3 things you probably didn’t know about Design Thinking

What is Design Thinking? It’s a human-centred innovation process that emphasizes ethnographic research, iteration and concurrent business analysis (Kolko, 2015; Cooper, Junginger & Lockwood, 2010). Established by a number of companies and design practitioners but popularised by design agency IDEO, it’s a methodology used to improve innovation, customer experience and profits. For the last 15 years, Design Thinking’s influence has been credited with generating innovative new products (3M), disrupting industries (Airbnb), and revolutionising organisational culture (Proctor & Gamble).

So… what makes it so transformational? Here’s three things you probably didn’t know about Design Thinking and why they matter for business.

1. It’s actually really old.

Design Thinking works because it isn’t new. Although extended and configured for business by Tim Brown and Roger Martin in the early 2000s, divergent and convergent thinking has been at the core of mathematics, science and economic theory for hundreds of years. Leonardo da Vinci applied the concept of rapid prototyping and ‘fail fast’ to his design process, producing thousands of drawings and maquettes in order to test concepts. The same goes for a contemporary application of Design Thinking, jumpstart the process with a massive idea…