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Ideas Made to Matter

Design thinking, explained

Rebecca Linke

Sep 14, 2017

What is design thinking?

Design thinking is an innovative problem-solving process rooted in a set of skills.The approach has been around for decades, but it only started gaining traction outside of the design community after the 2008 Harvard Business Review article [subscription required] titled “Design Thinking” by Tim Brown, CEO and president of design company IDEO.

Since then, the design thinking process has been applied to developing new products and services, and to a whole range of problems, from creating a business model for selling solar panels in Africa to the operation of Airbnb .

At a high level, the steps involved in the design thinking process are simple: first, fully understand the problem; second, explore a wide range of possible solutions; third, iterate extensively through prototyping and testing; and finally, implement through the customary deployment mechanisms.

The skills associated with these steps help people apply creativity to effectively solve real-world problems better than they otherwise would. They can be readily learned, but take effort. For instance, when trying to understand a problem, setting aside your own preconceptions is vital, but it’s hard.

Creative brainstorming is necessary for developing possible solutions, but many people don’t do it particularly well. And throughout the process it is critical to engage in modeling, analysis, prototyping, and testing, and to really learn from these many iterations.

Once you master the skills central to the design thinking approach, they can be applied to solve problems in daily life and any industry.

Here’s what you need to know to get started.

Infographic of the design thinking process

Understand the problem

The first step in design thinking is to understand the problem you are trying to solve before searching for solutions. Sometimes, the problem you need to address is not the one you originally set out to tackle.

“Most people don’t make much of an effort to explore the problem space before exploring the solution space,” said MIT Sloan professor Steve Eppinger. The mistake they make is to try and empathize, connecting the stated problem only to their own experiences. This falsely leads to the belief that you completely understand the situation. But the actual problem is always broader, more nuanced, or different than people originally assume.

Take the example of a meal delivery service in Holstebro, Denmark. When a team first began looking at the problem of poor nutrition and malnourishment among the elderly in the city, many of whom received meals from the service, it thought that simply updating the menu options would be a sufficient solution. But after closer observation, the team realized the scope of the problem was much larger , and that they would need to redesign the entire experience, not only for those receiving the meals, but for those preparing the meals as well. While the company changed almost everything about itself, including rebranding as The Good Kitchen, the most important change the company made when rethinking its business model was shifting how employees viewed themselves and their work. That, in turn, helped them create better meals (which were also drastically changed), yielding happier, better nourished customers.

Involve users

Imagine you are designing a new walker for rehabilitation patients and the elderly, but you have never used one. Could you fully understand what customers need? Certainly not, if you haven’t extensively observed and spoken with real customers. There is a reason that design thinking is often referred to as human-centered design.

“You have to immerse yourself in the problem,” Eppinger said.

How do you start to understand how to build a better walker? When a team from MIT’s Integrated Design and Management program together with the design firm Altitude took on that task, they met with walker users to interview them, observe them, and understand their experiences.

“We center the design process on human beings by understanding their needs at the beginning, and then include them throughout the development and testing process,” Eppinger said.

Central to the design thinking process is prototyping and testing (more on that later) which allows designers to try, to fail, and to learn what works. Testing also involves customers, and that continued involvement provides essential user feedback on potential designs and use cases. If the MIT-Altitude team studying walkers had ended user involvement after its initial interviews, it would likely have ended up with a walker that didn’t work very well for customers.

It is also important to interview and understand other stakeholders, like people selling the product, or those who are supporting the users throughout the product life cycle.

The second phase of design thinking is developing solutions to the problem (which you now fully understand). This begins with what most people know as brainstorming.

Hold nothing back during brainstorming sessions — except criticism. Infeasible ideas can generate useful solutions, but you’d never get there if you shoot down every impractical idea from the start.

“One of the key principles of brainstorming is to suspend judgment,” Eppinger said. “When we're exploring the solution space, we first broaden the search and generate lots of possibilities, including the wild and crazy ideas. Of course, the only way we're going to build on the wild and crazy ideas is if we consider them in the first place.”

That doesn’t mean you never judge the ideas, Eppinger said. That part comes later, in downselection. “But if we want 100 ideas to choose from, we can’t be very critical.”

In the case of The Good Kitchen, the kitchen employees were given new uniforms. Why? Uniforms don’t directly affect the competence of the cooks or the taste of the food.

But during interviews conducted with kitchen employees, designers realized that morale was low, in part because employees were bored preparing the same dishes over and over again, in part because they felt that others had a poor perception of them. The new, chef-style uniforms gave the cooks a greater sense of pride. It was only part of the solution, but if the idea had been rejected outright, or perhaps not even suggested, the company would have missed an important aspect of the solution.

Prototype and test. Repeat.

You’ve defined the problem. You’ve spoken to customers. You’ve brainstormed, come up with all sorts of ideas, and worked with your team to boil those ideas down to the ones you think may actually solve the problem you’ve defined.

“We don’t develop a good solution just by thinking about a list of ideas, bullet points and rough sketches,” Eppinger said. “We explore potential solutions through modeling and prototyping. We design, we build, we test, and repeat — this design iteration process is absolutely critical to effective design thinking.”

Repeating this loop of prototyping, testing, and gathering user feedback is crucial for making sure the design is right — that is, it works for customers, you can build it, and you can support it.

“After several iterations, we might get something that works, we validate it with real customers, and we often find that what we thought was a great solution is actually only just OK. But then we can make it a lot better through even just a few more iterations,” Eppinger said.

Implementation

The goal of all the steps that come before this is to have the best possible solution before you move into implementing the design. Your team will spend most of its time, its money, and its energy on this stage.

“Implementation involves detailed design, training, tooling, and ramping up. It is a huge amount of effort, so get it right before you expend that effort,” said Eppinger.

Design thinking isn’t just for “things.” If you are only applying the approach to physical products, you aren’t getting the most out of it. Design thinking can be applied to any problem that needs a creative solution. When Eppinger ran into a primary school educator who told him design thinking was big in his school, Eppinger thought he meant that they were teaching students the tenets of design thinking.

“It turns out they meant they were using design thinking in running their operations and improving the school programs. It’s being applied everywhere these days,” Eppinger said.

In another example from the education field, Peruvian entrepreneur Carlos Rodriguez-Pastor hired design consulting firm IDEO to redesign every aspect of the learning experience in a network of schools in Peru. The ultimate goal? To elevate Peru’s middle class.

As you’d expect, many large corporations have also adopted design thinking. IBM has adopted it at a company-wide level, training many of its nearly 400,000 employees in design thinking principles .

What can design thinking do for your business?

The impact of all the buzz around design thinking today is that people are realizing that “anybody who has a challenge that needs creative problem solving could benefit from this approach,” Eppinger said. That means that managers can use it, not only to design a new product or service, “but anytime they’ve got a challenge, a problem to solve.”

Applying design thinking techniques to business problems can help executives across industries rethink their product offerings, grow their markets, offer greater value to customers, or innovate and stay relevant. “I don’t know industries that can’t use design thinking,” said Eppinger.

Ready to go deeper?

Read “ The Designful Company ” by Marty Neumeier, a book that focuses on how businesses can benefit from design thinking, and “ Product Design and Development ,” co-authored by Eppinger, to better understand the detailed methods.

Systematic Innovation of Products, Processes, and Services , a five-day course taught by Eppinger and other MIT professors.

Leadership by Design: Innovation Process and Culture , a two-day course taught by MIT Integrated Design and Management director Matthew Kressy.
Managing Complex Technical Projects , a two-day course taught by Eppinger.
Apply for M astering Design Thinking , a 3-month online certificate course taught by Eppinger and MIT Sloan senior lecturers Renée Richardson Gosline and David Robertson.

Steve Eppinger is a professor of management science and innovation at MIT Sloan. He holds the General Motors Leaders for Global Operations Chair and has a PhD from MIT in engineering. He is the faculty co-director of MIT's System Design and Management program and Integrated Design and Management program, both master’s degrees joint between the MIT Sloan and Engineering schools. His research focuses on product development and technical project management, and has been applied to improving complex engineering processes in many industries.

How to solve problems using the design thinking process

The design thinking process is a problem-solving design methodology that helps you develop solutions in a human-focused way. Initially designed at Stanford’s d.school, the five stage design thinking method can help solve ambiguous questions, or more open-ended problems. Learn how these five steps can help your team create innovative solutions to complex problems.

As humans, we’re approached with problems every single day. But how often do we come up with solutions to everyday problems that put the needs of individual humans first?

This is how the design thinking process started.

What is the design thinking process?

The design thinking process is a problem-solving design methodology that helps you tackle complex problems by framing the issue in a human-centric way. The design thinking process works especially well for problems that are not clearly defined or have a more ambiguous goal.

One of the first individuals to write about design thinking was John E. Arnold, a mechanical engineering professor at Stanford. Arnold wrote about four major areas of design thinking in his book, “Creative Engineering” in 1959. His work was later taught at Stanford’s Hasso-Plattner Institute of Design (also known as d.school), a design institute that pioneered the design thinking process.

This eventually led Nobel Prize laureate Herbert Simon to outline one of the first iterations of the design thinking process in his 1969 book, “The Sciences of the Artificial.” While there are many different variations of design thinking, “The Sciences of the Artificial” is often credited as the basis.

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A non-linear design thinking approach

Design thinking is not a linear process. It’s important to understand that each stage of the process can (and should) inform the other steps. For example, when you’re going through user testing, you may learn about a new problem that didn’t come up during any of the previous stages. You may learn more about your target personas during the final testing phase, or discover that your initial problem statement can actually help solve even more problems, so you need to redefine the statement to include those as well.

Why use the design thinking process

The design thinking process is not the most intuitive way to solve a problem, but the results that come from it are worth the effort. Here are a few other reasons why implementing the design thinking process for your team is worth it.

Focus on problem solving

As human beings, we often don’t go out of our way to find problems. Since there’s always an abundance of problems to solve, we’re used to solving problems as they occur. The design thinking process forces you to look at problems from many different points of view.

