التفكير التصميمى كتاب2023

Understanding Innovation
Christoph Meinel
Larry Leifer Editors
Design Thinking
Research
Innovation – Insight – Then and Now
Series Editors
Christoph Meinel, Potsdam, Germany
Larry Leifer, Stanford, USA
“Everyone loves an innovation, an idea that sells.” Few definitions of innovation are
more succinct. It cuts to the core. Yet in doing so, it lays bare the reality that selling
depends on factors outside the innovation envelope. The “let’s get creative” imper-
ative does not control its own destiny. Expressed another way, in how many ways
can we define innovation? A corollary lies in asking, in how many ways can the
innovative enterprise be organized? For a third iteration, in how many ways can the
innovation process be structured? Now we have a question worth addressing.
“Understanding Innovation” is a book series designed to expose the reader to the
breadth and depth of design thinking modalities in pursuit of innovations that sell. It
is not our intent to give the reader a definitive protocol or paradigm. In fact, the very
expectation of “one right answer” would be misguided. Instead we offer a journey of
discovery, one that is radical, relevant, and rigorous.
Christoph Meinel • Larry Leifer
Editors
Design Thinking Research

Innovation – Insight – Then and Now
Editors
Christoph Meinel Larry Leifer
Hasso-Plattner-Institut Stanford University
University of Potsdam Stanford, CA, USA
Potsdam, Germany
ISSN 2197-5752 ISSN 2197-5760 (electronic)

ISBN 978-3-031-36102-9 ISBN 978-3-031-36103-6 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36103-6
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland
AG 2023
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Foreword
In 2023, design thinking will be implemented by many and recognized by most. The
trajectory of design thinking cannot be slowed. Change is inevitable, and it is
prudent to employ the tools that enable strategic leaders to transform, scientists to
build prototypes, and the average person to do both. Design thinking is accessible to
everyone.
What is design thinking? Design thinking is a mindset that enables you to
potentially improve any innovation process. The simple steps yield human-centered
solutions that are both dynamic and reflective. Best results are possible when an
interdisciplinary and diverse team collaborates to obtain a 360-degree view.
The Design Thinking Research volumes of the series Understanding Innovation
published by Springer present research findings of top scholars at Hasso Plattner
Institute in Potsdam, Germany, and Stanford University in California, who were
selected to participate in the transatlantic Hasso Plattner Design Thinking Research
Program. Research teams have developed inspiring new tools and state-of-the-art
approaches. In an accessible manner, this volume summarizes the research results of
our research teams in the program year 2021/2022.
Fourteen years ago, I was curious what could be achieved and so decided to
initiate this program. Over the last decade and a half, researchers have indeed made
ground-breaking discoveries. We have come a long way in terms of clearly defining
problems and understanding the underlying principles at work in project teams that
employ design thinking.
Why is design thinking important? It provides guidance and inspiration and
ultimately has societal impact. Practitioners use the design thinking skillsets to
advance and expand their transformation initiatives. Goals vary, but invariably the
results foster innovation in multiple realms: social, economic, technological, and so
forth.
Challenge yourself and those around you, iterate, keep an open mind, learn from
others, communicate effectively, and consider yourself part of the design thinking
community. Adopt this method and work with us to understand its nuances and
v
vi Foreword
broad realms of application. This is an interesting time for the field of design
thinking, with individuals of all ages enabled to take valuable learnings from the
design thinking process. Enjoy the cutting-edge findings presented in this publica-
tion.
Palo Alto, CA, USA Hasso Plattner

Contents
Introduction/Roadmap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Christoph Meinel and Larry Leifer
Decades of Alumni: Perspectives on the Impact of Project-Based
Learning on Career Pathways and Implications for Design
Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Sheri D. Sheppard, Helen L. Chen, George Toye, Aya Mouallem,
Micah Lande, Lauren Shluzas, Timo Bunk, Nada Elfiki,
Johannes J. L. Lamprecht, and Katharina Prantl
Part 1 Application of Design Thinking to Governance and

Social Causes
Predicting Creativity and Innovation in Society: The Importance
of Places, the Importance of Governance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Julia von Thienen, Kim-Pascal Borchart, Detlef Bartsch, Lars Walsleben,
and Christoph Meinel
An Exploration of Agile Governance in Rwandan Public Service
Delivery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Reem Abou Refaie, Lena Mayer, Karen von Schmieden, Hanadi Traifeh,
Voices from the Field: Exploring Connections Between Design
Thinking Approaches and Sustainability Challenges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Nicole M. Ardoin, Alison W. Bowers, and Daniella Lumkong
Part 2 Prototyping
User Perceptions of Privacy Interfaces in the Workplace . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
Michelle S. Lam, Matthew Jörke, Jennifer King, Nava Haghighi,
and James A. Landay
vii
viii Contents
Assisting Learning and Insight in Design Using Embodied

Conversational Agents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
Rebecca Currano and David Sirkin
How to Tame an Unpredictable Emergence? Design Strategies
for a Live-Programming System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
Marcel Taeumel, Patrick Rein, Jens Lincke, and Robert Hirschfeld
Part 3 Enhancement through Design Thinking

What Is Design Thinking? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
Jan Auernhammer and Bernard Roth
NeuroDesign: Greater than the Sum of Its Parts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
Jan Auernhammer, Jennifer Bruno, Alexa Booras, Claire McIntyre,
Daniel Hasegan, and Manish Saggar
A Neuroscience Approach to Women Entrepreneurs’ Pitch
Performance: Impact of Inter-Brain Synchrony on Investment
Decisions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
Stephanie Balters, Sohvi Heaton, and Allan L. Reiss
Priming Activity to Increase Interpersonal Closeness, Inter-Brain
Coherence, and Team Creativity Outcome . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227
Stephanie Balters, Grace Hawthorne, and Allan L. Reiss
Design the Future with Emotion: Crucial Cultural Perspectives . . . . . . . 243
Chunchen Xu, Xiao Ge, Nanami Furue, Daigo Misaki, Hazel Markus,
and Jeanne Tsai
Part 4 Design Thinking Best Practices and Strategy

Opportunities and Limitations of Design Thinking as Strategic
Approach for Navigating Digital Transformation in Organizations . . . . 271
Annie Kerguenne, Mara Meisel, and Christoph Meinel
Designing Innovation in the Digital Age: How to Maneuver around
Digital Transformation Traps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323
Carolin Marx, Thomas Haskamp, and Falk Uebernickel
Facets of Hybrid Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347
Selina Mayer, Martin Schwemmle, Claudia Nicolai, and Ulrich Weinberg
Design Thinking Transfer Gap: Differences Between Knowledge
and Application of Design Thinking in the Organizational
Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359
Lena Mayer, Selina Mayer, Katharina Hölzle, Nikolaus Bönke,
A Genealogy of Designing as Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 383
Jonathan A. Edelman, Joaquin Santuber, and Babajide Owoyele
Introduction/Roadmap
Christoph Meinel and Larry Leifer
1 Fourteen Years of the HPI-Stanford Design Thinking

Research Program
After 14 years of strong collaboration and exchange, it is with fond memories and a
long list of community successes that we prepare this volume for the series Design
Thinking Research. The Hasso Plattner Design Thinking Research Program, which
was led by Larry Leifer, professor of mechanical engineering at Stanford University,
and Christoph Meinel, professor of Internet and Web technologies and former
director and CEO of the Hasso Plattner Institute (HPI), began with 13 projects in
its inaugural year of 2008. Through the generous funding of the Hasso Plattner
Foundation, approximately 12 projects were funded annually between 2008 and
2022—each year six at Stanford University and another six at Hasso Plattner
Institute. This is the 14th comprehensive volume that we have released together
covering the research studies carried out by our affiliated researchers at Stanford
University and Hasso Plattner Institute. Over this period, approximately 200 projects
received funding and contributed to the shared knowledge that developed in our
network.
At the start of our cooperation, design thinking was a relatively young concept
and understood to be a method of achieving a human-centered innovation culture in
multidisciplinary teams. HPI offered the truly unique opportunity to students
finishing their graduate or doctoral studies to spend one or two semesters at HPI to
train in the Design Thinking Basic Track or Advanced Track program. A maximum
C. Meinel (✉)
Hasso Plattner Institute for Digital Engineering, Potsdam, Germany
e-mail: offi[email protected]
L. Leifer
Stanford Center for Design Research, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
e-mail: [email protected]
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 1

C. Meinel, L. Leifer (eds.), Design Thinking Research, Understanding Innovation,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36103-6_1
2 C. Meinel and L. Leifer
of 80 students were accepted, and on 2 days per week for an entire semester, these
students worked in groups of four to six students with professors and lecturers from
many diverse backgrounds—not just digital engineering or computer science. This
training at HPI still exists.
What has changed? In 2022, interested students can pursue coursework in design
thinking at many institutions. In this way, we have achieved something wonderful.
Over the last decade, design thinking has become a reality on campuses around the
globe and in most workplaces. HPI and Stanford have been and remain key
multipliers in achieving growth and the associated professionalization of the design
thinking field.
Researchers who were selected as program participants were welcomed into the
community. The strategic project management techniques and deliverables have
been shared at regularly offered community building workshops in Stanford and in
Potsdam. This brought about a multiplier effect. Researchers presented ideas, pro-
totypes, and results that found resonance with colleagues from other fields. These
gatherings brought us all together, and we became a team. Each team member had
the clear goal of advancing design thinking. Additionally, many transatlantic and
collaborative research designs and numerous doctoral candidates were funded. The
program without question has enhanced research quality and exchange while simul-
taneously creating new opportunities for talented young researchers in the field.
2 HPDTRP: First Year 2008/2009
In our first volume, Hasso Plattner shared a definition of design thinking that has
been iterated over the years. In 2012, we looked to “Design Thinking as a framework
to understand the issues people are experiencing in their daily lives and to generate
accordingly helpful innovations for them. In Design Thinking, interdisciplinary
teams set off to learn about people’s concerns and the obstacles they are facing.
By means of Design Thinking, the teams look for solutions regarding the identified
problems, which should be genuinely new as well as extensively useful. Thus,
Design Thinking teams work toward products or services that are technically
feasible, economically viable and, in addition, truly desirable for people” (Plattner,
2012). We would like to focus for a moment on one phrase: “the teams head for
solutions regarding the identified problems” (Plattner, 2012). What has changed over
time is that more than ever before, teams are unlearning and relearning. We tackle
the design thinking process in the belief that each step must be performed with great
creativity, precision, and humility. Defining the problem is crucial. In business and
in academia, metrics are important, and results are meticulously measured. If the
parameters of the identified problem are refined and nuanced, there can be more or
better results to report because the question was properly defined. This is just
one example. Today, we are essentially transmitting a return to the basics:
building Design Thinking into the thought process for interdisciplinary and
multidisciplinary work.
Introduction/Roadmap 3
The first volume was entitled Design Thinking: Understand – Improve – Apply.
Christoph Meinel with his coauthors Tilmann Lindberg and Ralf Wagner prepared
chapter one of this first volume, “Design Thinking: A Fruitful Concept for IT
Development?” (Lindberg et al., 2011). The authors stated that IT experts, espe-
cially, need to consider the user-perspective because in fact it is the users that
ultimately decide the success of products and services. In 2011, this perspective
was further developed, as the technical perspective dominated the field at that time.
There was a rich discussion on the challenges of translating design thinking into
action. The conclusion was reached that “an effective design thinking strategy needs
well-trained people as well as an organization that supports them instead of slowing
them down” (Lindberg et al., 2011). In comments on the challenges to implementing
Design Thinking, the authors wrote, “as it stands (Design Thinking exists) in
contradiction to common management techniques such as stage gate innovation
management that rely strongly on predefined workflows and standardized quality
gates, anticipating and selecting solution paths in a restrictive manner so that
explorative and creative solution paths become rather constrained” (Lindberg
et al., 2011). Many of the chapters in this volume share innovative value creation.
One such example is the chapter by Mathias Weske und Alexander Luebbe. The
authors demonstrate how the design thinking process could optimize business
processes by bringing employees into the discussion and creating prototypes that
make sense to management and the core service team (Luebbe & Weske, 2011). Do
not underestimate the importance of any single step. Time invested in fully devel-
oping each step has tremendous rewards. Cutting corners to save time will not
provide the desired results. Time is a critical variable.
The visualization that occurs in the prototyping phase can be perfected over time.
In fact, the research team including Steven Dow and Scott Klemmer, at that time
from Stanford University, in their chapter “The Efficacy of Prototyping under Time
Constraints” focused on the fact that research teams developing multiple prototypes
have a distinct advantage over research teams that work with only one prototype
(Dow & Klemmer, 2011). This is one more example of why design thinking
shouldn’t be rushed. Design teams often work with tight timelines, but if design
teams plan accordingly—allocating sufficient time to phases—ideas can evolve and
support in the development process be gained from stakeholders.
A retrospective look at all that has been achieved in the Design Thinking
Research Program could fill many volumes. Our most recent and final community
building workshop in Potsdam provided us with the opportunity to reflect upon our
experiences, our learnings, and our future trajectories in design thinking. What have
we achieved? Design thinking has established itself, and our research volumes
accompany this sustained shift.
The types of questions our researchers ask have evolved as the social schema
similarly evolves. The issues that were once painstakingly argued in 2011 can now
be addressed in a footnote because of the substantial body of reference literature we
now have.
Our HPDTRP steering committee faced difficult decisions. Over the years,
applications from many outstanding academicians have been received. At the
same time, the interdisciplinarity of funded projects has increased dramatically. This
made it possible for our group to include natural sciences and social sciences and to
reach conclusions that change how academia and practice view established beliefs. Is
a new paradigm coming? Do current observations help us find a new paradigm that is
more appropriate to explain existing phenomena?
To better answer these questions, it may help to list some keywords that point to
the areas where real innovation has been brought to light by our researchers on the
path to a new paradigm: co-creation, innovation ecosystems, collaboration,
prototyping, measurement, and neurodesign. Of course, each of these words tells a
story and contains the connotation of an accretion of value creation over time. A
close examination of volumes in this series show that since the outset of the program,
definitions were broadened and benchmarking became more systematic; this
occurred as more academic institutions, professional organizations, and industry
took note of design thinking as a field and as a vehicle for mobilizing efficiency
and the growth of real innovation.
The overall goal of the program was (1) to discover metrics that describe
innovations and creativity, predict design thinking team performance, and tell
more about the value of design thinking and (2) to design tools supporting design
thinking processes and teams. The Hasso Plattner-Stanford Design Thinking
Research Program has achieved so much more. Our affiliated faculty guided and
staked out, with their academic publications, important facets of the relatively rapid
spread of design thinking around the globe. Thousands of students have completed
academic coursework at HPI and at Stanford University in the area of design
thinking. We have trained today’s leaders.
The trajectory of design thinking should not be underestimated. Already in 2015,
an article in the Harvard Business Review stated that “Design thinking is an essential
tool for simplifying and humanizing. IBM and GE are hardly alone. Every
established company that has moved from products to services, from hardware to
software, or from physical to digital products needs to focus anew on user experi-
ence. Every established company that intends to globalize its business must invent
processes that can adjust to different cultural contexts. And every established
company that chooses to compete on innovation rather than efficiency must be
able to define problems artfully and experiment its way to solutions” (Kolko,
2015). There are established steps of design thinking, and it is a given that innovative
measures can fail at any point. Companies, governments, institutions, and all manner
of stakeholders must be aware of the risk and yet still embrace this chance to move
forward on the trajectory for innovation. The human-centric approach that defines
design thinking requires that each design team collaborate with an open mind and
progress through all phases of the process.
3 HPDTRP: Second Year 2009/2010
In the second year of the program, research teams broadened the area of inquiry to
also encompass digital tools in creative collaborative projects, ideally for teams with
members located around the globe. There were many important results, which were
published in our second volume, Studying Co-Creation in Practice.
One tool that emerged from the research team of Christoph Meinel in year two of
the program was Tele-Board, which combined white boards with videoconferencing
functionalities (Gericke et al., 2012). It was a groundbreaking innovation at that
time. A second team of researchers looked at the importance of the concept of
“space” in the design thinking process. The study showed that design thinking teams
are more creative when they are in a design thinking space than in a traditional
classroom space (von Thienen et al., 2012). Much research has been done on this
topic since 2012, and universities around the world now outfit spaces suitably for
design thinking coursework. Some schools have even designated particular spaces
for each phase in the design thinking process.
Another article in the second volume examined the role of diversity in design
teams in their pursuit to find out more about “team cognitive diversity;” the study
sample included masters-level engineering students from nine universities in eight
countries (Kress & Schar, 2012). The topic of another research team explored the
importance of nonverbal information transfer as seen through the use of telepresence
robots, and how this input increases design team engagement (Sirkin et al., 2012).
The final chapter in the volume offered support suggestions for software developers,
which build upon the basics of design thinking (Steinert & Hirschfeld, 2012).
4 HPDTRP: Third Year 2010/2011
The third volume in the series, Measuring Performance in Context focused on

