer-ring to the mental modes as opening and closing modesince this is the terminology used in the cases.

Opening and Closing Modes

Within a design thinking process, every single activityeither takes place in opening mode or closing mode.Design thinking tools and accompanying templates areoften designed to promote the appropriate mental modewithin a team. The opening and closing motions of themental modes could be illustrated as shown in Figure 3.

Opening mode is characterized by the generation ofquantity without allowing for interpretation or judge-ment just yet. To open up effectively, a team needs toestablish a free flow in which nothing is consideredwrong and where no constraints are applied. All inputis appreciated, even though its relevance may not yetbe entirely clear. Some examples of activities that takeplace in opening mode are:

Data gathering. Data is collected through the variousresearch activities that take place during problemexploration. This data is recorded as objectively aspossible, without interpreting or connecting a valueto it. This is important because it is not yet possible toknow what will be really relevant for understandingthe problem. If you think you know what you’re see-ing, you’ll only see what you already know.

Brainstorming. Brainstorming takes place at variouspoints of the design thinking process in order to cre-ate alternatives. Its most obvious application is for thegeneration of ideas for solution concepts or specific

elements of these. Brainstorming techniques are alsoused at various other occasions to devise multipleoptions before making choices or planning next steps(e.g., coming up with analogies or sources of relevantinformation in problem exploration stages or thinkingup potential testing scenarios).

Prototype building. This is often not only the execu-tion of a plan, but may also help to open up furtherand identify opportunities. Some dimensions of aconcept may be better explored through doing thanthrough overthinking. Especially in the early stagesof solution development when concepts are not yetvery detailed or clearly defined, free-flow buildingcan help to identify possible directions that thedevelopment could take.

Testing. This involves the collection of feedback andobservations of user behavior through the testing ofprototypes. Similar to data collection during research,a team must remain highly objective and open forsurprises. Avoid standardized feedback forms, don’tguide users too much, and don’t defend the conceptbeing tested. The value of testing often lies in theunforeseen dimensions of feedback and surprisingways in which prototypes are used and misused.

Closing mode involves analytical processes, in whichthe input that was generated in opening mode is inter-preted and structured so that meaning may be inferred.The aim is to eliminate quantity and narrow down focusto the most promising elements. A team must pushitself to make choices and be very concrete and specificso that a clear point of departure for the next openingmode is generated. Some examples of activities that takeplace in closing mode are:

Sensemaking. Sensemaking involves structuringand interpreting gathered data from the field, con-necting the dots, and distilling user insights. Variousmapping tools can be used to help a team distinguishthe trees from the forest. Closing down throughsensemaking activities helps a team define directionsfor further research and ultimately arrive at a clearand concise problem definition.

Selection after brainstorming. Once quantity hasbeen generated through brainstorming, a team struc-tures the input and clarifies specific elements wherenecessary. Evaluation and selection then takes place,using various rating and voting tools.

Defining concepts. This involves deriving concretedescriptions or visualizations of concepts. After hav-ing opened up freely, a team must now concretize


Figure 3 — Opening mode generates quantity without judgement; in closing mode, a team narrows down its focus.

concepts and define, at least for the time being, theircritical functions and boundaries. Concepts may bemore broadly defined at early stages and will gradu-ally become more detailed as development of specificfeatures progresses.

Deducing learnings after testings. A team works tointerpret the feedback and observations from testingto distill learnings from it. These can validate or dis-miss specific assumptions on which the tested con-cept was built and determine which elements toeliminate, change, or keep.

Multiple rounds of opening and closing activity takeplace within each of the two overarching activity typesof problem exploration and solution development.When integrated into the picture of the design thinkingprocess, these alternating opening and closing motionscould look something like Figure 4.

Keeping the Mental Modes Separate

What seems to be of essence for the case teams, but alsochallenging at times, is ensuring that enough time isspent in each mode and keeping the two mental modesstrictly separate. To keep the team synchronized in a neatopening and closing pattern, it must take care to onlywork in one of the modes at a time with the entire team.

Jane from Innov explained: “What we work very hardto achieve is that when we open up, there also reallyhas to be the opportunity to open up, and not closingdown again right away, because that kills everything.”She believes that being really open while in openingmode results in more and better data during problemexploration and more and better alternatives in solu-tion development. On the other hand, being reallyconcrete and systematic in closing mode allows theteam to make qualified choices and move a projectforward. Both interviewees from Innov believe thatthis process of variation and selection leads to betterfinal concepts with higher market potential.