The design thinking process requires focusing on human needs and behaviors, and how to create a solution to match those needs. This focus on problem solving can help your design team come up with creative solutions for complex problems.

Encourages collaboration and teamwork

The design thinking process cannot happen in a silo. It requires many different viewpoints from designers, future customers, and other stakeholders . Brainstorming sessions and collaboration are the backbone of the design thinking process.

Foster innovation

The design thinking process focuses on finding creative solutions that cater to human needs. This means your team is looking to find creative solutions for hyper specific and complex problems. If they’re solving unique problems, then the solutions they’re creating must be equally unique.

The iterative process of the design thinking process means that the innovation doesn’t have to end—your team can continue to update the usability of your product to ensure that your target audience’s problems are effectively solved.

The 5 stages of design thinking

Currently, one of the more popular models of design thinking is the model proposed by the Hasso-Plattner Institute of Design (or d.school) at Stanford. The main reason for its popularity is because of the success this process had in successful companies like Google, Apple, Toyota, and Nike. Here are the five steps designated by the d.school model that have helped many companies succeed.

1. Empathize stage

The first stage of the design thinking process is to look at the problem you’re trying to solve in an empathetic manner. To get an accurate representation of how the problem affects people, actively look for people who encountered this problem previously. Asking them how they would have liked to have the issue resolved is a good place to start, especially because of the human-centric nature of the design thinking process.

Empathy is an incredibly important aspect of the design thinking process. The design thinking process requires the designers to put aside any assumptions and unconscious biases they may have about the situation and put themselves in someone else’s shoes.

For example, if your team is looking to fix the employee onboarding process at your company, you may interview recent new hires to see how their onboarding experience went. Another option is to have a more tenured team member go through the onboarding process so they can experience exactly what a new hire experiences.

2. Define stage

Sometimes a designer will encounter a situation when there’s a general issue, but not a specific problem that needs to be solved. One way to help designers clearly define and outline a problem is to create human-centric problem statements.

A problem statement helps frame a problem in a way that provides relevant context in an easy to comprehend way. The main goal of a problem statement is to guide designers working on possible solutions for this problem. A problem statement frames the problem in a way that easily highlights the gap between the current state of things and the end goal.

Tip: Problem statements are best framed as a need for a specific individual. The more specific you are with your problem statement, the better designers can create a human-centric solution to the problem.

Examples of good problem statements:

We need to decrease the number of clicks a potential customer takes to go through the sign-up process.

We need to decrease the new subscriber unsubscribe rate by 10%.

We need to increase the Android app adoption rate by 20%.

3. Ideate stage

This is the stage where designers create potential solutions to solve the problem outlined in the problem statement. Use brainstorming techniques with your team to identify the human-centric solution to the problem defined in step two.

Here are a few brainstorming strategies you can use with your team to come up with a solution:

Standard brainstorm session: Your team gathers together and verbally discusses different ideas out loud.

Brainwrite: Everyone writes their ideas down on a piece of paper or a sticky note and each team member puts their ideas up on the whiteboard.

Worst possible idea: The inverse of your end goal. Your team produces the most goofy idea so nobody will look silly. This takes out the rigidity of other brainstorming techniques. This technique also helps you identify areas that you can improve upon in your actual solution by looking at the worst parts of an absurd solution.

It’s important that you don’t discount any ideas during the ideation phase of brainstorming. You want to have as many potential solutions as possible, as new ideas can help trigger even better ideas. Sometimes the most creative solution to a problem is the combination of many different ideas put together.

4. Prototype stage

During the prototype phase, you and your team design a few different variations of inexpensive or scaled down versions of the potential solution to the problem. Having different versions of the prototype gives your team opportunities to test out the solution and make any refinements.

Prototypes are often tested by other designers, team members outside of the initial design department, and trusted customers or members of the target audience. Having multiple versions of the product gives your team the opportunity to tweak and refine the design before testing with real users. During this process, it’s important to document the testers using the end product. This will give you valuable information as to what parts of the solution are good, and which require more changes.

After testing different prototypes out with teasers, your team should have different solutions for how your product can be improved. The testing and prototyping phase is an iterative process—so much so that it’s possible that some design projects never end.

After designers take the time to test, reiterate, and redesign new products, they may find new problems, different solutions, and gain an overall better understanding of the end-user. The design thinking framework is flexible and non-linear, so it’s totally normal for the process itself to influence the end design.

Tips for incorporating the design thinking process into your team

If you want your team to start using the design thinking process, but you’re unsure of how to start, here are a few tips to help you out.

Start small: Similar to how you would test a prototype on a small group of people, you want to test out the design thinking process with a smaller team to see how your team functions. Give this test team some small projects to work on so you can see how this team reacts. If it works out, you can slowly start rolling this process out to other teams.

Incorporate cross-functional team members : The design thinking process works best when your team members collaborate and brainstorm together. Identify who your designer’s key stakeholders are and ensure they’re included in the small test team.

Organize work in a collaborative project management software : Keep important design project documents such as user research, wireframes, and brainstorms in a collaborative tool like Asana . This way, team members will have one central source of truth for anything relating to the project they’re working on.

Foster collaborative design thinking with Asana

The design thinking process works best when your team works collaboratively. You don’t want something as simple as miscommunication to hinder your projects. Instead, compile all of the information your team needs about a design project in one place with Asana.

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Design Thinking 101

July 31, 2016 2016-07-31

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Definition: The design thinking ideology asserts that a hands-on, user-centric approach to problem solving can lead to innovation, and innovation can lead to differentiation and a competitive advantage. This hands-on, user-centric approach is defined by the design thinking process and comprises 6 distinct phases, as defined and illustrated below.

The design-thinking framework follows an overall flow of 1) understand, 2) explore, and 3) materialize. Within these larger buckets fall the 6 phases: empathize, define, ideate, prototype, test, and implement.

The 6 Design Thinking Phases: empathize, define, ideate, prototype, test, and implement

Conduct research in order to develop knowledge about what your users do, say, think, and feel .

Imagine your goal is to improve an onboarding experience for new users. In this phase, you talk to a range of actual users. Directly observe what they do, how they think, and what they want, asking yourself things like ‘what motivates or discourages users?’ or ‘where do they experience frustration?’ The goal is to gather enough observations that you can truly begin to empathize with your users and their perspectives.

Combine all your research and observe where your users’ problems exist. While pinpointing your users’ needs , begin to highlight opportunities for innovation.

Consider the onboarding example again. In the define phase, use the data gathered in the empathize phase to glean insights. Organize all your observations and draw parallels across your users’ current experiences. Is there a common pain point across many different users? Identify unmet user needs.

Brainstorm a range of crazy, creative ideas that address the unmet user needs identified in the define phase. Give yourself and your team total freedom; no idea is too farfetched and quantity supersedes quality.

At this phase, bring your team members together and sketch out many different ideas. Then, have them share ideas with one another, mixing and remixing, building on others' ideas.

Build real, tactile representations for a subset of your ideas. The goal of this phase is to understand what components of your ideas work, and which do not. In this phase you begin to weigh the impact vs. feasibility of your ideas through feedback on your prototypes.

Make your ideas tactile. If it is a new landing page, draw out a wireframe and get feedback internally. Change it based on feedback, then prototype it again in quick and dirty code. Then, share it with another group of people.

Return to your users for feedback. Ask yourself ‘Does this solution meet users’ needs?’ and ‘Has it improved how they feel, think, or do their tasks?’

Put your prototype in front of real customers and verify that it achieves your goals. Has the users’ perspective during onboarding improved? Does the new landing page increase time or money spent on your site? As you are executing your vision, continue to test along the way.

Put the vision into effect. Ensure that your solution is materialized and touches the lives of your end users.

This is the most important part of design thinking, but it is the one most often forgotten. As Don Norman preaches, “we need more design doing.” Design thinking does not free you from the actual design doing. It’s not magic.

“There’s no such thing as a creative type. As if creativity is a verb, a very time-consuming verb. It’s about taking an idea in your head, and transforming that idea into something real. And that’s always going to be a long and difficult process. If you’re doing it right, it’s going to feel like work.” - Milton Glaser

As impactful as design thinking can be for an organization, it only leads to true innovation if the vision is executed. The success of design thinking lies in its ability to transform an aspect of the end user’s life. This sixth step — implement — is crucial.

Why should we introduce a new way to think about product development? There are numerous reasons to engage in design thinking, enough to merit a standalone article, but in summary, design thinking achieves all these advantages at the same time.

Design thinking:

Is a user-centered process that starts with user data, creates design artifacts that address real and not imaginary user needs, and then tests those artifacts with real users
Leverages collective expertise and establishes a shared language, as well as buy-in amongst your team
Encourages innovation by exploring multiple avenues for the same problem

Jakob Nielsen says “ a wonderful interface solving the wrong problem will fail ." Design thinking unfetters creative energies and focuses them on the right problem.

The above process will feel abstruse at first. Don’t think of it as if it were a prescribed step-by-step recipe for success. Instead, use it as scaffolding to support you when and where you need it. Be a master chef, not a line cook: take the recipe as a framework, then tweak as needed.

Each phase is meant to be iterative and cyclical as opposed to a strictly linear process, as depicted below. It is common to return to the two understanding phases, empathize and define, after an initial prototype is built and tested. This is because it is not until wireframes are prototyped and your ideas come to life that you are able to get a true representation of your design. For the first time, you can accurately assess if your solution really works. At this point, looping back to your user research is immensely helpful. What else do you need to know about the user in order to make decisions or to prioritize development order? What new use cases have arisen from the prototype that you didn’t previously research?

You can also repeat phases. It’s often necessary to do an exercise within a phase multiple times in order to arrive at the outcome needed to move forward. For example, in the define phase, different team members will have different backgrounds and expertise, and thus different approaches to problem identification. It’s common to spend an extended amount of time in the define phase, aligning a team to the same focus. Repetition is necessary if there are obstacles in establishing buy-in. The outcome of each phase should be sound enough to serve as a guiding principle throughout the rest of the process and to ensure that you never stray too far from your focus.