design thinking research topics in three different areas: design thinking research in
the context of colocated teams, design thinking research in the context of distributed
teams, and design thinking research in the context of embedded business teams. Of
the many fruitful investigations, we will highlight three here. The team of Scott
Klemmer examined prototyping dynamics to determine that it was better to Share
Multiple than to Share One; study results showed that when designers Share
Multiple, there is improved outcome, exploration, sharing, and group rapport
(Dow et al., 2012).
A second research team actually examined paradigm shift and the increasingly
important role of design thinking. There was a far-reaching call for particular
cognitive skills to be taught to students but no toolbox for teachers. The researchers
first defined the term “twenty-first century skills,” which explained why design
thinking is an appropriate enabler for teachers to prepare students for the twenty-
first-century challenges and shared an empirical study to substantiate claims
(Noweski et al., 2012). In a similar vein, the team of Bernard Roth looked at success
trajectories of alumni who participated in graduate level study in design thinking. To
assess alumni outcomes, the team looked particularly to “creative confidence,
comfort with risk and failure, and building creative environments” (Royalty et al.,
2012). Both of these projects show the importance of design thinking curricula in
building human capacities for future success in tackling challenges to innovation in
various settings.
5 HPDTRP: Fourth Year 2011/2012
In volume four of the Design Thinking Research, Building Innovation Eco-Systems,

the work of research teams could be grouped into four general categories: the social
nature of design, the need for a preservation of ambiguity, all design as redesign, and
the tangibility of ideas. The interdisciplinary nature of the program grew, welcoming
among other disciplines, scholars from the Department of Psychiatry at Stanford
University. Allan Reiss’ team “proposed a unique experimental design to test
whether creativity can be acquired or learned by an individual over time and how
this relates to cognition, behavior, and the brain” (Hawthorne et al., 2014). The team
practiced intervention research relating to creative capacity building, asking first if a
person can improve their creative capacity and then whether it is retained using
various metrics.
In Riitta Katila’s team, researchers explored the relationship between design and
the development of complex products and systems questioning what role user
involvement (novice/average and expert/lead users) had in new product develop-
ment in its early phases (Shluzas et al., 2014). Many factors were considered,
including, but not limited to, perceived usability, functionality, efficiency, adapt-
ability, and cost-benefit of product concepts (Shluzas et al., 2014).
Mathias Weske and his team introduced the concept of need-finding iterations.
This entails starting agile software development projects with a kickoff workshop
that enables a shared understanding among stakeholders based on early-phase story
prototypes. These feed into later software prototypes, which streamlines the entire
process (Guentert et al., 2014). Individual stakeholders, therefore, have a concept of
the big picture rather than simply one piece of the larger undertaking. Stakeholders
can better project trajectories and become more efficient in each project phase.
6 HPDTRP: Fifth Year 2012/2013
One year later, the volume Building Innovators was published, with project reports
from the fifth year of the program. Three overarching categories were defined for the
projects in this year: assessing influential factors in design thinking, empowering
team collaboration, and supporting information transfer. In TeamSense, Larry Leifer
and his team proposed “a future sensor platform that explores how modularity and
mutability affect electronics prototyping with sensors” (Sadler & Leifer, 2015).
What was truly unique about this toolkit was its role in “reducing barriers to entry
for rapid prototyping with sensors” and the toolkit’s relevance for many other areas
of design thinking. “The need for more (1) modular and (2) mutable electronics and
software components were discovered to be a limiting factor in allowing more
experimentation in the early stages of sensor system prototyping. Modularity enables
fixed functional blocks to be swapped in and out of a system (enabling combina-
tions), and mutability allows modification of blocks to change their function
(enabling mutation)” (Sadler & Leifer, 2015).
In year one of the Design Thinking Research Program, the Tele-Board system
was created. In year five of the program, the development of Tele-Board MED
focused on applications in medicine to assist physicians and medical personal in
meeting documentation needs and at the same time empowering the patient. “Tele-
Board MED is a medical documentation system designed to support patient-doctor
cooperation at eye level . . . and tackles the challenge of turning medical documen-
tation from a necessity, which disturbs the treatment flow, into a curative process by
itself” (von Thienen et al., 2015).
In a third project, researchers create scenarios that blend existing models for
generating innovation. “We present DT@Scrum, a process model that uses the
Scrum framework to integrate Design Thinking into software development. Design
Thinking activities formed the foundation of the approach. Development teams
choose their respective operation mode after each sprint based on how well the
requirements of the product are understood” (Häger et al., 2015). Here, researchers
used design thinking to supplement scrum. In later years, other HPDTRP researchers
returned to this question and also looked more carefully at whether it is possible to
combine various frameworks for innovation.
7 HPDTRP: Sixth Year 2013/2014
The sixth volume of Design Thinking Research, Making Design Thinking Founda-
tional, began with a manifesto. In this manifesto, we staked out how we are to
address and measure the needs of society.
“While engineering has been described as the application of science and mathe-
matics to the needs of society, up until now we have known and taught our students
very little about finding and understanding the needs of society. Thus, we have
indirectly turned out half-built engineers. These were engineers who could only
serve the explicit needs of others without a direct understanding of who had the need
and why. With the advent of the design thinking paradigm, this situation has
changed. Engineers are now taught how to engage with society through empathy
training, coping with multiple points of view, actively managing teamwork, and
realizing the full potential of product and service prototyping (experimenting). In
effect, a critical link has been made between engineering analysis, the
science-focused part of the discipline, which is context independent, and engineering

design, the human society-focused aspect of the discipline, which is context depen-
dent” (Leifer & Meinel, 2016). With this manifesto, we succinctly stated that human-
centered focus is critical to creating the full potential of engineering projects.
Furthermore, this human-centered focus has been adopted by many disciplines. At
this juncture, we had a toolbox with which it was possible to create metrics, meaning
that results could be quantified. In addition, important steps were taken to bring
about a professionalization of the field.
It was in this sixth year of the program that we felt a sureness that design thinking
was foundational. Our researchers’ contributions for this year fell into four basic
categories. In “Tools and Techniques for Improved Team Interaction,” one topic was
remote collaboration, which has become even more relevant in the last pandemic
years (Wenzel et al., 2016; Shluzas et al., 2016b).
A second area, “Creativity and Creative Confidence” was addressed in team
spaces, in prototyping and in creating metrics (Hawthorne et al., 2016; Nicolai
et al., 2016). The former team developed a novel Design Thinking Creativity Test
(DTCT) in order to assess a person’s creative capacity in actual situations
(Hawthorne et al., 2016). The latter team created a new qualitative method that
examined the relationship between creative environments on team well-being and
performance, including a careful examination of perceptions, feelings, and interac-
tions of each team member with their respective environment (Nicolai et al., 2016).
Part three looked more specifically at “Measuring Design Thinking.” One chapter
in this section delved into design thinking metrics as a driver of creative innovation.
The authors argued that the traditional metrics used by companies are not the best
metrics to assess how well individuals and teams learn and apply design thinking
(Royalty & Roth, 2016). The final section of the sixth volume covered “Documen-
tation and Information Transfer in Design Thinking Processes.” Here, Holger
Giese’s research team, in year three of funding on “Connecting Designing and
Engineering Activities III,” presented a recovery approach that allowed for recovery
modules to be created at particular junctures so that teams consisting of two groups
of stakeholders, in this case, engineers and designers, could function more seam-
lessly together (Beyhl & Giese, 2016; Beyhl & Giese, 2016). The recovery modules
used extraction procedures and recovery algorithms at regular intervals.
8 HPDTRP: Seventh Year 2014/2015
Volume 7, entitled Taking Breakthrough Research Home, summarized many impor-

tant research undertakings for the academic year 2014 to 2015. The volume was
organized in four thematic categories: design thinking in practice, exploring human-
technology interaction, prototyping and developing DT teaching, and coaching tools
and approaches. In section one, the team headed by Claudia Nicolai and Ulrich
Weinberg examined the process of developing design thinking workspaces. They
specifically worked with one nonprofit for social entrepreneurs. Here, it should be
noted that the workspaces that were developed were outfitted for best-use scenarios
for multiple stakeholders: that is fulfilling the needs of the management while also
accommodating and listening to users (Klooker et al., 2016).
It should be mentioned that in this year, several projects explored human-
technology interaction in the medical field. The development of wearables allowed
our design team to reach three objectives: introduce mobile wearable computing
technology for distributed care, achieve increased knowledge of benefits through
enhanced visualization capabilities with human augmentation, and equip clinicians
with the tools needed to inform decision-making and assess behavioral changes in
this group (Shluzas et al., 2016a).
In our second project, patient-provider interaction is analyzed to assess how this
relationship can be enhanced by means of the medical documentation system Tele-
Board MED. Tele-Board MED is a collaborative eHealth application designed to
support the interactions between patient and provider in clinical encounters (Perlich
et al., 2016). First applications were in the field of psychotherapy. Researchers found
that using Tele-Board MED increased the acceptance of diagnoses and contributed
to a good team dynamic between therapist and patient (Perlich et al., 2016).
In a different application area, we looked at autonomous vehicles. Using an
experimental design approach, this chapter details three studies of autonomous
vehicle interfaces and behaviors (Sirkin et al., 2016). In phase one, a “trustworthy”
interface was developed; in phase two, haptic precues were recorded as human
reactions to prototypes were charted; and phase three analyzed public reactions to
the deployment of a prototype on public streets (Sirkin et al., 2016). Here, it is
noteworthy that the public’s reactions to autonomous vehicles without a visible
driver need to be taken into account in further prototype development.
In the final section of volume seven, toolkits for teaching and coaching were
developed. In the design thinking at scale project, our researchers looked at whether
and how design thinking can be taught in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCS)
(Taheri et al., 2016). Creating MOOCS for scalable and sustainable peer interactions
was the topic addressed by Michael Bernstein’s team. The team developed
PeerStudio, which is an assessment platform that enabled rapid feedback from
peers within well-attended MOOCs. In practice, students could resubmit
in-progress work for peer review multiple times. Online peer interactions could,
therefore, be maximized and course outcomes improved. With TalkAbout, the
research team showed that rapid feedback and revision can make peer interactions
sustainable at scale (Kulkarni et al., 2016).
9 HPDTRP: Eighth Year 2015/2016
Collaboration versus cooperation was a fundamental question that our projects