At Alivestyle, keeping the two mental modes separatehelps the team communicate effectively. Before beingaware of the mental modes, team members often haddifficulty understanding where the others were comingfrom. Kim explained how it could sometimes seem liketeam members were on different wavelengths wheninadvertently working in different modes, whichcould easily lead to misunderstandings and conflict.Karsten furthermore added that if the modes are notkept separate, you don’t really get the benefits of eitherof the two. Both agree that the team’s meetings have

become more effective and efficient by using theprinciple of mental modes.

Some Challenges

While both case companies make a strong effort to keepmental modes separate, the interviewees also explainedthat this is not always easy.

Jane and Joe from Innov indicated that keeping every-one in opening mode can be especially challenging. Janethinks that working in opening mode can feel unusualto people since most have been taught throughout theireducation to be critical and think analytically and auto-matically tend to do so. She said:

Even though we’re an innovation department, we stillinstinctively have this critic in us, and when we bring upideas to each other, we’ll often feel like, yeah, well that’sjust the same as this, or haven’t we got that already. Andin fact that’s exactly where we have to park those thingsand instead try to run with an idea and build on it.

Joe also explained that being exclusively in openingmode for a period of time can be uncomfortable forsome, since they cannot yet know what direction aproject will take. On the other hand, while working inclosing mode may seem more familiar to many, Janealso explained that the team is still working to improveits closing mode practices by becoming more structuredand aware of the criteria and restrictions that guide itschoices.

A challenge that the Alivestyle management team hadto overcome in order to effectively manage the mentalmodes was that the team consists of quite distinctpersonalities, with strong preferences for either oneor the other mental mode. Karsten explained:

It’s because we in the management team are so different.I have a tendency to always be opening up and wantingto create all the time, and the others are opposite — theywant to come to a decision and close down.

The two case teams have each adopted some interestingstrategies for dealing with the challenge of keeping theteam in the right mode (see sidebar “Team Strategies”).


Figure 4 — A design thinking process goes through numerous rounds of opening and closing.


Team Dynamics

What I call “team dynamics” in my framework con-sists of a combination of mindset and behavior withina team. These dynamics play an important part inenabling a team to execute the previously describedmechanisms of the design thinking process well. Teamdynamics are promoted by two other facilitating factors:common understanding and separation from dailyoperations, discussed later in this report. As such, thesefavorable dynamics function as a mediating factor,explaining the beneficial effect of the two other factorson design thinking practice.

In a general sense, having a well-functioning team withhealthy team dynamics seems to be key. When askedwhat she finds to be necessary conditions for workingsuccessfully with design thinking, Jane said:

Well, the team is paramount, I think. We were recentlydiscussing how important it is to have a well-functioningteam because we work together so closely. I’m sure that’strue for many work situations, but these sessions are veryintense, and you’re really “on.”

Some specific components of such beneficial teamdynamics can be identified, which clearly contribute tothe proper execution of the design thinking process andthe mechanisms of keeping activity types and mentalmodes apart. These components comprise both ele-ments of behavior and mindset. They are describedbriefly below.

Behaviors

Four types of behavior stand out from the case studies:

1. Explicitly discussing process. Both case teams explic-itly determine what activities and mental modes theywill work with before starting a session. Also duringa session, the teams address their process and meth-ods in use in order to stay aware of where they areand where they should be going.

2. Directing own behavior. Individual team memberstry to be conscious of their own behavior and activelydirect it so that it is appropriate for the specific activityand mental mode in which the team works. This maymean avoiding talking about solutions when the teamis still exploring a problem. It can also be efforts to stayin mode and not interrupt with new input in closingmode or with judgement in opening mode.

3. Correcting behaviors of others. Team members regu-larly alert each other if they think that an individualor the team may be moving in a wrong direction. Bydoing so, they help assure that the team stays in theright activity and mental mode. This correcting ofeach other is done in a gentle and positive mannerand also seems to be accepted by the recipients as aform of help rather than personal critique.

4. Constructive behaviors. These include behaviorssuch as allowing sufficient space and time for fellowteam members to express themselves and making agenuine attempt to understand what others are say-ing. Team members also tend to focus less on theirown ideas and input. Instead, they objectively con-sider everything on the table and build on the inputof others.


TEAM STRATEGIES

The strategies that the two case teams adopted to keepthem in the right mode include the following:

Rules. Innov has a set of rules to help the team workeffectively in opening mode. Some examples are “quantitybefore quality,” “build on each other’s ideas,” “don’t sayno,” “don’t talk for too long,” and “keep up the pace.”Alivestyle’s team has not defined such rules, but Kimbelieves that it would help the team to do so.

Parking. Both teams “park” issues that do not belongin a certain mode. This means that if someone brings upsomething that would otherwise disturb the mental modein which the team is working, it is noted somewhere so itis not lost, but can be dealt with later. Alivestyle even hasa specific whiteboard for this called “the parking lot.”