Iteration in the Design Thinking process: Understand, Explore, Materialize

The packaged and accessible nature of design thinking makes it scalable. Organizations previously unable to shift their way of thinking now have a guide that can be comprehended regardless of expertise, mitigating the range of design talent while increasing the probability of success. This doesn’t just apply to traditional “designery” topics such as product design, but to a variety of societal, environmental, and economical issues. Design thinking is simple enough to be practiced at a range of scopes; even tough, undefined problems that might otherwise be overwhelming. While it can be applied over time to improve small functions like search, it can also be applied to design disruptive and transformative solutions, such as restructuring the career ladder for teachers in order to retain more talent.

It is a common misconception that design thinking is new. Design has been practiced for ages : monuments, bridges, automobiles, subway systems are all end-products of design processes. Throughout history, good designers have applied a human-centric creative process to build meaningful and effective solutions.

In the early 1900's husband and wife designers Charles and Ray Eames practiced “learning by doing,” exploring a range of needs and constraints before designing their Eames chairs, which continue to be in production even now, seventy years later. 1960's dressmaker Jean Muir was well known for her “common sense” approach to clothing design, placing as much emphasis on how her clothes felt to wear as they looked to others. These designers were innovators of their time. Their approaches can be viewed as early examples of design thinking — as they each developed a deep understanding of their users’ lives and unmet needs. Milton Glaser, the designer behind the famous I ♥ NY logo, describes this notion well: “We’re always looking, but we never really see…it’s the act of attention that allows you to really grasp something, to become fully conscious of it.”

Despite these (and other) early examples of human-centric products, design has historically been an afterthought in the business world, applied only to touch up a product’s aesthetics. This topical design application has resulted in corporations creating solutions which fail to meet their customers’ real needs. Consequently, some of these companies moved their designers from the end of the product-development process, where their contribution is limited, to the beginning. Their human-centric design approach proved to be a differentiator: those companies that used it have reaped the financial benefits of creating products shaped by human needs.

In order for this approach to be adopted across large organizations, it needed to be standardized. Cue design thinking, a formalized framework of applying the creative design process to traditional business problems.

The specific term "design thinking" was coined in the 1990's by David Kelley and Tim Brown of IDEO, with Roger Martin, and encapsulated methods and ideas that have been brewing for years into a single unified concept.

We live in an era of experiences , be they services or products, and we’ve come to have high expectations for these experiences. They are becoming more complex in nature as information and technology continues to evolve. With each evolution comes a new set of unmet needs. While design thinking is simply an approach to problem solving, it increases the probability of success and breakthrough innovation.

Learn more about design thinking in the full-day course Generating Big Ideas with Design Thinking .

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A complete guide to the design thinking process

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Learn the five stages of the design thinking process, get practical tips to apply them, and get templates to seamlessly run design thinking exercises.

How many projects have you worked on that stalled because your team couldn’t align on the best path forward? How many more got shelved because they didn’t meet user needs or expectations? And how many got delayed in rounds and rounds of never-ending feedback?

Thankfully, you don’t have to keep repeating those experiences month after month. The (not so) secret weapon: design thinking .

Design thinking gives teams a new way to approach their projects and overcome some of those well-known challenges. It can help teams understand their users' needs and challenges, then apply those learnings to solve problems in a creative, innovative way. Understanding design thinking can transform your team’s problem-solving approach — and how you work together.

What is design thinking?

Design thinking is an iterative process where teams seek to understand user needs, challenge assumptions, define complex problems to solve, and develop innovative solutions to prototype and test. The goal of design thinking is to come up with user-focused solutions tailored to the particular problem at hand.

While often used in product design, service design, and customer experience, you can use design thinking in virtually any situation, industry, or organization to create user-centric solutions to specific problems.

Design thinking process 101: Definitions and approaches

The design thinking process puts customers’ and users’ needs at the center and aims to solve challenges from their perspective.

Design thinking typically follows five distinct stages:

Empathize stage

The first stage of design thinking lays the foundation for the rest of the process because it focuses on the needs of the real people using your product. At this stage, you want to get familiar with the people experiencing the problems you’re trying to solve, understanding their point of view, and learning about their user experience. You want to understand their challenges and what they need from your product or company to address them.

The goal of this stage is for your team to develop a user-centered vision of the core problem you need to solve. The idea is to challenge any assumptions or biases teams have, instead using their customer perspective as a guiding source. This is important because it aligns the team on what needs to be considered during the rest of the design thinking process.

To help you get a solid understanding of the problems you’re solving, you can ask a lot of questions to build empathy with your users. These will invite people to share their experiences and observations to help your team better understand the problem. Then, you can move on to some specific exercises for the empathy stage of the process.

As you build up your understanding of your users, it's helpful to visualize their experience. A common way to do this is to assemble a customer journey map . This helps identify areas of friction and understand customer preferences.

Learn more: 7 types of questions to build empathy for design thinking

Ideate stage

Your priority here is to think outside the box and source as many ideas as possible from all areas of the business. Bring in people from different departments so you benefit from a wider range of experiences and perspectives during ideation sessions. Don’t worry about coming up with concrete solutions or how to implement each one — you’ll build on that later. The goal is to explore new and creative ideas rather than come up with an actual plan.

Key steps in the ideation phase:

Define your problem : Creating a problem statement ensures that your team can focus on solving the right problem and staying aligned with your end-user or customer’s problem
Start ideating : Choose a brainstorming technique to help organize team participation that fits your goal (More on that in the next section.)
Prioritize your ideas : Once you have several ideas, prioritize them based on how well they take into account the customer’s needs‍ ‍
Choose the best solution : Choose the best ideas to move forward to either the define stage or the prototype stage

Learn more: The ideation stage of design thinking: What you need to know

Your priority here is to generate as many ideas as possible, without judging or evaluating them. This step encourages designers to think creatively and push the boundaries of what's possible. We’ve put together a list of different brainstorming techniques to help your teams come up with creative new ideas.

Put it into practice: How to facilitate a brainstorming session

Prototyping stage

At this stage, your team’s goal is to remove uncertainty around your proposed solutions. This is where you start thinking about them in more detail, including how you’ll bring them to life. Your prototypes should help the team understand if the design or solution will work as it’s intended to.

Here, the focus is on speed and efficiency — you don’t want to invest a ton of time or resources into these solutions yet because you’re not sure they’re the best ones for the problem you’re trying to solve. You just need a functional, interactive prototype that can prove your concept. These are learning opportunities to help you spot any issues or opportunities before you take it any further.

Learn more: A guide to prototyping: the 4th stage of design thinking

Testing stage

The testing stage is normally one of the last stages of the design thinking process. After you’ve developed a concept or prototype, you need to test it in the real-world to understand its viability and usability. It’s where your product, design, or development teams evaluate the creative solutions they’ve come up with, to see how real users interact with them.

Testing your concepts and observing how people interact with them helps you understand whether or not the prototype solves real problems and meets their needs, before you invest in it fully.

However, design thinking is an iterative process: You may go through the ideation, prototyping, and testing phases multiple times to improve and refine your solutions as you learn more from your users.

Read the guide: Testing: A guide to the 5th stage of design thinking

The relationship between human-centered design and design thinking

These two terms are often used together, because they complement one another. However, they’re two different things, so understanding their differences is important.

Simply put, design thinking is a working process, while human-centered design is a mindset or approach.

The first step in finding success with design thinking is to foster a culture of human-centered design within your team. This is because design thinking focuses so heavily on the users and customers — the people using your product or service.

To inspire your team, we’ve put together four human-centered design examples — and explain why they work so well.

Benefits of design thinking

For organizations who’ve never run a design thinking workshop before, it can feel like a big change in how you approach the design process. But it can offer many benefits for your business.

Foster a true design culture within your organization

Design thinking is an iterative process — it’s not something you do once and call it done. The more you do it, the more you’ll see a design-focused culture emerge within your organization, which is much more effective than going to one-off creative retreats or setting up expensive innovation centers that no one ever uses.

This mindset and cultural shift can help scale design thinking within the business. But it’s important to know how to avoid some of the pitfalls companies can face when trying to create a design culture internally.

Learn more: How to use the LUMA System of Innovation for everyday design thinking

Encourage collaboration across departments

Design thinking isn’t just for the designers on the team. The earlier stages of the process — Empathize, Define, and Ideate — are perfect for bringing in people from across the business. In fact, bringing in varied viewpoints and perspectives can help you come up with more creative or effective solutions.

You can use the design thinking process to get more people involved, and help everyone contribute ideas.

Improve understanding of user needs

So many companies say they’re “customer focused,” but lack a clear understanding of what really matters most to their customers in the context of their product or service. Design thinking puts the user front and center, with the Empathize stage dedicated to understanding and discovering user needs.

Learn more: How to identify user needs and pain points

Skills and behaviors needed for successful design thinking

To get the most out of a design thinking exercise, you’ll need a collaborative and creative mindset within your team. The team needs to be willing to explore new ideas, and laser-focused on customer or user needs.

Here are some specific skills to help your design thinking process run smoothly.

Divergent and convergent thinking

Divergence and convergence is a human-centered design approach to problem-solving. It switches between expansive and focused thinking, giving you a process that balances understanding people’s problems and developing solutions.

It focuses on understanding a user's needs, behaviors, and motivations, to help you develop empathy for their problems. Then, it encourages experimentation and iteration to help you effectively design solutions to meet those needs.

Collaborative working

Design thinking isn’t a solo activity. You’ll bring in people from different teams or business areas. To get the most out of the process, everyone needs to collaborate and communicate effectively. Teams that are good at collaborating drive the best outcomes, while also making it an enjoyable experience working together.

There are several core collaboration skills your team needs to succeed:

Open-mindedness
Communication
Adaptability
Organization
Time management

Learn more about why these skills are so important and how you can improve them individually or as a team: 7 collaboration skills your team needs to succeed

Participatory or collaborative design

For many design teams and creative folks, the idea of designing something with other people can be enough to make them shudder. “Design by committee” is their idea of a nightmare. But the design thinking process isn’t about “making the logo 10% bigger” or “using a different shade of blue.” It’s user- and solution-focused.