tackled in the eighth program year. Included in this volume was a homage to John
E. Arnold’s theories on creative thinking—the theoretical foundations of design
thinking (von Thienen et al., 2018). Following this interesting perspective, the
volume was organized into four sections: (1) modelling and mapping teamwork;
(2) tools and techniques for productive collaboration; (3) teaching, training, priming:
approaches to teaching and enabling creative skills; and (4) design thinking in
practice.
In the first section on modelling and mapping teamwork, the authors address team
interaction and performance. Scholars reflect on role distribution in design teams on
multiple levels. In one project, breaks were examined and the team observed during
or after breaks. Analysis showed that breaks could be grouped into one of three
dimensions: activity level (active or passive), social aspect (group or individual), and
distance to the project (related or unrelated to the project); the effect of each
dimension on the team took a distinctive form (Dobrigkeit et al., 2018).
The commonality for the contributions in Part 2 is how productive collaboration
comes about. Here, we highlight the work of Michael Bernstein’s team. With the
example of fiction writing, the researchers examine crowdsourcing as a technique for
achieving interdependent complex goals (Kim et al., 2018). In field experiments,
Mechanical Novel yielded higher-quality stories showing that complex work could
be coordinated through interactive crowdsourcing workflow (Kim et al., 2018). In
the third section of this volume, the research team of Erin MacDonald concluded that
both implicit and explicit priming are promising techniques that can be used to
enhance design skills (She et al., 2018). Researchers present two design methods that
prime designers use to place more emphasis on certain stills in the conceptual design,
here, for example, high immersion versus low immersion. In both cases, they use
primes that require participation from the subject and sensory engagement (She
et al., 2018).
In the final section of this volume, we highlight a project focusing on the
optimization of human-technology teamwork. Our researchers explored how design
thinking could be applied to health IT systems engineering to improve the commu-
nication of levels of pain between patients and providers at Stanford Health Care,
and they created early conceptual prototypes (Shluzas & Pickham, 2018).
10 HPDTRP: Ninth Year 2016/2017
Our ninth volume, published in 2019, looks at design thinking beyond solution-
fixation. What does this mean exactly? In our society, most designers and managers
are praised for their ability to quickly and effectively bring about a suitable resolu-
tion that essentially solves the problem. But this is not the only way or the best way.
What we focus on in the Hasso Plattner Design Thinking Research Program is “the
development and nurturing of a problem-oriented mindset” (Leifer & Meinel, 2019).
Our natural tendency is to identify one possible solution and act on it. However, it is
better to set aside time to better interrogate and reframe problems with the end user
and end-user gains in mind. The goal of design thinking work is to generate
meaningful and worthwhile design solutions that are sustainable (Leifer & Meinel,
2019).
In Volume 8, we shared information on John E. Arnold and his “creative

engineering theory.” Following up in Volume 9 with the second installment of the
theoretical foundations of design thinking, we examined the work of one of Arnold’s
successors at Stanford, Robert H. McKim. McKim first published his theory on
need-based design in 1959. He shared human-centered design conceptions, assessed
the roles of designers in the evolution of culture development and introduced
guidelines for increasing design value (von Thienen et al., 2019).
The volume is divided into three sections. In Part 1 on understanding success
factors, the team led by Sheri Sheppard and Bernard Roth looked to challenge a
common design thinking misconception: design thinking principles are one size fits
all and thus should be implemented uniformly. This chapter shows this idea as a
misconception in providing a description of design thinking that is dependent upon
context. Revealed are a series of measures that can highlight both different aspects of
design thinking and how these are variable in nature based on context (Royalty et al.,
2019). Authors in this section also contribute to a deeper understanding of how to
use space as a strategic tool.
In Part 2, the authors address the digital potential of teaching, research, and
organizational approaches. Here, we highlight the chapter on redesigning social
organization in order to allow for fast-paced innovation. The authors started with
the given that hierarchy in organizations is slowly being replaced by new, more
flexible structures. By exploring the shift, they were able to redesign social organi-
zations and the means to accomplish the associated sociological and psychological
transformations (Sonalkar et al., 2019).
Section three looks at design thinking in practice. Matthias Uflacker’s team, for
example, explored if and how parts of the design thinking process can be combined
with Lean Startup and Scrum (Dobrigkeit et al., 2019). Their team developed
Innodev, which combines elements of all three of these approaches, to create an
agile software development process (Dobrigkeit et al., 2019). Another noteworthy
chapter prepared by Kesler Tanner and James Landay details their project, in which a
meaningful design scale was created (Tanner & Landay, 2019). What makes this
design scale especially attractive is that it can be created from novice comparisons
(Tanner & Landay, 2019).
11 HPDTRP: Tenth Year 2017/2018
The diverse contributions to Volume 10 all address design team performance and
range from approaches to interaction styles and from tools to applications. In Part
1, new approaches to design thinking are expounded upon. One team explored the
use of immersive virtual reality (VR) in design thinking learning scenarios (Sonalkar
et al., 2020). In this chapter, immersive VR is presented as an accompaniment to
action-reflection pedagogy and yields augmented design teamwork learning and
practice. The clear implication is that VR is a medium for design teamwork with
potential to implement it in design education courses.
The second section of Volume 10 dedicates itself to exploring effective team

interaction. A chapter to highlight here examines team creativity and looks at
differences between average conversations and creative conversations. Using the
Coherence Style Framework, the research team maps divergent and convergent
thinking on the conversational level and sees highly creative teamwork as an
alternation between local disruption (local low coherence) and global integration
(global high coherence) (Menning et al., 2020).
Volume 10 covers various tools to support design thinking practices; Part 3 and
each chapter in this section illustrate how digital technologies are leveraged.
Prototyper, for example, is a web browser-based collaborative virtual environment
that supports the joint real-time creation of three-dimensional low-fidelity prototypes
by 3D printing (Wenzel & Meinel, 2020). Another new tool introduced is Poirot, a
web inspection tool for designers that enables them to make style edits to websites
using a graphical interface (Tanner et al., 2020). The final section of the volume
deals with the applications of design thinking practices. One chapter showcases the
software system Tele-Board MED. The first implementation experiences of this
technology in psychotherapy consultation session are captured here (Perlich et al.,
2020).
12 HPDTRP: Eleventh Year 2018/2019
Volume 11, Interrogating the Doing, begins with a tribute to Robert H. McKim. In
examining the theoretical foundations of design thinking, the chapter takes a closer
look at McKim’s “Experiences in Visual Thinking,” which was published in 1972
and in which McKim develops a comprehensive framework of creativity as embod-
ied and embedded cognition (von Thienen & Meinel, 2021). The volume is divided
into four sections, each chapter in its own way questions how design research is best
done. In section one, entitled “Effective Design Thinking Training and Practice,”
chapters examine differences between theory and practice and how to bridge the gap.
One chapter, which grapples with the concept of “space,” lets readers better under-
stand, reflect, and teach space in a design thinking context and offers insights into
how readers can develop individual interventions of presented tools (Schwemmle
et al., 2021). The other contributions in section one enable readers to use and reuse a
video-based design archiving system and also explore warm-up games in MOOC
contexts, also showing how to set these games up.
Section two, entitled “Understanding Design Thinking Team Dynamics,” exam-
ines the functioning of design teams in several contexts. The second chapter offers a
scientific approach for the application of fNIRS hyperscanning to uncover specific
qualities of team interaction. The research team assesses states of interbrain syn-
chrony that could correlate with the behavioral states of cooperation and collabora-
tion (Balters et al., 2021). Part 3 of the volume includes contributions that look to
new approaches and new application fields. We underscore here two contributions.
The first is concerned with the potential factors that influence text comprehension of
code documents (Rein et al., 2021). In the final chapter on this section, researchers
examine the tradeoffs of bodystorming techniques within human-robot interaction
design (Abtahi et al., 2021).
The volume concludes with two chapters in the new area of neurodesign.
HPDTRP researchers, in cooperation with neuroscientists, develop new ideas and
research in this up and coming field. Neurodesign is a field of study at the intersec-
tion of neuroscience research and design thinking practice, which should in fact
bridge this gap. The chapters entailing neurodesign here, and the earlier chapter in
this volume allow readers to understand neurocognitive processes among individual
designers and teams (Auernhammer et al., 2021; von Thienen et al., 2021).
13 HPDTRP: Twelfth Year 2019/2020
Translation, Prototyping, and Measurement is the title of the twelfth volume, which
is divided into three parts. In section one, research teams, each in their own way,
explore the concept of translation as an analytical category: translation of design
thinking to the digital sphere, the translation of concepts across cultures, an exam-
ination of interbrain synchrony, and how certain activities (physical movement and
nonverbal actions) translate to action in both the in-person and virtual realms. One
chapter explores the history, application, and understanding of design thinking in the
Arab world, mapping out the spread of design thinking in the Arab region in several
sectors (Traifeh et al., 2021).
Volume 12’s second section highlights the work of design teams in creating
models for prototyping. Prototyping models outlined in these chapters help the
reader visualize how prototyping can meet design challenges. One research team
developed PantoGuide, which is a low-cost system that provides audio and haptic
guidance, via skin-stretch feedback to a user’s hand while the user explores a tactile
graphic on a touchscreen. PantoGuide was developed for use in the remote class-
room. Developing such prototypes for blind and visually impaired users allows these
student users to learn both remotely and independently (Siu et al., 2021). Another
research team designed a prototype for photographic guidance, designing new
interfaces that provide contextual in-camera feedback to aid users in learning visual
elements of photography with guided photography interfaces (Jane & Landay,
2021). These interfaces aid in iterating through the exploration of lighting, compo-
sition, and decluttering.
Measurement in design thinking is the overarching theme for Part 3 of Volume
12. One contribution examines the relationship between the ME310 curriculum at
Stanford and alumni engagement in entrepreneurship and innovation and, in so
doing, attempts to understand how course-based training in design thinking can
translate to professional endeavors and entrepreneurial outcomes of alumni
(Sheppard et al., 2021). Another set of researchers apply design thinking to scrum.
Their findings reveal that agile practitioners changed scrum to improve collaboration
by incorporating teamwork, innovation, and design activities (Dobrigkeit et al.,
2021). Design thinking techniques prove to be a fruitful addition to the scrum

meeting toolkit.
14 HPDTRP: Thirteenth Year 2020/2021
In Achieving Real Innovation, which is Volume 13 of the Understanding Innovation

Series, readers are drawn into the thematic area with a humanistic and creative
philosophy of design. In short, authors elaborate on qualities that support the
conception of creative design—with the intention of developing innovators
(Auernhammer et al., 2022a). Three thematic areas are defined for contributions in
this volume. The first area presents value creation in virtual innovation spaces. The
research team around Michael Shanks questions why ambiguity is so common in
online interactions and emphasizes the aim of implementations to improve clarity
and remove ambiguity in online actions (Park et al., 2022). The team addresses
specific design implications that refer to technical functioning and context.
In Part 2 of Achieving Real Innovation, each of the listed authors spoke to the
topic of fostering innovation behavior and coevolution to determine how such
behavior can be cultivated and augmented. One example of augmentation can be
seen in the work surrounding the constantly developing area of program practice.
The research team of Robert Hirschfeld began with the assumption that novices to
programming have a high learning curve in understanding mindsets and tools
(Tauemel et al., 2022). Using the idea of patterns, it was possible to stake out
traditional and modern practices of exploratory programming and create a novel
pattern language that focused on the typical question/response cycle that program-
mers follow.
The problematization of design thinking as a concept is the subject of the
remaining contributions in area three of the volume. In other words, this third part
is concerned with building comparative frameworks. The chapters in this section
help the reader visualize existing models and stake out relationships between design
thinking education and societal change as well as understand the evolution of design
thinking over the last 50 years. One example is the chapter dealing with the concepts
of human needs. The author team sees “human needs” as an important component of
design thinking and grapples with how this variable “human needs” relates to the
variable (radical) innovation (von Thienen et al., 2022). By reviewing the need
theories of John Arnold, Abraham Maslow, and Robert McKim, pivotal questions
are raised and appraised including a questioning of the future role to be played by
design thinking. Concepts such as incremental innovation (improvement within
existing solutions) are discussed on the way to developing a comprehensive frame-
work of human needs, which can be used to analyze both the risks and benefits of
new products in a systematic manner (von Thienen et al., 2022). Another chapter of
note concerns the evolution of design, with the research team staking out the
evolution of multiple human-centered design approaches over the last 50 years
(Auernhammer et al., 2022b).
The last chapter in the volume argues that design thinking is a useful, appropriate,
and necessary approach to support collective action in sustainability issues (Ardoin
et al., 2022). The research team, headed by Nicole Ardoin, seeks to understand the
relationship between design thinking and sustainability. Specifically, the team grap-
ples with whether and how sustainability issues can be reframed as broader societal
considerations (Ardoin et al., pp. 325–340).
Included in this brief review of the Understanding Innovation Series, the reader is
not only introduced to the ongoing research undertaken at HPI and Stanford Uni-
versity in the Hasso Plattner Design Thinking Research Program but also the
research reports for groundbreaking research that is still in progress. The research
is intended as inspiration for all readers, regardless of professional or academic
background.
15 HPDTRP: Fourteenth Year 2021/2022—The Recent