“Baa-moo.” Innov has found a nice little tool to gentlyremind each other to stay in mode. Jane explained: “Wehave this “baa-moo” toy (imitating a sheep and cow) onthe table, so every time you say something critical in theopening mode, you’ll be “moo-ed” at. And that’s simplyto practice this. As soon as someone reaches out for it,you’ll know that you’ve gone into closing mode when youshouldn’t have.”

Color-coded boards. Alivestyle’s team has red and blackboards on the walls of its design thinking room, witheach color symbolizing one of the modes. The team thenmoves from one mode to another by physically movingbetween its red and black boards. Kim said: “When we’rein opening mode, we stand in front of a red board. Andthen afterwards we say, OK, let’s take all this stuff fromthe red and then we put it onto the black, to cluster it,get an overview, close down again, and eliminate someof it maybe.”

Mindset

While all interviewees in some way refer to the impor-tance of having the right mindset, what it exactly entailsis less clear cut. Perhaps more research will help revealits exact components in the future. Nevertheless, somecharacteristics of a mindset that promote successful exe-cution of the design thinking process can be describedas follows:

Commitment and energy. Team members have tobring a certain positivity and energy into a session.Working with design thinking can be quite intenseand requires participants to be both mentally andphysically “there” and committed to working withthe methods.

Process focus. A team’s focus should primarily beon the process instead of on deliverables. It has toremain patient and trust that the process will deliverthe desired output in order to resist taking shortcuts.

Open-mindedness. Team members have to be opento unexpected input and untraditional ideas. Theyneed to remain curious and welcome insights thatmay be different from their personal views.

A Common Understanding of the Method

With the term “common understanding,” I refer to ateam’s shared notion of design thinking methods. It isabsolutely key for proper execution of the design think-ing process that the different members of a team holda similar mental image of what their design thinkingpractice entails. This involves an understanding of theprocess, important guiding principles, as well as thevarious tools available and how they are appropriatelyapplied. An important element of a team’s commonunderstanding is the shared language that it developsto refer to its design thinking practice.

The Effects of Common Understanding

When team members have gained a common under-standing of the method, they are better able to approachthe design thinking activities with behaviors and a mind-set conducive to good process execution. Next, I illustratethe influence of this factor on such team dynamics, andultimately the design thinking mechanisms, throughsome examples and testimonies from the cases.

Explicitly Discussing Process

A team is only able to explicitly discuss its process —one of the previously mentioned behaviors — when ithas a shared language based on a shared understanding

of the process. Once the team has this, it allows it tostructure activities and communicate about them in away that keeps everyone on board. Referring to thetraining that the team underwent together, Karstenfrom Alivestyle said, “It has given us a language andsome common tools for saying, ‘OK, now we’re here,now we’re working in the opening mode, and nowwe’re working in the closing mode, and we’ll usethese tools.’ ”

At Innov, the team’s shared understanding is whatallows it to take a very flexible approach to processplanning, often establishing on the spot what toolsand mental modes it will work with. It works becauseall members understand what is meant and are able toact accordingly. Because of this, they are not stuck ina rigid plan defining exactly what steps will be takenduring a project, but can choose their activities accord-ing to what is most relevant at that specific point intime. Jane explained that this may even mean deviatingfrom what the methodology prescribes, if necessary:

I think it’s very important to have the same basic under-standing about the way you work. Sometimes, it justdoesn’t make sense to follow it and then we take a detour.But then we make sure to talk about this, so that we’re allaware that we’re taking a detour by having an ideationsession, for example, even though that’s not where we arenow. But then we know where we left the trail and stillknow where we are and how to get back again.

Directing Own Behaviors and Correcting Others’ Behaviors

When individual team members understand the processthat the team follows, it enables them to direct theirown behavior in an appropriate way and avoid dis-rupting the activities that are taking place. Karstenillustrated how individual team members can stay inthe right mode because of the understanding that theyshare about the mental modes:

It’s all about gaining this understanding. I now under-stand that when we’re closing down, I may have tohold my horses, and if I don’t have anything to say thatbelongs in that mode, I stay quiet. On the other hand, theothers understand that they have to give me some roomwhen we’re in opening mode. I should be allowed toopen up for a bit, and they can join me in that, or if theydon’t have anything to say that belongs in opening mode,they stay quiet.

Individual team members usually have a preference forcertain parts of the process or a specific mental mode.Some may even feel pushed out of their comfort zoneduring certain activities or modes. Nevertheless, know-ing how the process works helps these people endure it.They know what types of activities are yet to come and



can rest assured that there will be a time for their inputor comments as well. Jane provided the followingexample:

We had a colleague before who had a very hard timebeing in this completely open mode and who really likedthings to be well defined. But I think it worked for him toknow that we’d only be there for a while and then we’dmove on. I think that goes for all of us.