You’ll get the best outcomes if you bring insights, perspectives, and expertise from multiple stakeholders. That includes at the Prototype and Test stages, as everyone will have ideas to contribute to help you bring solutions to life.

Learn more: What is co-design? A primer on participatory design

Common challenges in design thinking

If your team hasn’t mastered or fully committed to each one of the design thinking steps, you may encounter problems that make it harder to reap the benefits of design thinking.

Here are 4 common challenges that teams face when implementing design thinking practices.

A company culture that doesn't foster collaboration
An inability to adjust to non-linear processes
A lack of in-depth user research
Getting too invested in a single idea

Learn how to address these in Mural's guide on design thinking challenges .

Design thinking tools and templates to help you get started

Using mural for design thinking.

There are lots of tools you can use to run design thinking workshops — including Mural. We help designers work as effectively as possible, so they can get to better solutions quicker. We’ve incorporated some design thinking shortcuts and “hidden” features into our application, making it perfect for in-person or remote (or even asynchronous) collaborative sessions. These include:

Use the C-key shortcut to quickly connect ideas with arrows
Seamlessly import existing information from spreadsheets
Duplicate elements you already created for faster visualization
Fit your canvas to your screen and zoom in
Get even more options using the right-click menu

And to help you get started, we’ve hand-picked some Mural templates relevant to each stage of the design process below.

Templates for the Empathy stage

The empathy map template helps you visualize the thoughts, feelings, and actions of your customersto help you develop a better understanding of the their experiences. The map is divided into four quadrants, where you record the following:

Thoughts: the customer’s internal dialogue and beliefs
Feelings: the customer’s emotional responses
Actions: the customer’s actions and behaviors
Observations: what the customer is seeing and hearing.

Try Mural’s empathy map template

Templates for the Define stage

This exercise helps you understand a situation or problem by identifying what’s working, what’s not, and areas for improvement. You start by listing out the problem, then identifying the positive aspects (the rose), negatives (thorn), and possible solutions for improvement (the buds).

You can use this template to run the exercise individually or in groups. It gives you a way to gather new ideas and perspectives on the problem you’re solving in real-time.

Try Mural’s Rose, thorn, bud template

Templates for the Ideate stage

The round robin brainstorming exercise is a collaborative session where every person contributes multiple ideas. This is a great way to come up with lots of different ideas and solutions in the ideation stage of design thinking, where you’re focusing on quantity and creativity.

Bringing in ideas from every team member encourages people to share their unique perspectives, and can also help you avoid groupthink.

Try Mural’s Round robin template

Templates for the Prototype stage

This template helps you map out how an idea will work in practice, as a functional system. Schematic diagramming is very flexible, so it can be used in many types of projects to make sure your idea is structurally sound. It can help you map out workflows and identify any decisions you need to make to bring your idea to life.

Try Mural’s Schematic diagramming template

Templates for the Test stage

In think aloud testing, users test out a product or prototype and talk through the relevant tasks as they complete them. You can use this template to record the feedback, insights, and experiences of your testers, and identify the success and failure points in your proposed solution.

Try Mural’s Think aloud testing template

Design thinking examples: What it looks like in practice

Design thinking is a very flexible approach that works for companies of any size, from large enterprises to small startups.

Here are some examples of how companies use design thinking, for many types of creative projects.

IBM uses design thinking to design at scale

IBM was traditionally an engineering-led organization, but now it's shifting its focus onto design, working to spread a design culture throughout the business. One of the main ways of doing that is by launching IBM Design Camps.

These camps are comprehensive educational programs that help people understand the concept of design thinking and how it specifically works at IBM.

Learn more about how IBM runs design thinking workshops with remote or distributed teams .

Somersault Innovation uses design thinking to transform its sales process

Somersault Innovation has used design thinking methods to help their sales team co-create solutions with their customers. It’s helped sellers become more customer-centric.

Now, their sellers can create mutual success plans with their prospects, making it easier for them to find a path forward together.

Mural uses design thinking to drive growth

At Mural, our marketing team is constantly following new trends, evaluating metrics, and working to deliver the best experiences for our customers. Design thinking helps us adopt a customer-centric approach by ensuring that we're focused on the right problems. This helps us have the biggest impact on the company’s long-term growth while creating the most value for our users.

David J. Bland planned a book using the design thinking methodology

It’s not just visual creative projects that can benefit from the design thinking process. Founder, speaker, and author David J. Bland used the methodology to plan out his book and collaborate with other team members in the process. In addition to helping him refine and adjust the structure, Bland also used it to gather feedback from early readers and target audiences, which helped get the final product just right.

Support design thinking with tools that facilitate creative collaboration

While we’ve covered some of the skills and behaviors you need to successfully run design thinking exercises, having the right tools can help a lot, too. A collaborative platform helps teams communicate, share ideas, and turn those ideas into solutions together.

Mural helps teams visualize their ideas in a collaboration platform that unlocks teamwork . This helps everyone stay on the same page, while giving them the ability to add their own ideas freely and easily. Mural facilitates effective collaboration both in person and remotely, making it ideal for design thinking workshops for co-located and distributed teams. Plus, it has tons of ready-to-use templates (like the ones we listed above) to help you get started.

Ready to give it a try? Start your Free Forever account today, and run your next design thinking workshop in Mural.

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How to solve problems with design thinking

May 18, 2023 Is it time to throw out the standard playbook when it comes to problem solving? Uniquely challenging times call for unique approaches, write Michael Birshan , Ben Sheppard , and coauthors in a recent article , and design thinking offers a much-needed fresh perspective for leaders navigating volatility. Design thinking is a systemic, intuitive, customer-focused problem-solving approach that can create significant value and boost organizational resilience. The proof is in the pudding: From 2013 to 2018, companies that embraced the business value of design had TSR that were 56 percentage points higher than that of their industry peers. Check out these insights to understand how to use design thinking to unleash the power of creativity in strategy and problem solving.

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Design Thinking: How it works [Theory, Practice & Examples]

So you’ve heard of Design Thinking , but it sounds a bit like hocus-pocus? Imagine standing at the entrance of a sleek, futuristic museum, greeted by a door that refuses to budge. Frustration mounts as you struggle to figure out how to open it, but then, a child approaches, effortlessly pushes the door, and you follow suit, feeling a blend of awe and embarrassment. That moment captures the essence of design thinking—a concept that, like that perplexing door, may initially seem locked, yet holds the key to unlocking innovation, creativity, and problem-solving potential in today’s complex world. In a hurry? Skip the theory and get straight to the 5 stages of design thinking .

woman during the process of design thinking

Design thinking, a term that has surged in popularity, transcends the realm of aesthetics and reaches into the very core of how we tackle challenges , both big and small. It’s a methodology that isn’t confined to designers alone but is a powerful tool for anyone seeking novel solutions, whether in business, education, healthcare, or even personal life. Design thinking isn’t just a buzzword – it’s a dynamic and transformative approach that promises to reshape how we approach problems and create solutions.

Design Thinking: A Definition

Design thinking is a transformative problem-solving approach that puts human needs and experiences at its core. At its essence, it’s a structured methodology that empowers individuals and organizations to tackle complex challenges by fostering empathy, creativity, and innovation. Unlike traditional problem-solving methods, design thinking is not confined to a linear path; instead, it encourages dynamic and iterative thinking to arrive at innovative solutions (see also: Innovation Management ).

Historical Background

To truly grasp the significance of design thinking, it’s essential to delve into its historical roots. The concept finds its origins in the mid-20th century, primarily within the field of industrial design. Visionaries like Herbert A. Simon and L. Bruce Archer were among the early proponents of this methodology, emphasizing the importance of user-centered design . Over the decades, design thinking evolved, incorporating insights from various disciplines, such as psychology, engineering, and business. It gained prominence in the corporate world thanks to influential figures like David Kelley of IDEO and the Stanford d.school, which helped popularize and formalize the design thinking process we know today.

Design Thinking Core Principles

Empathy : Design thinking starts with deep empathy for the end-user. This means understanding their needs, desires, and pain points on a profound level. Empathy forms the foundation upon which innovative solutions are built.
Iteration : Design thinking embraces the idea that the first solution is rarely the best one. It encourages continuous refinement and iteration of ideas through prototyping and testing. This iterative process allows for the discovery of unexpected insights and improvements.
User-Centricity : The user is the focal point of the entire design thinking process. Solutions are not imposed from the top down; they emerge organically from an understanding of the user’s perspective and needs.
Collaboration : Design thinking thrives on interdisciplinary collaboration . It brings together individuals with diverse skills and perspectives to foster creative problem-solving.

These principles, combined with a structured framework, make design thinking a potent methodology for addressing a wide range of challenges , from designing user-friendly products to solving complex organizational problems.

The Stages of Design Thinking

While Design Thinking is often described as a mindset, at it’s core it is a five step process.

Stage I: Empathize

The journey of design thinking commences with a crucial first step— empathy . In this initial stage, designers and problem-solvers immerse themselves in the world of the end-user, seeking to understand their needs , desires, and challenges on a profound level. This isn’t a casual observation – it’s a deep dive into the user’s experiences. Empathy involves conducting interviews, surveys, and even shadowing users in their daily routines. The goal? To gain insights that go beyond what’s explicitly stated—to uncover the unspoken, the latent, and the emotions that influence user behavior. Empathy is the bedrock upon which the entire design thinking process rests, for it’s from this wellspring of understanding that innovative solutions emerge. If you want to learn more about understanding different personalities, take our DISC-Test.

Stage II: Define

With a wealth of empathetic insights in hand, the next stage is to distill these observations into a clear and concise problem statement . What are the specific challenges and pain points that need to be addressed? Defining the problem is a pivotal moment in the design thinking process because it frames the entire journey. It’s about reframing the issue to focus on what truly matters to the user. This stage requires a delicate balance of precision and creativity—precision in articulating the problem, and creativity in reframing it to inspire fresh ideas.