Volume
In this last year of the Hasso Plattner Design Thinking Research Program, the
chapters prepared by the research teams summarized the current state of their pro-
jects. Although the formal program is ending, the relationships that developed are
not and neither are the research trajectories. Over the years of the program, we have
seen that projects funded have become more diverse including many different
faculty departments at Stanford University. Design thinking has also grown expo-
nentially from where we started many years ago. Design thinking education is now
common on many college campuses. We begin this volume with a contribution from
the team of Sheri Sheppard that summarizes findings from interview-based studies
that track career pathways of female graduates. Her research group analyzed a cohort
of students at Stanford University, who participated in the foundational course
ME310 many years ago to determine the types of careers the group pursued and
collected feedback on what role the design thinking principles imparted in ME310
have played in career path trajectories of this group. Her team assessed what an
education in design thinking really means on the individual level and developed an
Academic Workplace Relational (AWR) Model to explain bidirectional relation-
ships and to improve project-based learning. This chapter helps us visualize the long-
term implications of a design thinking mindset.
Contributions to the volume were divided into four parts. Part I is concerned with
the application of design thinking to governance and social causes. Within this issue
area, the demands for transformation, digitization, and agility have increased dra-
matically over the last few years. In this part, HPDTRP researchers examine design
work in a number of contexts, including governance and sustainability. Teams
dissect governmental practice and discern how it is possible to leverage success in
outcomes, examine existing barriers, and stake out programmatic changes for
facilitating (virtual) design thinking. The first contribution from the team of
Christoph Meinel and Julia von Thienen looked at governance approaches. Their
understanding of governance includes the encouragement or discouragement of
projects and how this impacts creativity. They introduce a four-leaf clover model
in design thinking and are thereby able to quantify the impact of governance. They
argue that environment is an important factor impacting how people feel and behave.
The second chapter from the project team of Christoph Meinel is concerned with
agile governance in Rwanda and seeks to answer the question as to what agile means
in the public sector. Much is still left to be learned about agile governance or agility
in the governmental context. Using the example of the one-stop shop in Rwanda, the
team brings in three variables to provide a deeper understanding of agile governance:
technology, innovation, and organization.
The final chapter in this section is from the team of Nicole Ardoin. The team
conducted 20 interviews with participants from nine countries to gather support for
their supposition that design thinking is good for generating sustainability solutions.
By identifying and exploring five characteristics of design thinking, they gather
support for using design thinking as a tool in sustainability work. The five charac-
teristics identified were inspiring creativity; participatory and people-focused; diver-
sity in thought and action; holistic, systems thinking mindset; and streamlined,
action-oriented approach. In fact, many professionals in the field already employ
design thinking.
Part II two covers new prototypes that were developed by three HPDTRP teams.
The wide-ranging goals included enhancing prototypes with a conversational agent,
understanding privacy design frameworks, and designing strategies for live pro-
gramming. Perceived problems were clearly explained, and the designed prototypes
bridge gaps in existing practice. The Stanford team headed by James Landay
examined user perceptions of privacy interfaces in the workplace. The chapter
covers implications for the design of privacy interfaces and informs large-scale
studies on privacy attitudes in the workplace. Of course data privacy is an important
concern. The team established that there is a negative privacy attitude when deploy-
ment scenarios were company-wide and when there was a negative relationship with
the manager. James Landay and Matthew Joerke explore two technical privacy
approaches: differential privacy and K-anonymization. In light of their research
questions regarding owner and valence, they prototyped four user interfaces for
different privacy design frameworks.
The second chapter prepared by Rebecca Currano and David Sirkin explores how
design learning can be improved through reflective hands-on engagement and
through spoken conversation. Their two-part hypothesis describes the possibility
of improving design when there is conversation between the student designer and
prototyping materials and, therefore, that it is possible to enhance their prototype
with a conversational agent.
Robert Hirschfeld’s research group tackled design strategies for a live-
programming system. The system should architect communication patterns that
reward changes with immediate effects. They introduce the “Squeak/Smalltalk”
prototype that enables programmers in a live system to see the system adapt
immediately. This is a user-centered innovation and the programmer sees immediate

“output.”
In Part III, Enhancement Through Design Thinking, contributions tackle the
question of how to foster and augment innovation behavior. The researchers identify
perceived problems or target the creation of novel approaches to augment existing
practice.
We begin this section with a chapter from Bernie Roth and Jan Auernhammer that
answers the question: what is design thinking from different perspectives? The
comprehensive chapter covers methodology, designer thinking, and design practice.
The second chapter from the team of Manish Saggar explores the intersection of
neuroscience and design. The authors outline opportunities and challenges and map
the importance for positioning this intersection in the development of a new formal
area of study.
The following chapter, from the team of Allan Reiss, looks at women entrepre-
neurs and their pitch performance to examine the impact of interbrain synchrony on
investment decisions. Their study, which included 40 entrepreneur-investors,
assessed which interbrain signatures corresponded to successful versus unsuccessful
pitches. In an effort to catalyze the success of women entrepreneurs, the team
developed a neuroscience approach that could help match startups with investors.
This would be achieved through leveraging fNIRS hyperscanning to measure
interbrain dynamics of an entrepreneur-investor dyad. The team studied how and
when neural processes become synchronized and how this relates to behavioral
measures of interaction.
In a second chapter from the team of Allan Reiss, the relationship between
interpersonal closeness, team performance, and creativity outcomes is examined.
The researchers conclude that there is increased interpersonal closeness in tests
performed with near-infrared spectroscopy neuroimaging on teams that worked
with design thinking activities as compared to the control groups. Furthermore,
they determined that there is a distinct interbrain signature in the right frontocortical
region linked to design thinking, which is different for in-person and virtual groups.
In this section’s final chapter, the team of Hazel Rose Markus explores how
culture shapes designers’ emotion in creative problem-solving activities. Two survey
studies reveal the interplay of affect, culture, and idea generation. This chapter
represents an important contribution to the emerging field of emotion research. A
stated goal is to enhance creative experience and enable cross-cultural collaboration
in creative work.
The fourth part of this volume covers best practices and strategy in design
thinking. The contributions of five author teams are concerned with creating best
practices and toolkits for effective implementation of design thinking. Also included
in this study are elements of forward-thinking strategy.
The team of Christoph Meinel and Annie Kerguenne examined how design
thinking informs digital transformation activities. A tangible output was the devel-
opment of an integrated digital transformation process to create an adaptive digital
transformation strategy kit. This strategy kit would ideally manage digital transfor-
mation endeavors.
Falk Uebernickel’s group concluded that companies using human-centered dig-

ital innovation are better at digital transformation. In the contribution by Carolin
Marx, a three-layered framework was developed to describe how companies could
save an initiative from failure; in essence, how companies can come from behind out
of a trap. This selection describes how to implement mitigation strategies. These
mitigation strategies most likely represent human-centered digital innovation. The
output is an integrative trap framework for digitally transforming organizations.
The team of Ulrich Weinberg and Claudia Nicolai shared facets of hybrid
education. The chapter covers a taxonomy of time- and place-based hybridity as
well as the opportunities and challenges of teaching settings. It also imparts aware-
ness and inspiration for teaching in hybrid settings.
The chapter “Design Thinking Transfer Gap: Differences between Knowledge
and Application of Design Thinking in the Organizational Environment” in this part
seeks a solution to the design thinking transfer gap in its exploratory research to
determine the role of individual factors in design thinking knowledge and applica-
tion in a company. While it is noteworthy that employee knowledge of design
thinking is high, this is not reflected in the application of design thinking in the
workplace. This chapter explores the organizational climate for innovation and
employee capabilities. Methods to bridge the gap are introduced.
The final chapter of the volume from the team of Jonathan Edelman, Joaquin
Santuber, and Babajide Owoyele breaks down the “designing as performance”
approach. The stated goal is to bridge design research and practice. This chapter
provides a genealogy of designing as performance, which consists of five steps:
accessing highly effective performative patterns; designing as performance for
bridging the gap between research and practice in design thinking education;
designing as performance in digital product development settings; designing for
value creation: principles, methods, and case insights; and beyond brainstorming:
introducing MEDGI, an effective, research-based method for structured concept
development.
We hope that the contributions to this volume are valuable to your design
thinking undertakings. As previously stated, interest in design thinking has grown
dramatically year-by-year. With many new initiatives launched by Stanford, HPI,
and the Hasso Plattner Foundation, we look forward to what is still ahead.
16 Design Thinking Today Around the World
October 2022 marked the official opening of the Hasso Plattner School of Design
Thinking in Africa at the University of Cape Town. The six-star green-rated aca-
demic building is the first building in Africa architecturally created to be a design
school and is already the center of excellence for design thinking on the continent
(https://dschoolafrika.org/our-new-home/). The opening took place as part of the d.
confestival, hosted for the first time in Africa with international participants. The d.
confestival is a combination of academic conference and a festival due to its creative
and interactive aspects. The regular gatherings of design practitioners and their
academic counterparts at d.confestivals and annual conferences of the Global Design
Thinking Alliance (GDTA) help us understand what a thriving community exists in
the field.
It is also important to underline the role of the GDTA in fostering dialogue among
academic institutions teaching design thinking around the globe. Ulrich Weinberg,
Director and Professor of the HPI D-School, has served as founding President of the
GDTA and built a strong international network. Starting with ten institutions in
2017, the initial goals were identified, and faculty came together regularly to discuss
joint research projects, plan conferences, and develop joint educational opportuni-
ties. By 2023, there are now approximately 30 members who meet monthly to
participate in the GDTA Spotlight sessions. Representatives from each member
institution take turns in updating the community on what is happening at their
home institution in the area of design thinking and hold an open discussion. Sharing
best practices is just one way that these design thinking thought leaders can stay
abreast of new directions in the field and hone individual campus implementation
strategies. There has been interaction between the group of HPDTRP researchers and
the GDTA community. Ulrich Weinberg and Claudia Nicolai, Academic Director
and co-head of the HPI School of Design Thinking, have been selected for funding in
the HPDTRP several years running and providing a valuable link to the GDTA
community. The regularly offered GDTA Spotlight sessions yield additional syner-
gies between these groups.
There is also a vibrant web forum for contributions from the HPDTRP commu-
nity and international academics—The Electronic Colloquium on Design Thinking
Research: https://ecdtr.hpi-web.de/. This forum is a space for uploading papers, short
notes, and surveys that are of interest to the design thinking research community.
Science communication is promoted, and this forum is a meeting ground for
researchers with innovative ideas to solve design thinking research challenges.
Individuals bring their own unique creativity to the table in design thinking. Over
the years, design thinking has been primarily offered at academic institutions for
college students and adult learners. By 2022, we have realized that design thinking
could be and should be introduced at a much earlier age. The HPI d-school is
currently working on initiatives in this area. It should also be noted that in the
Berlin-Brandenburg region, there have been initiatives to implement design thinking
in the school system (https://berliner-ideenlabor.de/kidskreatethefuture). Why start
so early? Just imagine what will be possible when children and youth are able to help
design their own schools and become part of the feedback loops that bring innova-
tion and change. As design thinking gains traction in primary and secondary
educational institutions, a generation will be encouraged to question, relearn, and
unlearn as a matter of course.
The overall goal of the HPDTR program was to discover metrics that predict
design thinking team performance. Impressive results have been achieved.
There are two special themes that remained important over the years of our
program. First is the exploration of design thinking in the areas of Information
Technology and IT Systems Engineering. Second is to explore and enhance the

neurocognitive foundations of design thinking.
Our researchers grappled with many questions, for example:
• What is design? How do practitioners think and create in design innovation? How
do we create new frameworks, tools, toolkits, and entire systems that can improve
old practices, encapsulate current practices, and reuse successful practices?
• Human, business, and technology performance are central to design thinking, but
how do we understand their interrelationship? It is essential for the frameworks,
tools, toolkits, and systems that are created to be applied at the right moment.
Nevertheless, sometimes there is failure. How do these design instances fail?
The conclusion of the 14-year research program is not the end. Alumni of the
program remain networked. The many joint documents and publications that
resulted during the academic exchange stake out the important territory that has
been covered. Numerous prototypes have been built and gained exposure, which in
turn encourages other researchers in the field to expand upon these dynamic project
deliverables. The research endeavors that have developed over the years build new
networks of exchange between our institutions. As program alumni move on to take
up faculty positions at academic institutions around the world and embark upon new
collaborations, our network continues to grow.
We hope that this volume inspires you to evaluate design thinking and your role
in multiple professional and personal contexts. Responses to the texts may be
addressed directly to the authors. The scholars who have contributed to this volume
each represent excellence in their individual research areas. Design thinking will
continue to grow in importance, and the breadth and depth of ideas shared in the
Understanding Innovation series will help us all to navigate the future.
Acknowledgments We thank all authors for sharing their research results in this publication. Our
special thanks go to Dr. Sharon Therese Nemeth for her constant support in reviewing the
contributions and to Jill Grinager for the publication’s project management.
References
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Ardoin, N. M., Bowers, A. W., Lin, V., & Phukan, I. (2022). Design thinking as a catalyst and
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Decades of Alumni: Perspectives
on the Impact of Project-Based Learning
on Career Pathways and Implications
for Design Education
Sheri D. Sheppard, Helen L. Chen, George Toye, Aya Mouallem,