Apart from enabling individual team members to stayin the right activities and mental modes, shared under-standing and language also allows them to motivateand correct each other to do so. If a team membershould inadvertently be falling out of mode, for exam-ple, it will only require a gentle nudge to alert this per-son. Kim said, “People can easily have a tendency tojump to closing mode and then it’s very nice to be ableto say, hey, we have to stay in opening mode now.”Because team members share an understanding aboutthe method, it also seems more legitimate to commenton each other’s behavior. Kim explained, “It’s kind ofa more neutral and pleasant way to say to people thatwhat they were just talking about, it may be relevant,but it will have to wait a bit. It creates less conflict.”

Constructive Behavior and Open-Mindedness

The Alivestyle team experienced that as its under-standing of the method improves, the team membersare increasingly able to work constructively with eachother. By being aware of the potential benefits, teammembers make an effort to stay open-minded andrecognize the value of each other’s input. Karstensaid, “When I say something to Laila, she knows sheshouldn’t just hear her interpretation of the issue, butinstead really take a moment to understand my wayof seeing things.” Kim added, “What we’ve achievedthrough a better understanding of how we all thinkis this basis for getting results despite our internaldifferences.”

Commitment

Finally, both case teams experience a strong commit-ment among their members to using the design think-ing methods and making an effort to execute thevarious parts of the process well. An important ele-ment in achieving this commitment seems to be thatthe members of the team share the same knowledgebase after having gone through the design thinkingtrainings and practice together. Karsten said, “A pre-requisite for being successful with this is that we’vejointly built this understanding and excitement aboutthe things we’ve learned.”

Building Common Understanding

There are two main contributors to building a thoroughand shared understanding of the method:

1. Codified design thinking methodology —consisting of a clearly defined process, a concretedescription of important principles, and a set ofreadily accessible tools

2. Joint learning — takes place through training pro-grams and independent practice with the method

The various elements of design thinking methodologyneed to somehow be captured and communicatedthrough explicit descriptions and visual representationsif they are to be effectively conveyed to design thinkingnovices. This lays the fundamentals for a shared mentalimage of the design thinking methods within a team.The familiarity with this explicit methodology is alsowhat guides a team’s practice once it is no longer sup-ported by trainers or facilitators but seeks to work withdesign thinking independently.

In the case of Innov, the combination of the two ver-sions of design thinking that it was taught provided itwith the full package of codified methodology. Build-ing on this knowledge, Innov has furthermore workedto codify its own design thinking practice by clearlydescribing and visualizing its process and by puttingtogether a toolkit that works like a directory of all thedifferent tools that the team has available. These explicitformulations of the team’s way of working form thebackbone of the team’s common understanding andlanguage.

On the flip side, Alivestyle’s key stumbling stone seemsto be that it lacks a clear process model at this time.The methodology that the team was taught during itstraining consisted of a large collection of tools andsome guiding principles such as the principle of mentalmodes. It did not, however, provide a clear process orsequence of activities to take as a starting point. SinceAlivestyle has also not yet finished devising its ownprocess, the team is sometimes unsure how to structureits activities, or it runs into differences of opinion onwhich tool would be appropriate when. Kim said,“I think that we differ a bit in the way we’ve each inter-preted the various methods that were presented to us.”

In addition to the theoretical understanding, it isequally important for a team to develop a practicalunderstanding of design thinking. The method is notjust plug-and-play, and a team needs to develop boththe skills and the confidence necessary for workingsuccessfully with design thinking methods. This is


achieved through joint learning: first during trainingwith the guidance of trainers or facilitators and laterthrough independent practice.

Innov made a remarkable effort in this regard and isnow clearly reaping the fruits of it. It participated inits first training about six months before the interviewstook place and spent several months practicing withthe methods on fictional problems and assignments.The team then updated and further expanded itsdesign thinking skills through an intensive workshopat the D2i project. While both interviewees believethat the team will never be done practicing and learn-ing, they explained that they now feel well equippedand comfortable with the team’s level of commonunderstanding.

Alivestyle’s interviewees also stressed the importanceof learning. While they have already experienced clearbenefits from the team’s current level of commonunderstanding, they believe that it is still quite basic.The team hopes to improve its knowledge and skillsfurther through the workshops that it will conduct withdesign thinking experts. In addition, the intervieweespointed out that improving the team’s understandingwill take time and sustained practice. With regards tothis, Karsten said, “I also didn't have any hopes thatjust because we got to know these methods, we wouldinstantly be experts in them. That would have beenutopic to think so.”