Stage III: Ideate

Now, armed with a well-defined problem, the design thinking process enters the ideation stage —a veritable playground for creative brainstorming. Here, the emphasis is on quantity rather than quality, as the goal is to generate a broad spectrum of ideas, no matter how wild or unconventional they may seem. Ideation sessions often involve cross-functional teams engaging in free-flowing discussions, sketching, and mind mapping . It’s in this stage that the magic of creativity takes flight, and seemingly impossible solutions begin to take shape.

Stage IV: Prototype

Ideation is a boundless landscape of possibilities, but to transform these concepts into tangible solutions, the process moves to prototyping . Prototypes are simplified representations of the envisioned solutions, ranging from paper sketches to interactive mock-ups. The purpose of prototyping is to bring ideas to life in a tangible form that can be tested and refined. It’s an essential step to bridge the gap between abstract concepts and real-world applicability. Prototypes serve as a canvas for experimentation and iteration, allowing designers to uncover flaws, make improvements, and fine-tune their solutions.

Stage V: Test!

The final stage of design thinking is where ideas are put to the test in the real world . Testing involves presenting prototypes to the end-users and gathering their feedback . This user-centric approach ensures that the proposed solutions align with the users’ needs and expectations. The feedback loop is iterative, often leading back to the ideation and prototyping stages as insights are gained. This process of testing and refinement continues until the most suitable and effective solution emerges, ready to address the defined problem effectively.

In these stages, design thinking transforms from a theoretical concept into a hands-on, user-driven methodology that fosters innovation and creative problem-solving. Each stage plays a vital role in the iterative process that leads to meaningful solutions.

Design Thinking Examples & Benefits

To truly appreciate the transformative power of design thinking, let’s turn to real-world examples where this methodology has reshaped industries and solved complex problems.

Case Studies

One such shining example comes from Airbnb . In its early days, Airbnb faced a significant challenge: how to establish trust between hosts and guests in the sharing economy. By applying design thinking principles, they delved deep into the user experience, empathizing with both hosts and guests. They introduced features like user profiles, reviews, and a secure payment system, all aimed at fostering trust and confidence. This approach not only propelled Airbnb’s growth but also revolutionized the hospitality industry.

Another compelling case is that of the healthcare giant, Mayo Clinic . In an industry fraught with complexities and patient-centric challenges, Mayo Clinic turned to design thinking to improve patient experiences. They revamped waiting areas, redesigned appointment scheduling, and introduced user-friendly mobile apps for patients to access their medical records. These innovations not only improved patient satisfaction but also enhanced the overall quality of care.

Benefits of the Design Thinking Process

Design thinking isn’t just a methodology; it’s a mindset that empowers individuals and organizations to navigate the complexities of our modern world effectively. Its benefits extend far beyond problem-solving and innovation, permeating into the very fabric of how we approach challenges and create solutions:

Fosters Innovation : Design thinking places the user at the core of problem-solving, encouraging innovative thinking that leads to groundbreaking solutions.
Promotes Adaptability : In an ever-changing world, design thinking equips organizations with the ability to pivot and evolve in response to shifting market dynamics and customer preferences.
Enhanced User Satisfaction : Whether in product design or service delivery, design thinking ensures that solutions precisely meet user needs and expectations, resulting in happier and more loyal customers.
Encourages Collaboration : Design thinking fosters a culture of collaboration among multidisciplinary teams, promoting teamwork and creativity.

Read more about the benefits in this review of educational research: Having good design thinking skills can assist in solving really complex problems.

salary differences by design thinking skills infographic

Challenges and Criticisms

While design thinking has garnered widespread acclaim, it’s not immune to criticism, and one prevalent concern is the risk of over-hyping. In the rush to embrace this transformative approach, there’s a danger of viewing it as a panacea for all organizational challenges. Design thinking, like any methodology, has its limitations. It’s not a one-size-fits-all solution, and not every problem requires a design thinking approach. Over-hyping can create unrealistic expectations , leading to disappointment when results fall short. It’s essential to strike a balance between recognizing design thinking’s potential and acknowledging its boundaries.

Implementation Challenges

Implementing design thinking within organizations can be a journey fraught with challenges. Resistance to change is a common stumbling block. Employees accustomed to traditional problem-solving methods may find it challenging to adapt to the iterative and user-centric nature of design thinking. Another challenge is the need for time and resources . Design thinking, when done right, demands investment in research, prototyping, and user testing, which can strain budgets and schedules. Additionally, maintaining a consistent commitment to the process throughout the organization can be difficult. Without leadership support and a culture that encourages experimentation and learning from failures, design thinking initiatives may falter. Addressing these challenges requires a thoughtful and strategic approach to ensure that design thinking becomes ingrained in the organizational DNA .

How to Incorporate Design Thinking

Design thinking isn’t reserved for designers alone – it’s a mindset that anyone can cultivate to enhance problem-solving skills and drive innovation in their work and daily lives.

Practical tips for individuals

Start with Empathy : Whether you’re designing a product or tackling a personal challenge, begin by understanding the needs and perspectives of those involved. Ask questions, actively listen , and put yourself in their shoes.
Embrace Iteration : Don’t settle for the first solution that comes to mind. Be open to refining and iterating on your ideas. Embrace failure as a learning opportunity.
Diverse Perspectives : Seek input from people with different backgrounds and viewpoints. Collaborative brainstorming can lead to more creative and effective solutions.
Prototype and Test : Even in non-design contexts, consider creating prototypes or mock-ups to visualize your ideas. Test them with potential users or stakeholders to gather feedback.
User-Centric Approach : Always prioritize the end-user or recipient of your work. Your solutions should address their needs and provide value.

Organizational Integration

To foster a design thinking culture within organizations, several steps can be taken:

Leadership Buy-In : Leaders should champion the adoption of design thinking, setting an example for the rest of the organization. They should communicate its value and allocate resources for its implementation (see also “ Leadership test “)
Training and Education : Offer design thinking training and workshops to employees at all levels. Equip them with the skills and knowledge to apply design thinking methodologies.
Cross-Functional Teams : Encourage collaboration across different departments and disciplines. Create teams that bring together diverse skills and perspectives for problem-solving.
Design Thinking Spaces : Designate physical or virtual spaces where employees can brainstorm, prototype, and test ideas. These spaces should be conducive to creativity and collaboration.
Reward Innovation : Recognize and reward employees who contribute innovative ideas and solutions through design thinking. Create incentives for innovation and risk-taking.
Feedback and Continuous Improvement : Establish mechanisms for collecting feedback on design thinking initiatives. Use this feedback to refine processes and adapt to evolving needs.

By following these steps, individuals can harness the power of design thinking in their personal and professional lives, while organizations can create an environment where design thinking thrives, leading to innovative solutions and a more agile , customer-centric approach.

It’s worth emphasizing that design thinking holds greater importance than ever before. It equips individuals and organizations with the tools to navigate change effectively , foster innovation, and create solutions that prioritize the needs of users, transcending disciplinary boundaries.

Consider embracing design thinking in your own context . Whether you’re seeking solutions in your daily life or aiming to cultivate a culture of creativity within your organization, the key lies in embracing empathy, collaboration, and a willingness to experiment. These qualities unlock the potential of design thinking.

In the words of the iconic designer and innovator Steve Jobs , “ Design is how it works .” Let design thinking be the guiding light in our intricate world, where innovation and user-centric solutions pave the path forward. Its enduring relevance underscores our innate capacity to create, adapt, and thrive .

You might also be interested in: Pareto Concept – Why it still works!

Additional Resources

For readers eager to dive deeper into the world of design thinking, there is a wealth of resources available to further your understanding and expertise:

“ Design Thinking for Strategic Innovation ” by Idris Mootee: This book offers a strategic perspective on design thinking and its application in business.
“ Change by Design ” by Tim Brown: Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO, provides valuable insights into the design thinking process and its potential for innovation.
“ The Design Thinking Playbook ” by Michael Lewrick, Patrick Link, and Larry Leifer: A comprehensive guide to practical design thinking methods and tools.
IDEO U ( https://www.ideou.com/ ): IDEO U offers online courses and resources on design thinking, innovation, and leadership.
Stanford d.school ( https://dschool.stanford.edu/ ): Explore Stanford University’s d.school website for design thinking tools, case studies, and free resources.
Nielsen Norman Group ( https://www.nngroup.com/ ): The Nielsen Norman Group offers valuable insights and research on user-centered design and usability.
Coursera Design Thinking Specialization : This series of courses offered by the University of Virginia on Coursera provides a comprehensive understanding of design thinking principles and their application.
edX Design Thinking MicroMasters Program : This program by Rochester Institute of Technology on edX covers design thinking, innovation, and leadership.

VIDEO: Doreen Lorenzo about Design Thinking (TedTalk)

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Training and Development

What is Design Thinking, and how is it used to problem solve?

27 Feb 2024

Stuck in a rut, struggling to find innovative solutions? Traditional problem-solving methods might leave you feeling frustrated and limited. Enter design thinking : a human-centered approach that unlocks creativity and fosters innovative solutions to complex challenges.

This blog will equip you with the knowledge and tools to use design thinking effectively, empowering you and your team to tackle any obstacle head-on. Let’s dive in and explore the transformative power of design thinking.

What IS design thinking?

Design thinking isn’t just for designers. It’s a flexible framework for anyone seeking solutions that are:

Desirable : meeting the needs and desires of users.
Feasible : practical and achievable within constraints.
Viable : sustainable and commercially viable.

Forget linear problem-solving — design thinking is iterative and collaborative . It involves five key stages:

Empathize : Understand your users deeply through observation, interviews, and empathy exercises.
Define : Clearly define the problem based on user insights, not assumptions.
Ideate : Brainstorm a wide range of potential solutions, thinking outside the box.
Prototype : Build low-fidelity prototypes to test and refine your ideas quickly.
Test : Gather feedback from users and iterate on your prototypes based on their responses.

Think of it like building a product: you start with understanding your users’ needs, then explore various possibilities, test them, and refine your approach based on real-world feedback.

How can design thinking help you solve problems?

The beauty of design thinking lies in its versatility. It can be applied to various scenarios, from developing new products and services to improving internal processes and even tackling social challenges .