Micah Lande, Lauren Shluzas, Timo Bunk, Nada Elfiki,
Johannes J. L. Lamprecht, and Katharina Prantl
Abstract This chapter summarizes four interview-based studies exploring the impact
of two graduate-level courses in mechanical engineering at Stanford University on the
innovative, entrepreneurial, and collaborative capacities of alumni and, in particular,
the innovative career pathways of female graduates. The research findings are situated
in two frameworks: (1) the social cognitive career theory (SCCT), a well-established
model of how basic academic and career interests develop and how academic and
career success is obtained, and (2) the academic-workplace relational (AWR) model, a
new model developed to describe the many bidirectional relationships observed
between university and workplace settings. Finally, the continuing research efforts
identifying how project-based learning prepares individuals for career success and
how project-based learning can be improved and strengthened are outlined.
1 Introduction
From 2018 to 2022, our research team has studied the “career diaspora” of engi-
neering graduates from immersive project-based learning experiences. We do this by
identifying elements from those educational experiences that contribute to
S. D. Sheppard (✉) · H. L. Chen · G. Toye · L. Shluzas · T. Bunk · N. Elfiki · J. J. L. Lamprecht ·

K. Prantl
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Stanford School of Engineering, Stanford, CA, USA
e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected];
[email protected]; [email protected]
A. Mouallem
Department of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, USA
M. Lande
Design & Engineering Education, South Dakota School of Mines & Technology, Rapid City,
USA

26 S. D. Sheppard et al.
professional and career capabilities, particularly around innovation and entrepre-

neurial endeavors. Our test beds were two course sequences (ME 218 and ME 310)
offered in the graduate program in mechanical engineering at Stanford University. In
2020 and 2021, surveys were administered to graduates of these two sequences from
the last 25 years, exploring their memories and recollections of the courses, the
details of their job choices and postgraduate plans, descriptions of their work
behaviors, and self-assessments of their capabilities related to engineering, entrepre-
neurship, design, and innovation. Our research approach involved more than just
surveys; we used a mixed methods approach, which also included semi-structured
interviews of course graduates.
We have based our publications and workshops to date largely on an analysis of
survey data from 25 years of alumni from these two courses. In Sheppard et al.
(2021a), we described the process of designing the ME 310 survey instrument and
developing different survey items to address the research areas related to impactful
course elements, career steps and work tasks, and self-efficacy assessments. Invita-
tions to complete the survey were sent in July 2020 to ME 310 graduates from the
class of 1992–1993 through the class of 2016–2017, and 301 alumni participated
(41% response rate). The survey data indicated an overwhelmingly positive course
assessment by the alumni, with over 90% rating their course experience with fellow
Stanford teammates and global partners as positive or rewarding. Furthermore, we
evaluated the respondents’ self-assessments on innovation self-efficacy (ISE), engi-
neering task self-efficacy (ETSE), entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE), and design
thinking self-efficacy (DTSE) via statistical analysis. Overall, we found that the ME
310 alumni respondents reported very high self-confidence across all four self-
efficacy measures.
Sheppard et al. (2021b) expanded upon the preliminary analyses of ME 310 data
provided in Sheppard et al. (2021a). While there is no single dominant career
pathway that ME 310 graduates pursue, we were able to classify and analyze the
ME 310 graduates’ experiences via three analytical lenses: leadership responsibility,
organizational role type, and presence of research and development (R&D) and/or
design in their job function. A comparative analysis of these three subgroups
revealed that greater ESE and innovative behavior were exhibited by graduates
with more leadership responsibilities and/or who were a current founder. Further-
more, those whose current job involved R&D and design, and whose first job had
involved at least one of these functions, exhibited greater ETSE, but their ISE or ESE
scores were no greater than any of the other groups considered. In contrast, graduates
whose first and current jobs did not include any R&D and/or design functions
exhibited the lowest innovative behavior.
More recently, Sheppard et al. (2022) described the larger mixed methods study
that examined the longer-term impact of project-based learning in ME 218 and ME
310 on graduates’ career plans and pathways (Note: By the end of 2021, we collected
quantitative data from ME 218, as well as ME 310 graduates, via surveys tailored to
the specific course experience). In addition, Sheppard et al. (2021a) documented
how we opportunistically designed complementary qualitative studies so that we
could probe more deeply into the alumni experiences. These semi-structured inter-
views with selected alumni from both courses have allowed for triangulation across
Decades of Alumni: Perspectives on the Impact of Project-Based Learning. . . 27
datasets. We collectively designed these qualitative and quantitative research instru-

ments and participant foci to address the following research questions:
• RQ1: What career paths have graduates from immersive engineering design
courses pursued?
• RQ2: What are the alumni’s attitudes and perspectives on the various compo-
nents of these types of design courses?
• RQ3: How might course experiences influence graduates’ career paths, espe-
cially those related to being innovative and/or entrepreneurial?
• RQ4: What can we learn from listening to alumni about the effectiveness of
education more generally? What improvements for engineering design education
do alumni suggest?
In this chapter, Sect. 2 outlines the two foundational frameworks for our research
followed by Sect. 3, which describes the features and characteristics of the ME
218 and ME 310 course sequences and graduates’ career pathways (as well as our
justification for considering both sequences in our study). In Sect. 4, we summarize
findings from four semi-structured interview-based studies of ME 218 and ME
310 graduates to identify the course elements that contributed to graduates’ entre-
preneurial and innovative career success. We look at what alternate, and perhaps
surprising, career paths graduates have taken and how these course experiences have
prepared graduates for job changes in unexpected (e.g., COVID-19) circumstances.
2 Underlying Theoretical Frameworks
2.1 Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT)
Underpinning our research is the social cognitive career theory (SCCT) developed
by Lent, Brown, and Hackett (1994) and Lent and Brown (2006). The work we have
done investigates how the attitudes, interests, goals, and performance of engineering
students and graduates relate to innovation work and “self-efficacy.” We follow
Bandura’s definition of self-efficacy as one’s own beliefs in their ability to perform a
specific task or action (1986). Our exploration focuses on how the factors within the
SCCT model contributed to individuals’ decisions about academic and career
intentions (Gilmartin et al., 2017), namely, the self-efficacy measures emphasizing
innovation (Schar et al., 2017a, 2017b), entrepreneurship (De Noble et al., 1999),
and design thinking (Schar, 2020). Figure 1 highlights how the key areas of the
SCCT model align with our research on graduates of immersive project-based
learning experiences.
2.2 Academic-Workplace Relational (AWR) Model
Academic institutions such as colleges and universities are connected to the larger
world of work. Sometimes this connection is modeled in terms of a pipeline, with
Fig. 1 Mapping the ME 218 and ME 310 course sequences and self-efficacy measures to the
elements of social cognitive career theory (SCCT), modified from Lent et al. (1994, p. 94)
students “flowing” through an increasingly restrictive series of pipes that imply that
along the way, students “leak out” before entering the world of work (Hammonds,
2016). Another model of this phenomenon that is increasingly favored and is
arguably more student- and human-centric is a pathways model where students
navigate and explore several possible areas of interest and future directions (National
Academies of Engineering, 2018; Main et al., 2021). Students move through the
academy and then into the working world, oftentimes on well-marked “trails.”
Where both the pipeline and pathways models fall short is that they model the
academic and working world connections as one way (i.e., students move or flow out
of the academy and into the working world) and portray it as transactional (i.e., the
primary function of the academy is to supply workers).
Our research has been built as an observational model, seeing the connection
between the academy and the working world as a series of bi- or multidirectional and
evolving relationships. For example, these relationships may be about codeveloping
knowledge, adapting and adopting technologies created in the working world into
academic practices (or vice versa), leveraging and growing networks formed during
one’s student days into professional practice support systems, strengthening career
shifts between the academy and the working world, or concurrently having respon-
sibilities and engagement in both. We illustrate the richness of these relationships in
the academic-workplace relational model (AWR) shown in Fig. 2. This type of
model acknowledges a nonlinear, bidirectional, collaborative, and evolving world
where the academy and the workplace are explicitly connected. Neither the academy
nor the working world exists in a vacuum. Furthermore, their relationships are not
just transactional, with students “outflowing” into industry and “money for research”
flowing into the academy.
The AWR model represents the philosophy behind our research design investi-
gating these possible relationships as students graduate from the academy and move
into the working world. We chose to focus on two courses that have developed into a
variety of workplace relationships (as described in Sect. 3.2) and whose many
Fig. 2 The academic-

workplace relational (AWR)
model
graduates over the last 25 years have utilized their formal education in a wide array
of settings (as described in Sect. 3.3). These courses and their over 2000 graduates
are “fertile ground” for exploring in new ways the relationships between the
academy and the working world.
3 Context for the Four Interview Studies
The four interview studies presented in this chapter consider graduates from two
long-running project-based course sequences: ME 218 and ME 310. In Sect. 3.1, we
describe the ways in which ME 218 and ME 310 are similar and how the courses are
different. These arguments provide a justification, in part, for why the two course
sequences are considered together in a common research project.
Next, in Sect. 3.2, we view the courses through the academic-workplace rela-
tional model, illustrating similar histories of interconnectedness of the courses and
their graduates to the larger working world. Finally, in Sect. 3.3, we consider and
compare the career roles pursued by graduates of the two sequences as another part
of our justification for considering both courses (and their graduates) in a common
research project.
3.1 ME 218 and ME 310: Similarities and Differences
ME 218 and ME 310 have much in common. They are both yearlong graduate-level
course sequences that fulfill the depth requirement for students pursuing their
mechanical engineering master’s degree in design at Stanford University. Both
courses immerse students in hands-on project-based learning. They share other
attributes, such as explicitly promoting a sense of community among students and
alumni by engaging students in teamwork, cohort collaborations, and engaging

alumni as coaches. Both courses require intense time commitments.
ME 218 and ME 310 courses and their students’ academic experiences are also
significantly different. While students are not required to complete the entire course
sequence, those who take ME 310 generally take all three quarters. The vast majority
of students enroll in either ME 218 or ME 310, although some take both courses.
ME 218 (Smart Products Fundamentals, Applications, Practice), a four-quarter
course sequence, offers students the opportunity to learn mechatronics (i.e., smart
products) from the fundamentals to practical application. Students are grounded in
learning the technology and acquiring the skills to become expert designers and
practitioners. The series of projects students engage in during the year differ from
year to year but are typically defined by the teaching team. Projects proposed by the
teaching team have carefully defined contexts, needs, and requirements that allow
students to pursue a variety of design solutions. The projects require students to build
prototypes and utilize technologies and skills from the course. Course projects
sequentially increase in sophistication and complexity. Project milestone successes
highlight debugged working prototypes that fully address the prespecified
requirements.
ME 310 (Global Engineering Design Thinking, Innovation, and Entrepreneur-
ship) challenges students to work in teams to explore design innovation opportuni-
ties in areas of interest of partner companies from diverse industries. The contexts,
needs, and requirements of each project are open for student teams to discover and
specify for themselves. The learning journey includes iterating the processes of
studying potential contexts, need finding, benchmarking, ideation, prototyping,
testing, analysis, refinement, and pivoting—continuously pursuing innovative solu-
tions. Prototype milestones occur every 2 to 3 weeks; measures of success are not
based on whether the prototypes work or fail, but on how much is newly learned
from each phase of building, debugging, and testing (how “well” does it work, rather
than whether it works or not). The final delivered solution prototype is expected to be
demonstrably functional and have credible resolution and fidelity.
ME 218 and ME 310 establish varying foundations for raising innovation,
engineering task, and entrepreneurial and design thinking self-efficacies. One prior-
itizes learning via focused skills in mechatronics (having rich technology-enabling
opportunities), while the other via advanced design thinking processes (having
diverse scoping and industry applicability). Notably, ME 218 and ME 310 graduate
students are not isolated in silos; they often take these courses concurrently with
related courses offered by the Stanford Technology Ventures Program, Stanford’s
Graduate School of Business, and the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (Stanford d.
school). Ample cross-pollination contributes to students’ tacit learning experiences
within Stanford’s entrepreneurship-minded ecosystem.
While the two course sequences are different in many details of their project-
based learning approaches, both aim to graduate creative, confident, and technically
competent engineers, who have great potential to become engineering leaders and
innovators in the future. As such, we decided there was ample evidence to consider
the impact of both sequences on the career trajectories and motivations of graduates
in a single study.
3.2 ME 218 and ME 310 Interpreted Against