Separation from Daily Operations

A company’s daily operations and design thinking prac-tice are two things that do not easily coexist. The char-acter of activities and necessary mindsets differ stronglybetween the two. When the two are combined, the focuson daily operations typically tends to crowd out designthinking activities. The main problem appears to be thatboth time and budgetary pressures easily overrule long-term considerations. Also, the method may have troublegaining legitimacy among those in the company that donot work with it.

Both case companies have chosen to address this issueby shielding off design thinking activity from their dailyoperations. Such separation is necessary in order toachieve a well-functioning design thinking process inwhich sufficient time is spent on exploring the problemand in which team members go through the variousactivities and alternating mental modes together withoutmixing things up. This facilitating factor primarily seemsto work through its effect on mindset within the team.

Since the two companies each have their own distinc-tive approach, the following sections cover each of thecases separately when illustrating the effects of theirseparation of design thinking and daily operations.

Innov and Daily Operations

At IT-I, design thinking activity has been isolated toInnov, which functions as a separate department witha special status. Also, a part of Innov’s recent effort toredefine itself was aimed at creating an even clearerseparation from IT-I’s other activities. Jane and Joeexplained that this was necessary to allow Innov towork effectively with its design thinking approach toinnovation.

Most of IT-I is highly focused on daily operations.The various BUs are under continuous pressure fromcompetitors and clients, which forces them to keeptheir focus on delivering here and now. This oper-ational focus is important for IT-I in the short term.The company also needs to ensure its long-term viabil-ity by looking for new markets and products, which isthe task that Innov addresses. Jane explained that whenstriving for this more radical innovation, Innov needs adifferent mindset and approach than the rest of IT-I:

You need to have the opportunity to go out and exploreand really go in-depth to be able to find something that isactually really relevant. That shouldn’t be something thatis rushed; you’re not delivering something that has to belaunched tomorrow.

However, Innov had difficulty achieving the rightmindset when working closely with various BUs inprevious years. The team found it hard to legitimizea sufficiently explorative approach and was weigheddown by the many procedures and established waysof working within the rest of IT-I.

The increased separation from the rest of IT-I nowallows the team to feel more at ease with workingwith design thinking and to fully commit to execut-ing the process well. By letting Innov work on its ownprojects and by putting more weight on process goals,it moved away from being overly output-focused. Joe


In addition to the theoretical understanding, it is

equally important for a team to develop a practical

understanding of design thinking.


also explained that because Innov is a separate costcenter, the team can be more patient and is less likelyto skip important parts of the process. He said:

Of course, if your focus is on making money in the short-term, you’ll start looking at, well, how much does it allcost? And should we then be spending a day or two on“exploring the world,” or should we spend them some-where else?

Alivestyle and Daily Operations

At Alivestyle, daily operations demand a lot of attentionfrom the management team. As Kim described it: “I’dsay that our daily work equals interruptions every fiveor 10 minutes. That’s how it is; that’s how we make aliving.” This has also kept the team from spending suffi-cient time on managerial and strategic issues. These arethe topics that the team now wants to address usingdesign thinking. It realized that it needed to find a wayto use these methods without being interrupted. This iswhy it established its design thinking room, which sep-arates the team in space and time from daily operations.

The team schedules its design thinking activity to takeplace in this room every Friday from 8:30-10:00, whichis before stores open and clients start calling. This helpsthe team to establish and maintain the right mindsetfor working with design thinking, both by forcing theteam members to physically stay in their design think-ing activity and by keeping potential distractions out.Karsten explained:

We shut ourselves in because we tend to very easilyswitch to operations mode and pick up the phone orsomething. We have to say, when we’re in here, thenwe’re here. We shouldn’t be doing all sorts of otherthings as well. Now we’ve reserved an hour, so shutoff our phones and tell the employees to not come andask us anything because it would disturb the state ofmind we’re in.

Another reason for shutting themselves off fromthe rest of the company is that it fosters the necessaryopen-mindedness to think freely and bring up crazyideas without having to justify them right away. Whilesome far-out ideas may never be carried out, they are anecessary part of the creative thought process. Karstenillustrated this as follows: “We could be playing with[the thought of] selling slippers, as a metaphor, forexample. Or it could be: what if we’d sell the company?”By keeping such thoughts inside the room, the team canvoice them freely without risking misunderstandingsamong employees.

Keeping up effective separation from daily operationsis not always easy, however. Despite their intentionsto create exclusive time and space for working withdesign thinking, both Kim and Karsten admitted that itcan still be challenging to not let daily operations inter-fere. Holidays, urgent client issues, and special eventssuch as trade fairs have all too often prevented the teamfrom working in the room during their planned timeslots. Even when the team is working in its room, itcan sometimes get distracted. Kim said, “We’re still notprofessional enough and may let ourselves get carriedaway by something else. Maybe some operational thing,where we just have to talk about a client with somespecial issue.”