Here are just a few examples:

A company struggling with customer retention might use design thinking to understand their customers’ frustrations and develop solutions to improve satisfaction.
A non-profit organization might use design thinking to design a more effective educational program by understanding the needs of both students and teachers.
A team facing communication challenges within their department might use design thinking to develop a more collaborative work environment.

Putting design thinking into practice

Ready to unleash the power of design thinking? Here are some tips to get you started:

Assemble a diverse team : Bring together individuals with different perspectives and backgrounds to generate richer ideas.
Start small : Choose a manageable problem to tackle first and experiment with the design thinking process.
Emphasize empathy : Put yourself in your users’ shoes and understand their needs deeply.
Embrace failure : View setbacks as opportunities to learn and iterate.
Build prototypes : Don’t wait for everything to be perfect. Get your ideas out there and test them early and often.
Iterate and improve : Based on user feedback, continuously refine your solutions until they truly address the problem.

Resources to help you on your design thinking journey

Remember, you don’t have to navigate the design thinking journey alone. Here are some resources to help you:

The Interaction Design Foundation (IDF) : A comprehensive website offering free articles, courses, and tools related to design thinking.
IDEO U : An online learning platform with design thinking courses and resources from the renowned design firm IDEO.
Stanford d.school : The Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford University, offering courses, workshops, and resources on design thinking.

Bonus Tip: If you’re looking for a user-friendly platform to create and share your prototypes, try Biteable . Create engaging video presentations, explainer animations , and even interactive prototypes – perfect for testing your design thinking solutions with users.

Unlock better solutions with design thinking

By embracing the human-centered approach of design thinking, you can unlock new possibilities and tackle problems with creativity and innovation. Start your design thinking journey today and see how it can transform your problem-solving approach for the better.

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Stage 2 in the Design Thinking Process: Define the Problem

Once you’ve empathized with your users, you can move on to the second stage of the design thinking process and define the problem your users need you to solve..

If you’ve read our introduction to User Experience (UX) Design , you’ll know that UX is essentially about solving the problems that prevent users from accomplishing what they want to do with our product.

Before you can go into problem-solving mode, however, there is one very crucial step that you need to complete—one that will shape your entire design project from start to finish. In the Design Thinking process , this step is what’s known as the “define” stage.

As the second step in the Design Thinking process, the define stage is where you’ll establish a clear idea of exactly which problem you will solve for the user. You’ll then shape this into a problem statement which will act as your northern star throughout the design process.

In this guide, we’ll tell you everything you need to know about this stage in the Design Thinking process, as well as how to define a meaningful problem statement.

Here’s what we’ll cover:

What is the define stage and why is it necessary?
What is a problem statement?
How to define a meaningful problem statement
What comes after the define phase?

Before we dive in, though, if you’d like an overview of the entire Design Thinking process, check out this video:

1. What is the define stage and why is it necessary?

As the second step in the Design Thinking process, the define stage is dedicated to defining the problem: what user problem will you be trying to solve? In other words, what is your design challenge?

The define stage is preceded by the empathize phase , where you’ll have learned as much about your users as possible, conducting interviews and using a variety of immersion and observation techniques. Once you have a good idea of who your users are and, most importantly, their wants, needs, and pain-points, you’re ready to turn this empathy into an actionable problem statement.

The relationship between the empathize and define stages can best be described in terms of analysis and synthesis. In the empathize phase, we use analysis to break down everything we observe and discover about our users into smaller, more manageable components—dividing their actions and behaviour into “what”, “why” and “how” categories, for example. In the define stage, we piece these components back together, synthesising our findings to create a detailed overall picture.

Why is the define stage so important?

The define stage ensures you fully understand the goal of your design project. It helps you to articulate your design problem, and provides a clear-cut objective to work towards. A meaningful, actionable problem statement will steer you in the right direction, helping you to kick-start the ideation process (see Stage Three of the Design Thinking process ) and work your way towards a solution.

Without a well-defined problem statement, it’s hard to know what you’re aiming for. Your work will lack focus, and the final design will suffer. Not only that: in the absence of a clear problem statement, it’s extremely difficult to explain to stakeholders and team members exactly what you are trying to achieve.

With this in mind, let’s take a closer look at problem statements and how you can go about defining them.

2. What is a problem statement?

A problem statement identifies the gap between the current state (i.e. the problem) and the desired state (i.e. the goal) of a process or product . Within the design context, you can think of the user problem as an unmet need. By designing a solution that meets this need, you can satisfy the user and ensure a pleasant user experience.

A problem statement, or point of view (POV) statement, frames this problem (or need) in a way that is actionable for designers. It provides a clear description of the issue that the designer seeks to address, keeping the focus on the user at all times.

Problem or POV statements can take various formats, but the end goal is always the same: to guide the design team towards a feasible solution. Let’s take a look at some of the ways you might frame your design problem:

From the user’s perspective: “I am a young working professional trying to eat healthily, but I’m struggling because I work long hours and don’t always have time to go grocery shopping and prepare my meals. This makes me feel frustrated and bad about myself.”
From a user research perspective: “Busy working professionals need an easy, time-efficient way to eat healthily because they often work long hours and don’t have time to shop and meal prep.”
Based on the four Ws—who, what, where, and why: “Our young working professional struggles to eat healthily during the week because she is working long hours. Our solution should deliver a quick and easy way for her to procure ingredients and prepare healthy meals that she can take to work.”

As you can see, each of these statements addresses the same issue—just in a slightly different way. As long as you focus on the user, what they need and why, it’s up to you how you choose to present and frame your design problem.

We’ll look at how to form your problem statement a little later on. Before we do, let’s consider some problem statement “do”s and “don’t”s.

What makes a good problem statement?

A good problem statement is human-centered and user-focused. Based on the insights you gathered in the empathize phase, it focuses on the users and their needs—not on product specifications or business outcomes. Here are some pointers that will help you create a meaningful problem statement:

Focus on the user: The user and their needs should be front and center of your problem statement. Avoid statements that start with “we need to…” or “the product should”, instead concentrating on the user’s perspective: “Young working professionals need…”, as in the examples above.
Keep it broad: A good problem statement leaves room for innovation and creative freedom. It’s important to keep it broad enough to invite a range of different ideas; avoid any references to specific solutions or technical requirements, for example.
Make it manageable: At the same time, your problem statement should guide you and provide direction. If it’s too broad in terms of the user’s needs and goals, you’ll struggle to hone in on a suitable solution. So, don’t try to address too many user needs in one problem statement; prioritize and frame your problem accordingly.

Bearing these things in mind, let’s explore some useful methods for creating a meaningful problem statement.

3. How to write a meaningful problem statement

Writing a meaningful problem statement can be extremely challenging. How do you condense all the complexities of the user’s conscious and unconscious desires into one simple, actionable statement? Fortunately, there are some tried-and-tested methods that will help you do just that.

Space saturation and group

One of the first steps in defining a problem statement is to organize your findings from the empathize phase. Space saturation and group is a popular method used by design thinkers to collect and visually present all observations made in the empathize phase in one space. As the name suggests, you will literally “saturate” a wall or whiteboard with Post-It notes and images, resulting in a collage of artifacts from your user research.

As the Stanford d.school explains: “You space saturate to help you unpack thoughts and experiences into tangible and visual pieces of information that you surround yourself with to inform and inspire the design team. You group these findings to explore what themes and patterns emerge, and strive to move toward identifying meaningful needs of people and insights that will inform your design solutions.”

This method should involve anyone who took part in the empathize stage of the design project, and should take no longer than 20-30 minutes.

The four Ws

Asking the right questions will help you put your finger on the right problem statement. With all your findings from the empathize phase in one place, ask yourself the four Ws: Who , what , where , and why?

Who is experiencing the problem? In other words, who is your target user; who will be the focus of your problem statement?
What is the problem? Based on the observations you made during the empathize phase, what are the problems and pain-points that frequently came up? What task is the user trying to accomplish, and what’s standing in their way?
Where does the problem present itself? In what space (physical or digital), situation or context is the user when they face this problem? Are there any other people involved?
Why does it matter? Why is it important that this problem be solved? What value would a solution bring to the user, and to the business?

Approaching your observations with these four questions in mind will help you to identify patterns within your user research. In identifying the most prevalent issues, you’ll be one step closer to formulating a meaningful problem statement.

The five whys

Another question-based strategy, the five whys technique can help you delve deeper into the problem and drill down to the root cause. Once you’ve identified the root cause, you have something that you can act upon; somewhere specific to focus your problem-solving efforts.

Let’s take our previous example of the young working professional who wants to eat healthily, but finds it difficult to do so. Here’s how you might use the five whys to break the problem down and get to the root cause:

Why is she not eating healthily? → She orders takeaway everyday.
Why does she order takeaway everyday? → Her fridge and cupboards are empty.
Why are the fridge and cupboards empty? → She hasn’t been grocery shopping in over a week.
Why hasn’t she been grocery shopping? → She doesn’t have time to go to the supermarket.
Why doesn’t she have time? → She works long hours and is exhausted.

The root cause here is a lack of time, so your solution might focus on efficiency and convenience. Your final problem statement might look something like this: “Young working professionals need a quick, convenient solution to eating healthily.”

4. What comes after the define phase?

By the end of the define phase, you’ll have turned your findings from the empathize stage into a meaningful, actionable problem statement. With your problem statement to hand, you’ll be ready to move on to the ideation phase , where you’ll turn your problem statement into “how might we” questions and generate as many potential solutions as possible.

As you move through the Design Thinking process, you’ll constantly refer back to your problem statement to make sure you’re moving in the right direction. A well-thought-out problem statement will keep you on track, help you communicate your objectives to key stakeholders, and ultimately lead you to that all-important user solution.

Want to learn more about designing user-friendly solutions? Check out these articles:

UX Best Practices: How Can You Become A Better Designer?
What Is User Experience Design? Everything You Need To Know To Get Started
This Is Why Empathy Matters As A UX Designer
What is lean UX?

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Illustration showing five icons, each one represents a different stage in the design thinking process.

What is Design Thinking and Why Is It So Popular?