the Relational Model
Both the ME 218 and ME 310 course sequences exemplify relationships between the
academy and the working world. For example, there are interactions between alumni
and the students through coaching and mentoring. Furthermore, the projects that
challenge the students in the ME 310 three-course sequence and the final course in
the ME 218 sequence come from industry sponsors. However, this snapshot does not
fully capture the evolving, time-based relationships. Figure 3 represents some of
these relationships in ME 218 and ME 310 over the last 30 years within the context
of changes in technology trends, as broadly defined. This figure illustrates how the
courses have evolved because of the ongoing changes in workplace practices and
technology (workplace-to-academy connection). At the same time, some of these
changes in workplace practices and technologies are the result of the courses’
graduates being inspired and prepared (because of their education) to be workplace
change agents (academy-to-workplace connection).
The actual design of our study of ME 218 and ME 310 alumni (Sheppard et al.,
2021a, 2021b, 2022) also exemplifies the academic-workplace relational model. We
Fig. 3 Pedagogical changes in ME 218 and ME 310 and industrial technological advancements
over many years (Carleton & Leifer, 2009)
have collected data from over 25 years of course graduates, recognizing the potential
power of identifying short-term and long-term gains from educational experiences.
This adds much-needed detail about what aspects and features really “stick,” as
students transition via the academy-to-workplace, as shown by the arrow in Fig. 3. In
addition, our research instruments have been designed to enable us to provide
actionable feedback to the courses’ teaching teams as part of continuous improve-
ment; this is the workplace-to-academy arrow in the AWR model.
3.3 Similarities in the Career Paths of ME 218 and ME 310
In the prior sections, we have laid out two arguments for why we consider it
reasonable to study graduates of the ME 218 and ME 310 course sequences in a
single research project. Both arguments are founded on immersive graduate-level
project-based courses in mechanical engineering that focus on design (Sect. 3.1), and
both are rich examples of active and varied relationships that can be built over many
years between the academy and the working world (Sect. 3.2).
In this section, we present a third argument. This argument speaks to the
remarkably similar range of career paths pursued by graduates from the two courses.
Figure 4 shows the industries in which course graduates were working at the time of
the survey. The data indicate that both sets of course graduates currently work in a
variety of industries, though “Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services” is at
What industry sector best aligns with your current or more recent job?
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25%
Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services 16.0% 23.6%
Manufacturing 13.8% 13.8%
Information 12.1% 10.3%
Health Care and Social Assistance 9.9% 5.4%
Transportation and Warehousing 7.1% 5.4%
Educational Services 5.2% 5.9%
Management of Companies and Enterprises 4.9% 6.4%
Finance and Insurance 2.7% 2.5%
Arts, Entertainment, and Recreation 2.0% 2.0%
Utilities 1.5% 0.5%
Armed Forces 0.7% 1.0%
Seldom Mentioned Industries* 4.4% 4.9%
Other (Not Listed Above) 19.7% 18.2%
25% 20% 15% 10% 5% 0% NME218 respondents = 406

ME218 ME310 NME310 respondents = 203
Fig. 4 ME 218 alumni and ME 310 alumni respondents report the industry sector that best aligns
with their current or most recent job. *Seldom mentioned industries: Accommodation and Food
Services, Construction, Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing and Hunting, Other Services (Except Public
Administration), Real Estate and Rental and Leasing, Retail Trade, Public Administration (Except
Armed Forces), Administrative and Support and Waste Management and Remediation Services,
Mining, Quarrying, and Oil and Gas Extraction, Wholesale Trade
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25%

Research and Development 22.7% 18.4%
Design 18.5% 18.6%
Project Management 15.0% 13.2%
Production/Manufacturing 9.4% 9.8%
Functional Management 8.0% 8.1%
Quality/Testing 6.4% 6.0%
Teaching/Educational Outreach 3.5% 3.2%
Other Function/Business Unit 2.7% 4.8%
Sales 2.7% 3.3%
Marketing/Public Relations 2.6% 3.5%
Support 2.5% 1.1%
IT 2.1% 3.5%
Finance 1.4% 2.9%
Human Resources 1.1% 1.6%
Legal 0.8% 1.6%
Security 0.7% 0.5%
25% 20% 15% 10% 5% 0%
NME218 respondents = 406
ME218 ME310 NME310 respondents = 202
Fig. 5 Business units in which ME 218 and ME 310 alumni respondents classified their current or
most recent jobs. Respondents could mark all options that applied to them
or near the top for both ME 218 and ME 310 graduates. The survey data also show
an “Other (Not Listed Above)” option where nearly 20% of graduates indicated
industries such as architecture, aerospace, and fashion design. Approximately 5% of
graduates from both courses reported “Educational Services” as their industry,
suggesting that a notable percentage of graduates pursued careers in the academic
field.
In Fig. 5, graduates of ME 218 and ME 310 reported similar patterns in their
current position, selecting from a list of 16 functions or business units. Perhaps not
surprising for these engineering graduates, research and development (R&D) and
design were the top 2 functions, followed by project management. Interestingly, over
3% of the alumni reported engagement in teaching or educational outreach,
reinforcing the idea of the interconnectedness of the working world and the
academy.
Finally, in Table 1, we examine similarities between ME 218 and ME 310 grad-
uates in terms of their future career interests. We focused on graduates currently
employed in one of the three most frequently reported organizational types
(employee in a medium or large firm, employee in a small or startup firm, and
founder or cofounder of one’s own firm) and considered what each respondent’s
future employment interests were relative to these same three options. Two key
findings were identified:
First, ME 218 and ME 310 graduates who are currently working in medium or
large firms or in small/startup firms share a similarity in that both are fairly certain of
wanting to remain in their current size or type of firm. The data show that those in
small/startup firms are strongly considering a possible future that includes being a
founder/cofounder, more so than those who are currently in medium/large firms.
Second, ME 218 and ME 310 graduates who are currently founder/cofounders
envisioned different futures from one another. The data indicate that ME 310 current
founders are more committed to being founders in the future, than are ME
Table 1 Future employment aspirations of ME 218 and ME 310 graduates relative to current
employment
Career Aspiration in the Next 5 Years1
Current Role Med/Large Small/ Start-up Founder/ Co- N5

M (SD) M (SD) Founder
M (SD)
Medium-Large Firm Employee
ME 310 3.06 (.82) 1.79 (.94) 1.25 (.99) 98
ME 218 2.97 (.93) 1.86 (.93) 1.24 (.99) 190
Small-Start-up Firm Employee
ME 310 1.90 (.90) 3.27 (.75) 1.75 (.92) 40
ME 218 1.77 (.91) 3.33 (.82) 1.73 (1.00) 101
Founder/Co-Founder
ME 310 1.64 (1.20) 2.41 (1.55) 3.23 (.95)2 34
ME 218 1.41 (1.02) 2.58 (1.47) 2.60 (1.12)3,4 56
1
Scale of 0–4, from Definitely Will Not to Definitely Will, with 2 being might or might not, answer
for each of the eight options
2
Paired t-test between average ME 310 aspiration to found/cofound as compared with join a small
firm or startup, p = 0.008
3
Paired t-test between average ME 218 aspiration to found/cofound as compared with join a small
firm or startup, p = 0.942
4
Two-sample t-test between ME 310 and ME 218, average aspiration to found or cofound,
p = 0.008
5
Number of survey respondents who answered both the current work (from eight options) and
future plans questions (from eight options)
218 current founders (see Notes 2 and 4 in Table 1). Current founders from ME
218 also expressed interest in a future that involves either becoming a small/startup
employee or becoming a founder (see Note 3).
4 Four Interview-Based Studies of ME 218 and ME

310 Graduates
From 2020 to 2022, we expanded our research portfolio and methodologies through
collaborations with four early career researchers who conducted interviews with
graduates from ME 218 and ME 310. Each of these investigators used a grounded
theory approach (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) to gain insights into the impact of the ME
218 and ME 310 course experiences, supplementing and expanding upon the
quantitative research findings. Table 2 summarizes the key features of each of
these studies.
Table 2 Summary of key features of each of the four qualitative studies of ME 310 and ME 218 graduates
Unit(s) of observation: Relationship to SCCT
Case Research questions Unit(s) of analysis interviewee criteria N (Fig. 1)
Graduates active in innova- RQ1. What skill sets are in Entrepreneurs and Graduates of ME 39 Connecting learning
tion (2020), Nada Elfiki common between innovative intrapreneurs 310 involved in embracing (ME 310) to self-efficacy
and entrepreneurial behav- new ideas (ENI)-related (ENI-SE, ISE-SE)
iors? activities (identified through
RQ2. What insights from the ME 310 survey), either in
engineering alumni can help the company they founded or
educators enhance entrepre- as an intrapreneur
neurial self-efficacy and
innovation self-efficacy?
Graduates who are founders RQ1. How does mechatronics Entrepreneurs and Graduates of ME 218 who 19 Connecting learning
(2021), Timo Bunk education contribute to entre- founders were founders (identified (ME 218) to behaviors and
preneurial careers? through LinkedIn profiles and actions (founding a
RQ2. What educational ME 218 course instructor company)
experiences do alumni con- recommendations)
sider valuable for their entre-
preneurial careers and what
gives them the self-
confidence to found a
company?
Graduates who are engi- RQ1. What factors contribute Engineering and design ME 218 alumni who were 9 Identifying how contextual
neering team leaders to successful remote collabo- leaders working with remotely leading and influences in combination
(2021), Johannes ration within engineering and remote teams directing cross-collaborative with learning experiences
Decades of Alumni: Perspectives on the Impact of Project-Based Learning. . .
J.L. Lamprecht design (E&D) teams? teams during the COVID-19 (ME 218) enable leaders to
RQ2. What transferable skills pandemic adapt to changing their
from ME 218 have been workplace circumstances
especially valuable to E&D (i.e., COVID)
team leaders when navigating
the transition to remote
collaboration?
35
(continued)
Table 2 (continued)
36
Unit(s) of observation: Relationship to SCCT

Case Research questions Unit(s) of analysis interviewee criteria N (Fig. 1)
Graduates who are founders RQ1. Why don’t high poten- Career paths of female Graduates of ME 218 or ME 20 Learning experiences
and who choose not to tial individuals (measured as engineering graduates 310 who did or did not start (ME 218 and ME 310) in
become founders (2022), entrepreneurial self-efficacy, with high entrepreneur- technology companies combination with self-
Katharina Prantl ESE) in STEM start their own ial self-efficacy efficacy do not prescribe a
tech ventures? Are there gen- unique set of actions; inter-
der differences in ESE ests and outcome expecta-
and why? tions play a critical role
RQ2. What barriers hinder
the engagement of females in
STEM entrepreneurship?
S. D. Sheppard et al.
4.1 Graduates Active in Innovation, Nada Elfiki
Nada Elfiki (2021) focused on how academic and professional learning experiences
contribute to the making of an entrepreneurial and innovative engineer. In particular,
she investigated the considerable overlap between entrepreneurship and innovation.
Nada organized her findings regarding how educational and experiential activities,
tasks, and engagement contribute to entrepreneurial self-efficacy and innovation
self-efficacy along four main themes:
Mastery by doing recognizes how training and repeated exposure to tasks related
to innovation and entrepreneurship provide opportunities to iteratively develop pro-
totypes. As a result, students “build to think” while navigating ambiguity and
perceiving failures as positive learning experiences. This prototyping mindset pre-
pares them to fail fast and cheaply by engaging in iterative testing to inform their
next steps in the product development process.
Connections to real life focuses on the opportunities afforded by ME 310 to
address industry sponsored projects and problems while collaborating on small
teams. The emotional connection and personal commitment to these yearlong
problems explores the “why” behind the project. Students are encouraged to come
up with creative ideas while exploring the solution space from small scale prototypes
to a larger systems context.
Interdisciplinary exposure demonstrates how a user-centric approach to design
can help students understand their customers in order to identify pain points and
articulate their value propositions that address their needs. Knowledge of the busi-
ness ecosystem, skills in social and emotional understanding, and interdisciplinary
project management are critical for successful commercialization and long-term
success of technically innovative products and services.
Supportive environments emphasizes the factors that contribute to the culture and
broader ecosystem of innovation and entrepreneurship. From partnering with local
incubators to building coop programs with startups, these kinds of experiences
facilitate on-the-ground intensive learning where, as noted earlier, failure is normal-
ized and risk-taking is encouraged. The environment of ME 310 includes people
who start their own companies and develop innovative products which positively
reinforces and inspires students to believe that they too can pursue this entrepre-
neurial pathway.
4.2 Graduates Who Are Founders, Timo Bunk
Timo Bunk (2021, Bunk et al., 2022) explored how mechatronics education can be
designed and taught to foster the development of more successful startups and
individual entrepreneurs, based on the findings from studying the entrepreneurial
career pathways of ME 218 alumni. The pedagogy of project-based learning (PBL)
with its emphasis on open-ended problems, practical experimentation, and a
hands-on approach had a significant impact on the entrepreneurial confidence and

skill development shown by graduates. The final course results of a tangible product,
teamwork, and question asking were fundamental activities reiterated throughout the
course.
While ME 218 has a reputation of being academically challenging with a
demanding and stressful workload, this “hardcore” culture was also viewed by
some alumni as a valuable opportunity for learning. According to one alum, “ME
218 is the closest experience I have had to the pain of doing a startup. My cofounder
was also 218. If someone says they took 218, you are [thinking] ‘OK, this guy can
deal with pain’.” While students were confronted with complex problems, there was
a strong feeling of achievement when the problem was solved. In addition, the
reputation of ME 218 beyond the Stanford community, and the knowledge and
skills that alumni possess, are recognized by companies in the mechatronics field.
When it came to the reasons why ME 218 alumni choose to start companies,
several cited that initial naiveté: “I do not think I would have started the company if I
had known how much I did not know after coming out of school. But I was just
naive. I thought I knew everything, and I was wrong. And then it was too late.”
Making an impact and utilizing their personal skills motivated individuals seeking to
pursue new opportunities.
4.3 Graduates Who Are Engineering Team Leaders,