SOME ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS

To Separate or to Integrate …

Interviewees from both case companies were very clearabout their need for separation between design thinkingactivity and daily operations of the company. For them,such separation seems to be a precondition for designthinking to work at all. Interestingly, this separationstands in contrast to what some design thinking advo-cates preach.14 According to them, integration of designthinking activities throughout the company is the way togo, and companies should strive to establish a cultureacross the organization that supports the explorativeapproach. Indeed, some examples exist of traditional,non-design companies that seem to be succeeding atspreading design thinking activity across the company.15

So why this contrast? One explanation might be thatthere is a difference between the preferred approach toorganizing design thinking activities in early stages ofimplementation compared to later when the method ismore established. Both case companies are only in theirearly stages of implementing design thinking, and theobserved challenges may be specifically relevant at thattime. The need for separation from daily operations wasvery obvious in both case companies and there is reasonto believe that other companies face similar challengesin the early stages of implementation.

But also in the longer term, there may not be a one-size-fits-all answer to the question whether to separateor to integrate. One should keep in mind that even ifthe ideal state were full integration of design thinkinginto the organization’s activities and culture, it isnot something that is achieved overnight. For most


non-design companies, such a change would be a chal-lenging affair and would require much time and effort.

For some companies, it may in fact not be all that rele-vant, or worth it, to embark on a major integrationprocess. Depending on what it seeks to achieve withthe method, a company may also benefit from the useof design thinking for certain selected processes. Inthis case, shielding design thinking practices from theoperational pressures of the rest of the company couldmake perfect sense in the longer run.

Other companies may have a lot to gain from integrat-ing design thinking in the long term. But they must startsomewhere, and it may be wise to at least let designthinking grow some strong roots in relative isolationbefore exposing it to the rest of the company. Then,when integrating, it is very likely that the specific ele-ments of daily operations that posed a threat to designthinking in the early stages will still need careful man-aging and possibly adjustment. These could be organi-zational practices, such as budgeting, forecasting, andperformance management, and also cultural aspects thatmay be great for performing here and now but less sofor achieving a more exploratory mindset.

Team Dynamics: A Goal in Itself?

A remarkable effect that learning to use and under-stand design thinking methods had in the cases wasthe positive influence on team dynamics and, morespecifically, certain mindsets and behaviors within theteams. While serving as a means to an end, which ispromoting proper execution of the design thinkingprocess, these team dynamics might in fact also beregarded as a desirable end in themselves.

This is especially true at Alivestyle, which primarilyimplemented the method to aid its strategy develop-ment process, and experienced strong positive effectson the management team’s functioning. Also in Innov’steam, this effect is apparent, but maybe less central,which might be explained by the fact that it had beena relatively well-functioning team already.

Interestingly, author Jeanne Liedtka found effects ondesign thinking teams’ functioning similar to my find-ings.16 She concludes:

We came away from our research convinced that thehighest payoff from adopting a design thinking approachwas not necessarily in identifying a solution, but rather ininnovating how people worked together to envision andimplement the new possibilities they discovered.

Another very recent study by Jan Smiedgen, HolgerRhinow, Eva Köppen, and Christoph Meinel alsoshowed that 71% of respondents from companiesthat had implemented design thinking reported thatit improved the working culture within teams.17

If the effect on team functioning is so significant thatit might even serve as a reason per se for adoptingdesign thinking, this could open up an even widerarea of application. While design thinking methodsare currently still primarily aimed at producing inno-vation and solutions to specific problems, similar meth-ods and principles could potentially be leveraged toimprove teamwork or help facilitate meetings in manyother settings.

Codified Methodology

Two important building blocks for achieving commonunderstanding in teams are a clearly described method-ology and learning through training and practice. Itmight be interesting to compare this finding to someof the critique that design thinking has received inliterature.

Some authors from the field of design and the design-erly thinking discourse scold design thinking methodol-ogy for oversimplifying a process that takes designersyears to learn and improve at, by putting it into a codi-fied process and set of tools.18 They point out that busi-ness people will never be able to practice design justby following such a simplified process. Author KevinMcCullagh, for example, states, “While explainingdesign as an algorithm goes down well with managers,this pitch skips over the pivotal importance of talentand craft.”19

I agree with these critics that what the case teams arepracticing is not design. But it is important to realizethat this is also not their objective. Their objective is topractice design thinking as something in its own rightto achieve better outcomes for certain exploratory busi-ness processes. For these teams, a clearly described, andpreferably also visualized, process and toolset functionas beacons that help to navigate confidently through


It may be wise to at least let design thinking grow

some strong roots in relative isolation before

exposing it to the rest of the company.


the process. It provides peace of mind to know that allmembers of the team are using the same beacons toorient themselves, and it enables a team to jointlydetermine its course using a shared language. Sodespite some contrary opinions on the matter, I main-tain that such codified methodology forms an importantbasis for design thinking practice in business by pro-moting a common understanding of the method withina team. This does not seem to stifle or limit the process.In combination with learning, it is what makes it possi-ble in the first place.