Design Thinking is not an exclusive property of designers—all great innovators in literature, art, music, science, engineering, and business have practiced it. So, why call it Design Thinking? What’s special about Design Thinking is that designers’ work processes can help us systematically extract, teach, learn and apply these human-centered techniques to solve problems in a creative and innovative way—in our designs, in our businesses, in our countries, in our lives.

Some of the world’s leading brands, such as Apple, Google and Samsung, rapidly adopted the design thinking approach, and leading universities around the world teach the related methodology—including Stanford, Harvard, Imperial College London and the Srishti Institute in India. Before you incorporate design thinking into your own workflows, you need to know what it is and why it’s so popular. Here, we’ll cut to the chase and tell you what design thinking is all about and why it’s so in demand.

What is Design Thinking?

Design thinking is an iterative and non-linear process that contains five phases: 1. Empathize , 2. Define, 3. Ideate, 4. Prototype and 5. Test.

Design thinking is an iterative process in which you seek to understand your users, challenge assumptions, redefine problems and create innovative solutions which you can prototype and test. The overall goal is to identify alternative strategies and solutions that are not instantly apparent with your initial level of understanding.

Design thinking is more than just a process; it opens up an entirely new way to think, and it offers a collection of hands-on methods to help you apply this new mindset.

In essence, design thinking:

Revolves around a deep interest to understand the people for whom we design products and services.

Helps us observe and develop empathy with the target users.

Enhances our ability to question: in design thinking you question the problem, the assumptions and the implications.

Proves extremely useful when you tackle problems that are ill-defined or unknown.

Involves ongoing experimentation through sketches , prototypes , testing and trials of new concepts and ideas.

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In this video, Don Norman , the Grandfather of Human-Centered Design , explains how the approach and flexibility of design thinking can help us tackle major global challenges.

What Are the 5 Phases of Design Thinking?

Hasso-Platner Institute Panorama

Ludwig Wilhelm Wall, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Design thinking is an iterative and non-linear process that contains five phases: 1. Empathize, 2. Define, 3. Ideate, 4. Prototype and 5. Test. You can carry these stages out in parallel, repeat them and circle back to a previous stage at any point in the process.

The core purpose of the process is to allow you to work in a dynamic way to develop and launch innovative ideas.

Design thinking is an iterative and non-linear process that contains five phases: 1. Empathize, 2. Define, 3. Ideate, 4. Prototype and 5. Test.

Design Thinking Makes You Think Outside the Box

Design thinking can help people do out-of-the-box or outside-the-box thinking. People who use this methodology:

Attempt to develop new ways of thinking —ways that do not abide by the dominant or more common problem-solving methods.

Have the intention to improve products, services and processes. They seek to analyze and understand how users interact with products to investigate the conditions in which they operate.

Ask significant questions and challenge assumptions. One element of outside-the-box / out-of-the-box thinking is to to make previous assumptions falsifiable—i.e., make it possible to prove whether they’re valid or not.

As you can see, design thinking offers us a means to think outside the box and also dig that bit deeper into problem-solving. It helps us carry out the right kind of research, create prototypes and test our products and services to uncover new ways to meet our users’ needs.

The Grand Old Man of User Experience , Don Norman, who also coined the very term User Experience , explains what Design Thinking is and what’s so special about it:

“…the more I pondered the nature of design and reflected on my recent encounters with engineers, business people and others who blindly solved the problems they thought they were facing without question or further study, I realized that these people could benefit from a good dose of design thinking. Designers have developed a number of techniques to avoid being captured by too facile a solution. They take the original problem as a suggestion, not as a final statement, then think broadly about what the real issues underlying this problem statement might really be (for example by using the " Five Whys " approach to get at root causes). Most important of all, is that the process is iterative and expansive. Designers resist the temptation to jump immediately to a solution to the stated problem. Instead, they first spend time determining what the basic, fundamental (root) issue is that needs to be addressed. They don't try to search for a solution until they have determined the real problem, and even then, instead of solving that problem, they stop to consider a wide range of potential solutions. Only then will they finally converge upon their proposal. This process is called "Design Thinking." — Don Norman, Rethinking Design Thinking

Design Thinking is for Everybody

How many people are involved in the design process when your organization decides to create a new product or service? Teams that build products are often composed of people from a variety of different departments. For this reason, it can be difficult to develop, categorize and organize ideas and solutions for the problems you try to solve. One way you can keep a project on track, and organize the core ideas, is to use a design thinking approach—and everybody can get involved in that!

Tim Brown, CEO of the celebrated innovation and design firm IDEO, emphasizes this in his successful book Change by Design when he says design thinking techniques and strategies belong at every level of a business.

Design thinking is not only for designers but also for creative employees, freelancers and leaders who seek to infuse it into every level of an organization. This widespread adoption of design thinking will drive the creation of alternative products and services for both business and society.

“Design thinking begins with skills designers have learned over many decades in their quest to match human needs with available technical resources within the practical constraints of business. By integrating what is desirable from a human point of view with what is technologically feasible and economically viable, designers have been able to create the products we enjoy today. Design thinking takes the next step, which is to put these tools into the hands of people who may have never thought of themselves as designers and apply them to a vastly greater range of problems.” — Tim Brown, Change by Design, Introduction

People seated around a large table, as one person gives a presentation.

Design thinking techniques and strategies belong at every level of a business. You should involve colleagues from a wide range of departments to create a cross-functional team that can utilize knowledge and experience from different specialisms.

Tim Brown also shows how design thinking is not just for everybody—it’s about everybody, too. The process is firmly based on how you can generate a holistic and empathic understanding of the problems people face. Design thinking involves ambiguous, and inherently subjective, concepts such as emotions, needs, motivations and drivers of behavior .

In a solely scientific approach (for example, analyzing data), people are reduced to representative numbers, devoid of emotions. Design thinking, on the other hand, considers both quantitative as well as qualitative dimensions to gain a more complete understanding of user needs . For example, you might observe people performing a task such as shopping for groceries, and you might talk to a few shoppers who feel frustrated with the checkout process at the store (qualitative data). You can also ask them how many times a week they go shopping or feel a certain way at the checkout counter (quantitative data). You can then combine these data points to paint a holistic picture of user pain points, needs and problems.

Tim Brown sums up that design thinking provides a third way to look at problems. It’s essentially a problem-solving approach that has crystallized in the field of design to combine a holistic user-centered perspective with rational and analytical research—all with the goal to create innovative solutions.

“Design thinking taps into capacities we all have but that are overlooked by more conventional problem-solving practices. It is not only human-centered; it is deeply human in and of itself. Design thinking relies on our ability to be intuitive, to recognize patterns, to construct ideas that have emotional meaning as well as functionality, to express ourselves in media other than words or symbols. Nobody wants to run a business based on feeling, intuition, and inspiration, but an overreliance on the rational and the analytical can be just as dangerous. The integrated approach at the core of the design process suggests a ‘third way.’” — Tim Brown, Change by Design, Introduction

Design Thinking Has a Scientific Side

Design thinking is both an art and a science. It combines investigations into ambiguous elements of the problem with rational and analytical research —the scientific side in other words. This magical concoction reveals previously unknown parameters and helps to uncover alternative strategies which lead to truly innovative solutions.

The scientific activities analyze how users interact with products, and investigate the conditions in which they operate. They include tasks which:

Research users’ needs.

Pool experience from previous projects.

Consider present and future conditions specific to the product.

Test the parameters of the problem.

Test the practical application of alternative problem solutions.

Once you arrive at a number of potential solutions, the selection process is then underpinned by rationality. As a designer, you are encouraged to analyze and falsify these solutions to arrive at the best available option for each problem or obstacle identified during phases of the design process.

With this in mind, it may be more correct to say design thinking is not about thinking outside the box, but on its edge, its corner, its flap, and under its bar code—as Clint Runge put it.

Clint Runge is Founder and Managing Director of Archrival, a distinguished youth marketing agency, and adjunct Professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Resetting Our Mental Boxes and Developing a Fresh Mindset

Thinking outside of the box can provide an innovative solution to a sticky problem. However, thinking outside of the box can be a real challenge as we naturally develop patterns of thinking that are modeled on the repetitive activities and commonly accessed knowledge we surround ourselves with.

Some years ago, an incident occurred where a truck driver tried to pass under a low bridge. But he failed, and the truck was lodged firmly under the bridge. The driver was unable to continue driving through or reverse out.

The story goes that as the truck became stuck, it caused massive traffic problems, which resulted in emergency personnel, engineers, firefighters and truck drivers gathering to devise and negotiate various solutions for dislodging the trapped vehicle.

Emergency workers were debating whether to dismantle parts of the truck or chip away at parts of the bridge. Each spoke of a solution that fitted within his or her respective level of expertise.

A boy walking by and witnessing the intense debate looked at the truck, at the bridge, then looked at the road and said nonchalantly, “Why not just let the air out of the tires?” to the absolute amazement of all the specialists and experts trying to unpick the problem.

When the solution was tested, the truck was able to drive free with ease, having suffered only the damage caused by its initial attempt to pass underneath the bridge. The story symbolizes the struggles we face where oftentimes the most obvious solutions are the ones hardest to come by because of the self-imposed constraints we work within.

Newspaper article showing a truck stuck under a bridge.

It’s often difficult for us humans to challenge our assumptions and everyday knowledge because we rely on building patterns of thinking in order to not have to learn everything from scratch every time. We rely on doing everyday processes more or less unconsciously—for example, when we get up in the morning, eat, walk, and read—but also when we assess challenges at work and in our private lives. In particular, experts and specialists rely on their solid thought patterns, and it can be very challenging and difficult for experts to start questioning their knowledge.

Stories Have the Power to Inspire

Why did we tell you this story about the truck and the bridge? Well, it’s because stories can help us inspire opportunities, ideas and solutions. Stories are framed around real people and their lives and are important because they’re accounts of specific events, not general statements. They provide us with concrete details which help us imagine solutions to particular problems.