Johannes J.L. Lamprecht
Johannes J. L. Lamprecht (2022a, 2022b, Lamprecht and Sheppard 2022) addressed

a timely question exploring the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on effective
collaboration in remote environments, particularly for those engineering teams who
work with hardware. While the need for more effective communication approaches
among distributed team members predated the pandemic, the insights gained from
the interviews conducted with ME 218 alumni have implications not only for the
current course but also for educators who are preparing future engineering and
design team leaders for more frequent remote collaboration.
The ME 218 course experience has proved to be fertile ground for students to not
only build and practice skills that have been necessary for successful remote
collaboration but also to navigate the rapid emergency transition to remote work.
In ME 218, students document their work, engage in time and project management,
and work in an interdisciplinary context. As noted by Timo, the real-world chal-
lenges that ME 218 students investigate require them to explore a solution space that
is wide open. For these problems that have not yet been defined, teams are chal-
lenged to figure out what questions to ask and to communicate their process and
decisions with team members and externally with classmates.
The interview findings noted how ME 218 alumni continued to leverage the
knowledge and skills they developed in their course experiences as they negotiated
the challenges of remote teamwork and hardware development. Reliance on tech-

nology tools such as messaging and community platforms (e.g., Slack) was
employed to maintain a positive team culture, as well as for project documentation
and communication. Sustaining a culture of information-sharing both inside and
outside the technology was critical, such as adding socializing time after each online
meeting.
In successful remote teams, senior leadership, managers, and supervisors were
intentional in their management and facilitation of relationships among team mem-
bers. Mentoring and efforts to be transparent about management decisions were
critical. Communication became more high touch and frequent, between team
members, between leaders and team members, and between leaders. The balance
between individual agency and empowered decision-making led to shared leadership
and greater ownership. Correspondingly, shorter but more frequent team meetings
and check-ins ensured alignment in goals and progress, often in combination with a
Scrum work framework.
While this project infrastructure of communication and leadership was the foun-
dation of effective remote collaboration, the data indicate that remote hardware
design is heavily dependent on technical resources and tools, including being able
to easily share pictures, video, and CAD files via the cloud. Other tools and
approaches included an ongoing livestream of debugging processes and 3D printing
of prototypes, which were shipped to team members. Last, any opportunities for
engineers to be on site were encouraged in order to facilitate interaction and
engagement with the physical work.
4.4 Graduates Who Choose Not to Become Founders,

Katharina Prantl
Katharina Prantl (2022) identified alumni from both ME 310 and ME 218 to better
understand the decision-making process related to entrepreneurship and innovation
and, in particular, the barriers that hinder female alumni from founding a company.
The interviews focused on experiences related to career trajectories, personal and
professional priorities, and engagement in entrepreneurship education. The findings
are represented in four personas.
Opportunity seekers have always intended to start a company. They have inten-
tionally sought out educational opportunities (e.g., taking additional entrepreneur-
ship courses or pursuing an MBA) and have positive associations with the culture
and meaning of entrepreneurship. While opportunity seekers often engage in activ-
ities related to their own venture, they may lack resources (e.g., collaborators,
finances) and confidence.
Mission and passion drivers have little to no interest in building their own
venture; however, they often engage in comparable activities and work as that of
founders, through working in a startup, founding their own club, or teaching
entrepreneurship. Their biggest barriers are time and priorities outside of entrepre-
neurship since their focus is on mission and impact.
Autonomy and flexibility drivers have high exposure to entrepreneurship through
their networks or prior work experience. Many currently own small businesses;
however, they do not see themselves as entrepreneurs. They have some ideas for
possible ventures but value work-life balance and, as a result, have low to mid
interest in entrepreneurial engagement. Barriers include deep subject matter knowl-
edge and expertise as well as the potential trade-offs in flexibility and independence.
High impact drivers often work in innovative companies that previously had been
startups and have high responsibility. They may hold leadership responsibilities and
view their positions and opportunities through an intrapreneurial lens within their
organizations. High impact drivers have strong technical expertise and do not have
any interest in pursuing their own ventures due to risk aversion, given the anticipated
limitations in resources and the opportunity cost of switching from a position where
their expertise and skills are recognized to a less certain entrepreneurial position
where they could pursue their world changing idea.
The use of the design thinking tool of personas highlights the spectrum of
motivations and barriers for entrepreneurship and expands on how engineering
educators can improve entrepreneurship training and education to accommodate
and address these varying needs.
4.5 Researcher Impact
The four early career researchers, whose work is described in Sects. 4.1–4.4, also
identified several areas of personal growth and impact resulting from their engage-
ment in this work:
• Identify a research topic that you are passionate and curious about. Like the
purpose- and mission-driven motivations of many entrepreneurs, researchers
should also strive to identify a topic that they are passionate and curious about.
Beyond generating novel, interesting, and publishable research findings, the four
researchers shared a keen interest in contributing to the growth of innovative and
entrepreneurship ecosystems at universities that directly contribute to the training
and development of tomorrow’s leaders.
• Become part of iterative and community-based research. The environment in
which these four interview studies were conducted provided iterative opportuni-
ties for constructive and critical feedback. In addition, researchers shared recom-
mendations for the use of software to manage data collection and interview
scheduling and resources for transcription and qualitative analysis tools. Reflec-
tion on their own personal growth and skills development and particularly their
intellectual identities as scholars was evident during the whole research process.
• Be inspired by those who are in your study. One of the researchers was motivated
by having the opportunity to speak firsthand with inspiring people and described
it as participating in 19 personal TED talks. Overcoming one’s personal fears

about asking questions and being a good listener were also important areas of
growth.
• Consider your own pathway as you study the pathways of others. Several of our
researchers gained practical insights from not only the research findings but
especially from the research process. Some aspire to pursue an entrepreneurial
pathway in the future by starting their own companies, while others are consid-
ering pursuing a PhD. They found the findings immediately applicable to their
own personal and professional lives.
5 Discussion and Next Steps
These research findings on innovative, entrepreneurial, and technical career path-

ways and education’s influence on those pathways are just the tip of the iceberg.
While we found that many graduates remain involved in R&D and design years after
graduating, some of their most important educational learnings were about human
relationships and a mindset that “embraces” failure. We also unearthed many new
knowledge gaps and questions about how education (and particularly project-based
learning) influences students in the short and long term, for example, the question
how many of our findings are particular to the graduate populations from a highly
selective university that we studied? or how should generational differences be
factored into gathering and interpreting data?
Recognizing that there is still more to be learned, shared, and acted on, our future
work includes next steps such as the following:
• Publications through the writing of journal articles and conference articles based
on Nada Elfiki’s and Katharina’s Prantl’s findings. We are also developing a
manuscript on the combined survey dataset from ME 218 and ME 310 that will
present several models examining the factors that influence and drive innovative
behavior in the workplace.
• Outreach to other academic institutions, programs, and environments will
involve the translation of the study findings into workable ideas, activities, and
practices for educators who wish to provide their students with similar experi-
ences or who wish to adapt and implement our instruments and methodologies for
their own students, alumni, and environments.
• Future research efforts are underway through the adaptation of the ME 218 and
ME 310 survey instruments for two entrepreneurship and innovation-focused
programs in Germany—the Technology Management program of the Center for
Digital Technology and Management (CDTM), a joint institution of Ludwig-
Maximilians-Universität München (LMU) and the Technische Universität
München (TUM), and the Manage and More program of UnternehmerTUM.
This research will explore the unique factors and experiences that contribute to
and foster entrepreneurship and innovation education across international
contexts and diverse student populations. In addition, we continue to conduct

interviews with female founders and non-founders in different cultural settings to
inform comparative research on career pathways, motivations, and goals with
specific consideration of the implications of these findings for engineering and
design educators.
In closing, we reiterate how underexplored the connections and relationships are
between engineering education and the world of work in terms of the development of
human capital (or as one of our colleagues refers to it, “human capital formation”).
There are great societal and individual investments of time, resources, and finances
into formal education, and yet there is so much more to be understood about the
“payouts” of education in terms of new career opportunities for the individual and
new innovations and inventions for our broader society. We invite others to join us in
this ongoing exploration to contribute more insights into the fundamental questions
of “what ‘sticks’ about engineering education?” and “how do we improve that
education?”
Acknowledgments We are grateful for the support and encouragement we have received from
Professor Larry Leifer and Dr. Prof. Christoph Meinel and the Hasso Plattner Design Thinking
Research Program. The following individuals were also involved in designing and carrying out the
research described in this chapter: Dr. Felix Kempf, Hung Pham, Dr. Mark Schar, Nicole Salazar,
and Stanford’s School of Engineering Alumni Relations and Student Engagement. Others who
provided critical feedback and background information include Niclas-Alexander Mauss, Lawrence
Domingo, Dr. Jan Aurenhammer, Dr. Claudia Liebethal, Professor Helmut Schönenberger, Profes-
sor Mark Cutkosky (ME 310), Dr. Ed Carryer (ME 218), Crystal Pennywell, Gosia Wojciechowska,
Elizabeth Mattson, Tammy Liaw, Dr. Sharon Nemeth, Jill Grinager, and members of the Designing
Education Lab. Finally, we gratefully acknowledge the many graduates of ME 218 and ME
310 who completed our surveys and answered our invitations to be interviewed—without them,
this research would not have been possible. They are the true stars of this work!
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Part 1
Application of Design Thinking
to Governance and Social Causes
Predicting Creativity and Innovation
in Society: The Importance of Places,
the Importance of Governance
Julia von Thienen, Kim-Pascal Borchart, Detlef Bartsch, Lars Walsleben,

Abstract Places causally impact the development of creativity and innovation.

Observable patterns include “creative explosions” at some places and times, which
contrast to phases of continuity at other locations and times. But what characteristics
of places enhance or trim creativity? This paper draws attention to governance,
which strongly impacts emerging creative work in the region. We therefore intro-
duce a four-leaf clover model in design thinking, according to which promising
innovation is (1) desirable in terms of human values, (2) feasible in terms of
technology, (3) viable in terms of business models, and (4) legal in terms of
governance. Making a start in quantifying the impact of governance, we share a
case study on genetic engineering in European agriculture. Furthermore, the TYPE
method is introduced as an approach to compare rates of creativity and innovation in
a region under current regulation as opposed to a hypothetical scenario without
regulation. Subsequently, we suggest key figures to trace the innovation potential in
a region over time, building on the computational process model of invention. Such
key figures allow comparisons between regions on behalf of their overall innovation
potential, and they reveal profiles of strengths and weakness in terms of available
resources for creative work. This chapter closes with a discussion of governance
approaches that trim creativity and innovation, as opposed to governance approaches
that raise the innovation potential in a region.
J. von Thienen (✉) · K.-P. Borchart · C. Meinel

e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]
D. Bartsch
Bundesamt für Verbraucherschutz und Lebensmittelsicherheit (BVL), Berlin, Germany
L. Walsleben
Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität (WWU), Münster, Germany

48 J. von Thienen et al.
Fig. 1 Design thinking

works with a 4P model of
creativity and innovation. In
class, students learn to
orchestrate resources from
the domains of creative
people, processes, and
places in order to develop
worthwhile creative
products. Thus, places are
addressed as one out of three
pillars in order to advance or
predict creative outcomes
1 The “Place” Factor in Creativity and Innovation
It has long been noted that places impact creativity and innovation (Fig. 1). The
immediate room where people work has some effect. There is also a notable impact
of large-scale places, such as the geographic region or the political context in which
people operate.
Overall, this chapter defines places as any environment that impacts how people
feel and behave, including their inclination to be creative. Some places are well-
defined in terms of physical boundaries, such as a room or building. Other places are
socially defined, as when addressing people who work in a particular organization or
in a “zone of psychological safety” characterized by mutual trust among colleagues.
Places can be analog or virtual. Moreover, places can be relatively small, such as a
desktop background, or relatively large, such as a country, continent, or planet.
As research has pointed out, places impact the number and kind of creative
outcomes that emerge. At some places and times, a huge number of creative
solutions emerge. These developments can be so outstanding and seemingly abrupt
that they have even been described as “creative explosions” (Mithen, 2005). Such
episodes of innovation contrast to long phases of continuity and stasis that seem to
prevail at other places and times. The archaeological record suggests that such
patterns already existed in humanity’s prehistory:
There are times and places in the past when a great many novel artefact forms or procedures
appeared [. . .]. These seemingly fertile intervals are brought into sharp relief by comparison
with times and places when very little that was new or different emerged. (Kuhn, 2012,
p. 69)
Predicting Creativity and Innovation in Society: The Importance of Places,. . . 49
In historic times, these patterns are well-documented too.