Making Mental Modes Explicit

One of the two key mechanisms behind the case teams’design thinking practice was that of alternating betweenmental modes while keeping the two strictly separate.The teams were able to effectively execute this mecha-nism because its principles had been clearly articulatedin at least part of their design thinking training. Theyhad therefore developed a common understanding ofhow it worked and what was required of the team toexecute it right. This in turn helped them to direct theirbehavior accordingly.

Surprisingly, however, the version of design thinkingmethodology taught at these particular trainings isone of the few to deal with the principle so expressly,despite the fact that alternation between mental modes,or divergent and convergent thinking, has been a well-known driver of creativity for a long time. It also liesimplicitly in most versions of design thinking method-ology; it is just not made explicit. Novice teams may beguided automatically to alternate between the modes, ifall goes well, through the tools that they use. However,they have no way of consciously controlling or correct-ing their mental modes and associated behaviors sim-ply because they are not aware of them. From my ownexperience with working with design thinking, I knowthat especially novice teams can run into trouble whenthese principles have not been sufficiently articulated.Misunderstandings and conflict can arise within teamswhen individual members unintentionally work in dif-ferent modes at the same time, and the team may nei-ther achieve the benefits of sufficiently diverging northose of properly converging.

Building on the importance of clearly codified method-ology, I believe that the principle of mental modes(or divergent and convergent thinking) deserves to bemade more explicit in design thinking discourse andin the various versions of the methodology usedto teach design thinking to non-design companies.This would better drive common understanding and

ultimately effective execution of the design thinkingprocess for teams that work to implement the methodsinto their business processes.

WRAP-UP

In this report, I have discussed the use of design think-ing — a creative problem-solving method — in busi-ness. I have identified two key mechanisms of aneffective design thinking process:

1. Separation of activities for problem exploration andsolution development

2. Alternating and separating opening mode andclosing mode

I also discussed three factors that interact to promotethese mechanisms:

1. A common understanding of design thinkingmethods

2. Separation from daily operations

3. Team dynamics

The two case companies presented reveal the impor-tance of achieving a strong common understanding ofthe design thinking process and practice within a team.Such understanding, and the accompanying sharedlanguage, builds on codified methodology and learningthrough training and independent practice. The casesalso reveal the importance of shielding design thinkingactivity from the pressures of daily operations, at leastin the early stages of implementation, and maybe alsoin the longer term.

A common understanding of the method and separa-tion from daily operations promote a mindset and setof behaviors — together labeled “team dynamics” —that enable a team to successfully carry out the twocore mechanisms of a design thinking process. Thismeans that the team explores a problem sufficientlybefore developing solutions and that it keeps activitiesfor problem exploration and solution developmentstrictly apart. Second, the team alternates and clearlydistinguishes between working in opening and closingmode, while constantly ensuring that all team membersare synchronized in the same mode.

One Picture Says More ...

While the earlier framework (see Figure 1) may haveworked fine for structuring my findings from the casestudies, it is arguably not the sexiest of images. Keep-ing with the design thinking tradition, I would like


to conclude this report with a somewhat more vividvisualization of its key learnings. I build on the imagepresented earlier, which shows how the two mecha-nisms relate within a design thinking process. Thatimage essentially shows two dimensions of separation:the separation between two main types of activity andthe separation between mental modes. To that, I nowadd a third dimension of separation, which must take

place at a higher level, by protecting the design thinkingpractice as a whole from the pressures of a company’snormal day-to-day activities (see Figure 5). To make theimage complete, I would also like to capture the impor-tance of a team sharing a strong understanding of itsdesign thinking practice. Putting it all together results inthe image in Figure 6.


Figure 5 — Three dimensions of separation for a successful design thinking process.

Figure 6 — A visualization of some of the major points of this report.


ENDNOTES1“Global CEO Study: Capitalizing on Complexity.” IBM Institutefor Business Value, 2010.

2By “professional designers,” I am primarily referring to design-ers in the field of the applied arts, such as industrial design,graphic design, fashion design, architectural design, and newertypes of design that have evolved from these, such as inter-action design, communications design, and service design.

3The findings discussed in this report originate from researchperformed for my master’s thesis at the Copenhagen BusinessSchool in Denmark.