Stories also help you develop the eye of a designer. As you walk around the world, you should try to look for the design stories that are all around you. Say to yourself “that’s an example of great design” or “that's an example of really bad design ” and try to figure out the reasons why.

When you come across something particularly significant, make sure you document it either through photos or video. This will prove beneficial not only to you and your design practice but also to others—your future clients, maybe.

The Take Away

Design Thinking: A Non-Linear process. Empathy helps define problem, Prototype sparks a new idea, tests reveal insights that redefine the problem, tests create new ideas for project, learn about users (empathize) through testing

Design Thinking is an iterative and non-linear process. This simply means that the design team continuously uses their results to review, question and improve their initial assumptions, understandings and results. Results from the final stage of the initial work process inform our understanding of the problem, help us determine the parameters of the problem, enable us to redefine the problem, and, perhaps most importantly, provide us with new insights so we can see any alternative solutions that might not have been available with our previous level of understanding.

Design thinking is a non-linear, iterative process that consists of 5 phases: 1. Empathize, 2. Define, 3. Ideate, 4. Prototype and 5. Test. You can carry out the stages in parallel, repeat them and circle back to a previous stage at any point in the process—you don’t have to follow them in order.

It’s a process that digs a bit deeper into problem-solving as you seek to understand your users, challenge assumptions and redefine problems. The design thinking process has both a scientific and artistic side to it, as it asks us to understand and challenge our natural, restrictive patterns of thinking and generate innovative solutions to the problems our users face.

Design thinking is essentially a problem-solving approach that has the intention to improve products. It helps you assess and analyze known aspects of a problem and identify the more ambiguous or peripheral factors that contribute to the conditions of a problem. This contrasts with a more scientific approach where the concrete and known aspects are tested in order to arrive at a solution.

The iterative and ideation -oriented nature of design thinking means we constantly question and acquire knowledge throughout the process. This helps us redefine a problem so we can identify alternative strategies and solutions that aren’t instantly apparent with our initial level of understanding.

Design thinking is often referred to as outside-the-box thinking, as designers attempt to develop new ways of thinking that do not abide by the dominant or more common problem-solving methods—just like artists do.

The design thinking process has become increasingly popular over the last few decades because it was key to the success of many high-profile, global organizations. This outside-the-box thinking is now taught at leading universities across the world and is encouraged at every level of business.

“The ‘Design Thinking’ label is not a myth. It is a description of the application of well-tried design process to new challenges and opportunities, used by people from both design and non-design backgrounds. I welcome the recognition of the term and hope that its use continues to expand and be more universally understood, so that eventually every leader knows how to use design and design thinking for innovation and better results.” — Bill Moggridge, co-founder of IDEO, in Design Thinking: Dear Don

References & Where to Learn More

Enroll in our engaging course, “Design Thinking: The Ultimate Guide”

Here are some examples of good and bad designs to inspire you to look for examples in your daily life.

Read this informative article “What Is Design Thinking, and How Can SMBs Accomplish It?” by Jackie Dove.

Read this insightful article “Rethinking Design Thinking” by Don Norman.

Check out Tim Brown’s book “Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation Introduction,” 2009.

Learn more about Design Thinking in the article “Design Thinking: Dear Don” by Bill Moggridge.

Design Thinking: The Ultimate Guide

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What Is Creative Problem-Solving & Why Is It Important?

Business team using creative problem-solving

01 Feb 2022

One of the biggest hindrances to innovation is complacency—it can be more comfortable to do what you know than venture into the unknown. Business leaders can overcome this barrier by mobilizing creative team members and providing space to innovate.

There are several tools you can use to encourage creativity in the workplace. Creative problem-solving is one of them, which facilitates the development of innovative solutions to difficult problems.

Here’s an overview of creative problem-solving and why it’s important in business.

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What Is Creative Problem-Solving?

Research is necessary when solving a problem. But there are situations where a problem’s specific cause is difficult to pinpoint. This can occur when there’s not enough time to narrow down the problem’s source or there are differing opinions about its root cause.

In such cases, you can use creative problem-solving , which allows you to explore potential solutions regardless of whether a problem has been defined.

Creative problem-solving is less structured than other innovation processes and encourages exploring open-ended solutions. It also focuses on developing new perspectives and fostering creativity in the workplace . Its benefits include:

Finding creative solutions to complex problems : User research can insufficiently illustrate a situation’s complexity. While other innovation processes rely on this information, creative problem-solving can yield solutions without it.
Adapting to change : Business is constantly changing, and business leaders need to adapt. Creative problem-solving helps overcome unforeseen challenges and find solutions to unconventional problems.
Fueling innovation and growth : In addition to solutions, creative problem-solving can spark innovative ideas that drive company growth. These ideas can lead to new product lines, services, or a modified operations structure that improves efficiency.

Design Thinking and Innovation | Uncover creative solutions to your business problems | Learn More

Creative problem-solving is traditionally based on the following key principles :

1. Balance Divergent and Convergent Thinking

Creative problem-solving uses two primary tools to find solutions: divergence and convergence. Divergence generates ideas in response to a problem, while convergence narrows them down to a shortlist. It balances these two practices and turns ideas into concrete solutions.

2. Reframe Problems as Questions

By framing problems as questions, you shift from focusing on obstacles to solutions. This provides the freedom to brainstorm potential ideas.

3. Defer Judgment of Ideas

When brainstorming, it can be natural to reject or accept ideas right away. Yet, immediate judgments interfere with the idea generation process. Even ideas that seem implausible can turn into outstanding innovations upon further exploration and development.

4. Focus on "Yes, And" Instead of "No, But"

Using negative words like "no" discourages creative thinking. Instead, use positive language to build and maintain an environment that fosters the development of creative and innovative ideas.

Creative Problem-Solving and Design Thinking

Whereas creative problem-solving facilitates developing innovative ideas through a less structured workflow, design thinking takes a far more organized approach.

Design thinking is a human-centered, solutions-based process that fosters the ideation and development of solutions. In the online course Design Thinking and Innovation , Harvard Business School Dean Srikant Datar leverages a four-phase framework to explain design thinking.

The four stages are:

The four stages of design thinking: clarify, ideate, develop, and implement

Clarify: The clarification stage allows you to empathize with the user and identify problems. Observations and insights are informed by thorough research. Findings are then reframed as problem statements or questions.
Ideate: Ideation is the process of coming up with innovative ideas. The divergence of ideas involved with creative problem-solving is a major focus.
Develop: In the development stage, ideas evolve into experiments and tests. Ideas converge and are explored through prototyping and open critique.
Implement: Implementation involves continuing to test and experiment to refine the solution and encourage its adoption.

Creative problem-solving primarily operates in the ideate phase of design thinking but can be applied to others. This is because design thinking is an iterative process that moves between the stages as ideas are generated and pursued. This is normal and encouraged, as innovation requires exploring multiple ideas.

Creative Problem-Solving Tools

While there are many useful tools in the creative problem-solving process, here are three you should know:

Creating a Problem Story

One way to innovate is by creating a story about a problem to understand how it affects users and what solutions best fit their needs. Here are the steps you need to take to use this tool properly.

1. Identify a UDP

Create a problem story to identify the undesired phenomena (UDP). For example, consider a company that produces printers that overheat. In this case, the UDP is "our printers overheat."

2. Move Forward in Time

To move forward in time, ask: “Why is this a problem?” For example, minor damage could be one result of the machines overheating. In more extreme cases, printers may catch fire. Don't be afraid to create multiple problem stories if you think of more than one UDP.

3. Move Backward in Time

To move backward in time, ask: “What caused this UDP?” If you can't identify the root problem, think about what typically causes the UDP to occur. For the overheating printers, overuse could be a cause.

Following the three-step framework above helps illustrate a clear problem story:

The printer is overused.
The printer overheats.
The printer breaks down.

You can extend the problem story in either direction if you think of additional cause-and-effect relationships.

4. Break the Chains

By this point, you’ll have multiple UDP storylines. Take two that are similar and focus on breaking the chains connecting them. This can be accomplished through inversion or neutralization.

Inversion: Inversion changes the relationship between two UDPs so the cause is the same but the effect is the opposite. For example, if the UDP is "the more X happens, the more likely Y is to happen," inversion changes the equation to "the more X happens, the less likely Y is to happen." Using the printer example, inversion would consider: "What if the more a printer is used, the less likely it’s going to overheat?" Innovation requires an open mind. Just because a solution initially seems unlikely doesn't mean it can't be pursued further or spark additional ideas.
Neutralization: Neutralization completely eliminates the cause-and-effect relationship between X and Y. This changes the above equation to "the more or less X happens has no effect on Y." In the case of the printers, neutralization would rephrase the relationship to "the more or less a printer is used has no effect on whether it overheats."

Even if creating a problem story doesn't provide a solution, it can offer useful context to users’ problems and additional ideas to be explored. Given that divergence is one of the fundamental practices of creative problem-solving, it’s a good idea to incorporate it into each tool you use.

Brainstorming

Brainstorming is a tool that can be highly effective when guided by the iterative qualities of the design thinking process. It involves openly discussing and debating ideas and topics in a group setting. This facilitates idea generation and exploration as different team members consider the same concept from multiple perspectives.

Hosting brainstorming sessions can result in problems, such as groupthink or social loafing. To combat this, leverage a three-step brainstorming method involving divergence and convergence :

Have each group member come up with as many ideas as possible and write them down to ensure the brainstorming session is productive.
Continue the divergence of ideas by collectively sharing and exploring each idea as a group. The goal is to create a setting where new ideas are inspired by open discussion.
Begin the convergence of ideas by narrowing them down to a few explorable options. There’s no "right number of ideas." Don't be afraid to consider exploring all of them, as long as you have the resources to do so.

Alternate Worlds

The alternate worlds tool is an empathetic approach to creative problem-solving. It encourages you to consider how someone in another world would approach your situation.

For example, if you’re concerned that the printers you produce overheat and catch fire, consider how a different industry would approach the problem. How would an automotive expert solve it? How would a firefighter?

Be creative as you consider and research alternate worlds. The purpose is not to nail down a solution right away but to continue the ideation process through diverging and exploring ideas.

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