4Johansson-Sköldberg, Ulla, Jill Woodilla, and MehveÇetinkaya. “Design Thinking: Past, Present and PossibleFutures.” Creativity and Innovation Management, Vol. 22,No. 2, 2013.

5Kimbell, Lucy. “Rethinking Design Thinking: Part I.” Designand Culture: The Journal of the Design Studies Forum, Vol. 3, No. 3, 2011.

6de Mozota, Brigitte Borja. “The Four Powers of Design: AValue Model in Design Management.” Design ManagementReview, Vol. 17, No. 2, 2006; Buchanan, Richard. “WickedProblems in Design Thinking.” Design Issues, Vol. 8, No. 2,1992; and Kotler, Philip, and G. Alexander Rath. “Design: APowerful But Neglected Strategic Tool.” Journal of BusinessStrategy, Vol. 5, No. 2, 1984.

7Boland, Richard J., and Fred Collopy. Managing as Designing.Stanford University Press, 2004; Jacobs, Claus D., and LoizosHeracleous. “Strategizing Through Playful Design.” Journal ofBusiness Strategy, Vol. 28, No. 4, 2007; and Golsby-Smith, Tony.“The Second Road of Thought: How Design Offers Strategy aNew Toolkit.” Journal of Business Strategy, Vol. 28, No. 4, 2007.

8Brown, Tim. “Design Thinking.” Harvard Business Review,June, 2008.

9Brown, Tim. Change by Design: How Design Thinking TransformsOrganizations and Inspires Innovation. HarperBusiness, 2009, p. 80.

10Brown (see 8, p. 17).11Jeanne Liedtka builds this idea on findings from case studies

at companies that have successfully implemented designthinking. See: Liedtka, Jeanne. “Innovative Ways CompaniesAre Using Design Thinking.” Strategy and Leadership, Vol. 42,No. 2, 2014; and Liedtka, Jeanne. “Perspective: Linking DesignThinking with Innovation Outcomes Through Cognitive BiasReduction.” Journal of Product Innovation Management, Vol. 32,No. 6, 2014.

12Brown (see 8); Liedtka, Jeanne, and Tim Ogilvie. Designing forGrowth: A Design Thinking Tool Kit for Managers. ColumbiaUniversity Press, 2011.

13Acar, Selcuk, and Mark A. Runco. “Creative Abilities:Divergent Thinking.” In Handbook of Organizational Creativity.Edited by Michael D. Mumford. Academic Press, 2012; Brophy,Dennis R. “Understanding, Measuring, and EnhancingIndividual Creative Problem-Solving Efforts.” CreativityResearch Journal, Vol. 11, 1998; Guilford, J.P. “Creativity.”American Psychologist, Vol. 5, 1950; and Guilford, J.P. TheNature of Human Intelligence. McGraw-Hill, 1967.

14Brown (see 9); and Martin, Roger. The Design of Business: WhyDesign Thinking Is the Next Competitive Advantage. HarvardBusiness Press, 2009.

15Examples of these companies include SAP, Citrix, Intuit,and Proctor & Gamble.

16Liedtka (see 11, p.44).17Schmiedgen, Jan, Holger Rhinow, Eva Köppen, and Christoph

Meinel. “Parts Without a Whole? The Current State of DesignThinking Practice in Organizations (Study Report No. 97).”Hasso-Plattner-Institut für Softwaresystemtechnik an derUniversität Potsdam, 2015.

18Kimbell, Lucy. “Rethinking Design Thinking: Part II.”Design and Culture: The Journal of the Design Studies Forum,Vol. 4, No. 2, 2012; and McCullagh, Kevin. “Stepping Up:Design Thinking Has Uncovered Real Opportunities.”Design Management Review, Vol. 21, No. 3, 2010.

19McCullagh (see 18, p. 38).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Caroline Heerema is a former professional and national teamathlete who competed in Olympic sailing classes. She is botha Dutch and Danish national. Springing from her career as aprofessional athlete is a drive to continuously improve perfor-mance through nontraditional approaches. After putting sailingbehind her, Ms. Heerema developed a passion for creativeand human-centered approaches to innovation and currentlyresearches the application of design thinking in business.Her latest own design thinking project focused on devisinga concept for introducing the Internet into a prison setting incooperation with the Berlin Senatsverwaltung für Justitz undVerbraucherschütz and JVA Heidering, a prison for convictswith medium-length sentences. Ms. Heerema has studied inthe Netherlands, Denmark, and Canada, and holds a master’sdegree in management of innovation and business developmentfrom the Copenhagen Business School. She can be reached at [email protected].


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Documents

A Peek Behind the Curtains of Design Thinking in Business · In this report, I revisit the findings from my research on design thinking in business.3 The research primar-ily builds