The appearance of [creative] genius fluctuates over place and time. Geniuses do not pop up
randomly—one in Siberia, another in Bolivia—but in groupings. Genius clusters. Athens in
450 BC. Florence in AD 1500. Certain places at certain times, produced a bumper crop of
brilliant minds and good ideas. (Weiner, 2016, p. 8)
Such patterns of creative explosions that contrast to phases and places of stasis
seem to be more than a coincidence. Experimental research has demonstrated that
places causally impact creativity and innovation (von Thienen et al., 2012; Guegan
et al., 2017; Bourgeois-Bougrine et al., 2020; Richard et al., 2018). Against this
background, there is a likely question to ask:
How does the location of people impact their creativity and innovation?
In this chapter, we turn toward a place factor that is presumably very impactful in
shaping creativity among individuals and whole societies. Still, the subject has
received surprisingly little attention in design thinking research and creativity
literature so far. The question is as follows:
How does the political environment, or governance, impact creativity and inno-
vation in society?
The importance of this large-scale place factor has been pointed out recently by
Mitchell and Bartsch (2020), leading to the redesign of an often used framework in
design thinking.
2 A Four-Leaf Clover Model of Innovation
In design thinking literature, innovation has often been described as emerging in the
middle of a three-leaf clover. According to this model, innovation thrives when
creative solutions are (1) desirable in terms of people’s needs, (2) feasible in
technical terms, and (3) viable in light of business models. As Kelley and Kelley
explain
In every innovation program we have been involved with, there are always three factors to
balance [. . .]: The first has to do with technical factors, or feasibility [. . .]. The second key
element is economic viability, or what we sometimes refer to as business factors. Not only
does the technology need to work, but it also needs to be produced and distributed in an
economically viable way. [. . .] The third element involves people, and is sometimes referred
to as human factors. It’s about deeply understanding human needs. (Kelley & Kelley, 2013,
p. 20)
Mitchell and Bartsch (2020) have pointed out how successful innovation, in
addition, requires the satisfaction of constraints in a fourth domain. It is also
characteristic for the innovation sweet spot that respective creative developments
are legally permitted, politically accepted, and maybe even encouraged.
Let us consider an example from the domain of genetic engineering (e.g., Schmidt
et al., 2020; Wilhelm et al., 2021). In this realm, arguably, the satisfaction of the
classic three constraints is not enough for creative developments to take place. In
terms of human values, there are stakeholders with strong concerns for more
sustainable farming methods, such as having to use less pesticides or water resources
while being able to feed growing numbers of people on Earth. In technological
terms, it is feasible today to produce plants with looked-for traits via genetic
engineering methods. For instance, plants can be developed to be more weed tolerant
and then require fewer pesticides, or plants can be rendered more drought tolerant
and then need less frequent watering. In terms of business prospects, there are large
markets for plants of this kind around the globe. However, in terms of governance,
such developments are only accepted and encouraged in some parts of the world. By
contrast, other regions including the European Union discourage these kinds of
developments. While the application of genetic engineering methods in agriculture
is not strictly prohibited in Europe, it is governed in very strict ways. Those who
would like to implement projects need to obtain permits to do so. The requirements
and approval procedures are so complex that projects in Europe tailored toward
market release have remained close to zero. This contrasts to other places around the
globe, where many projects are being put to practice.
Views on genetic engineering vary widely. While some stakeholders see great
potential in this technology, others find it risky and therefore consider respective
projects undesirable, no matter what the concrete project goals might be. Therefore,
we want to provide a second example from a different domain. Furthermore, we wish
to emphasize that our goal is to describe and model factors that impact creativity and
innovation. We do not advise for or against particular political values or decisions.
The impact of governance can also be seen in contexts where the development of
creative solutions, desired by some stakeholders in society, threatens the power of
authorities. These authorities may then take action to counter those creative devel-
opments. For instance, there are stakeholders around the globe who embrace human
values of gender equality. This yields market opportunities, and viable businesses
could be established based on the interests of customers, for instance, when women
in a society decide they want to buy trousers for themselves. Technologically, it is
certainly feasible to produce trousers for women. However, when an authoritative
regime feels threatened by the idea of gender equality, they are in a position to
legally forbid the wearing of trousers by women in the public. As a result, creative
developments in a particular fashion domain will not unfold as they would without
regulation. In this case, people in the society cannot conduct desired projects on
designing, distributing, and wearing clothes in ways that signal gender equality.
In short, governance plays a significant role in shaping the ability of society to
generate and implement innovative solutions (Fig. 2). It can either foster or inhibit
creative exploration and novel developments. Worthwhile innovation thrives in the
middle of a four-leaf clover: The new solution is (1) desirable as it aligns with
human values, (2) technically feasible, (3) economically viable, and (4) legally
permissible, if not actively encouraged by governance.
Fig. 2 Innovation thrives at

the sweet spot of four
intersecting fields:
(1) desirability in terms of
human values, (2) feasibility
in terms of technology,
(3) viability in terms of
business models, and
(4) legality in terms of
political governance
3 Key Tasks in Innovation Governance: Advancing

Desirable Developments, Protecting Against Risks
In the governance of creativity and innovation, it is important to note that not all
creative endeavors yield positive outcomes. For example, someone may use their
creativity to design a weapon with the intention of causing harm to others or the
planet. Such actions are widely considered undesirable. In research, developments
like this fall under the headline of “malevolent creativity” (e.g., Cropley et al., 2008,
2014; Eisenman, 2008, Hao et al., 2016; Perchtold-Stefan et al., 2021). This field of
research focuses on the intentional use of creativity for harmful or malicious
purposes.
Notably, undesirable outcomes can emerge from creative activity when people
work toward criminal ends, but also when they have good intentions and aim for
desirable outcomes. In iconic cases staged colorfully in movies, protagonists have
worthwhile aims in mind and then conduct risky experiments; something goes
wrong and consequences are fatal. Even in real life, no matter what outcomes people
develop, there can always be some unexpected negative side effects. Products might
be misused, or creative processes simply culminate in a mess.
An example known to many families is the motivation of kindergarten-aged
children to engage in creative cooking projects. Here the kids typically have the
best of intentions. They want to cook a delicious meal, potentially developing a great
new recipe along the way. Yet, without the supervision and governance of care-
takers, these creative projects can easily end in a number of different dramas.
Children may end up with bloody fingers (from using knives), the living room
sofa might be splattered with juice stains (due to the preparation of dishes randomly
in the home), and larger quantities of food can end up in the trash (due to mis-
judgments about food combinations that would be enjoyable). The governance of
creativity and innovation based on expectable benefits or risks is a topic that affects
almost anyone in society. Questions of good governance appear in the family, in
organizations, just as they appear for the state or political union.
A key objective in innovation governance is to permit desirable creative devel-
opments. This may include encouragement and facilitation. At the same time,
non-helpful, risky, or harmful developments are to be kept under control, which
may happen via prohibition, discouragement, and/or close monitoring.
Research can look into the governance approach that regulators pursue. Such an
assessment needs to start from innovation domains of interest, because the same
authority can decide to be liberal about creative developments in one domain but
strict in another.
All governance strategies can be located in a triangle of hypothetical scenarios
(Fig. 3).
At one extreme, authorities can decide not to regulate a particular innovation
domain at all. In this case, anyone who has a creative idea can forge ahead with
it. There are no particular requirements that creators need to meet.
At the other extreme, authorities can opt for maximally strict regulation, which
means trying to exert full control over the kinds of creative developments that occur.
However, authorities still need to decide whether they want to control based on risks
or benefits or some balancing of both.
Fig. 3 The innovation regulation triangle is a framework that helps to understand actual gover-
nance approaches by placing them in relation to three hypothetical extremes. These extremes are
(1) no regulation whatsoever, (2) regulation solely focused on the avoidance of risks associated with
taking action, and (3) regulation solely focused on maximizing particular benefits. Real-world
governance approaches can fall somewhere along this spectrum. Authorities can try to design
governance approaches in order to tap a sweet spot in the triangle that they consider ideal
In the hypothetical scenario of maximal regulation based on risks, no creative

idea ever achieves impact. The requirements that creators would have to meet in
order to obtain project approvals are so extensive, that it is practically impossible to
meet them. For instance, if creators have to demonstrate that their endeavor is
completely risk-free, nothing can ever be created anew, because not even the most
harmless project is 100% risk-free in every possible regard.
In the hypothetical scenario of maximal regulation based on benefits, a lot of
creative ideas can be realized. However, permissions are given only to those creators
whose project ideas serve “benefits” acknowledged by the authorities. When creators
can demonstrate such benefits, their projects are approved and risks are ignored.
Subsequently, we will look closely at an example of strict regulation focused on
risks. To briefly mention an example of strict regulation focused on benefits, one can
think back to the colonial days. Many kings and queens have been sensitive to the
benefit of increasing their own wealth. Creative citizens interested in traveling,
science, and/or adventure suggested projects to the rulers, where the official aim
was to organize gold or other treasures for the emperors. In a number of cases, the
sovereigns approved of these projects and supported them. This happened
irrespective of the fact that many of these projects not only involved risks, but
they caused great harm. In particular, for other countries and their inhabitants, such
projects were often fatal.
We will now turn to a case study, which estimates the position of European
governance in the innovation regulation triangle. The case study focuses on the
domain of genetic engineering for agriculture. Subsequently (in Sect. 5), we will
introduce the TYPE method, which allows for the positioning of any governance
approach within the innovation regulation triangle for a selective field of
creative work.
4 A Case Study on the Impact of Governance: Genetic

Engineering in European Agriculture
Bioengineering is one area where the influence of governance can be seen (Fig. 4).
Specifically, regulations for new genomic techniques (NGT) vary greatly worldwide.
These technologies enable a precise design of organisms, such as crops, with
particular looked-for traits. In some countries, those technologies are widely utilized,
while in other countries their use is highly restricted or outright prohibited.
Overall, currently four major techniques are available to develop plants with new
traits, such as increased draught and weed tolerance (Table 1). All four techniques
produce plants that often cannot be distinguished from naturally evolved variants.
That means, without human intervention, identical plants could emerge via natural
evolution.
As shown in Fig. 4, Europe is known for its strict regulation of genetic engineer-
ing methods in agriculture. However, it is important to note that terms such as
Fig. 4 Around the world, different regulatory environments (ranging from restrictive to liberal)
have been established for new genomic techniques. The image is reprinted from Schmidt et al.
(2020), according to the Creative Commons License CC BY 4.0
Table 1 Overview of four major techniques used for the development of new plants
Undesired/ Decades of Product
Time random plant documented safe use developments in
Technique demand changes in the EU the EU
(1) Selective Very Few Yes Many
breeding high
(2) Chemical High Many Yes Many
(3) Radiation High Many Yes Many
(4) New genomic Low to Few to moderate No Hardly any
techniques (NGT) moderate
“strict” or “lenient” are relative. The level of strictness in regulation can vary,
leading to a gradual decline of innovation rates in society. When the intent is to
regulate an innovation domain strictly, this may involve aiming for a reduction of
50% or 70% compared to the creative developments that would be expected without
regulation. Ideally, in such cases, the regulator may want to maintain the 30% or
50% of creative projects that offer the greatest benefits while having the least
associated risks. Less beneficial and/or more risky creative endeavors would not
be implemented due to the strict regulation. On the other hand, at the extreme end of
the spectrum, we may also be facing a situation where 0% of the innovation occurs
that would be expected in this particular society in the case of complete deregulation.
In order to gain insight into potential innovation rates in Europe under varying
regulations, looking into applications of New Genetic Techniques (NGT) in the
realm of agriculture, we hosted three rounds of expert discussions. The first round
took place early in 2022 and brought together a group of N = 5 individuals with
extensive knowledge of genetic engineering methods, respective regulations in
Europe, as well as institutions working in this field.
Subsequent discussion rounds were hosted at the end of 2022. They aimed to
trace any changes in estimates given the evolving regulatory discourse and market
developments. Furthermore, different estimates could reflect varying views among
experts. By the end of 2022, we assembled two separate groups of experts (N = 4
and N = 6), asking them to provide the same estimations as in the initial discussion.
Out of the original N = 5 group, two experts also took part in the repeated
estimations, one joining the N = 4 team, while the other joined the N = 6 group.
Each session followed a structured format involving two phases. The first was
dedicated to an estimation of numbers under current regulation, while the second
phase was concerned with a hypothetical scenario of complete deregulation.
The first phase started with the following prompts, to be discussed for 10 min:
• How many companies in Europe seem to pursue NGT-based product develop-
ments for agriculture at present (intended for markets inside or outside of
the EU)?
• On average, how many different NGT products for agriculture does each com-
pany try to develop within 10 years?
• What is the average success probability with which each company achieves an
NGT product they try to develop within 10 years?
• Do individuals pursue NGT-based product developments in Europe? If so, how
many successfully completed NGT product developments do you expect from
individual work in the next 10 years?
In the initial N = 5 study early in 2022, the experts reported that only a small
number of companies appeared to be using NGT in agricultural projects. The experts
noted that these companies seemed to focus on the development of products for
markets outside of the EU. The discussion identified approximately nine companies
that were pursuing NGT-based agricultural projects in Europe. These companies
were estimated to conduct 20 product developments on average in the upcoming
decade, each with a success probability of approximately 0.9. This led to an
estimated total of 9 × 20 × 0.9 = 162 NGT-based products for agriculture to emerge
in Europe in the next decade.
However, by the end of 2022, the situation was perceived differently in the
repeated expert discussions. More experts believed that Europeans were beginning
to engage in NGT-based projects for agriculture under current regulation. While
some experts still believed that only companies were currently engaged in such
endeavors, others anticipated an increase in product developments in Europe from
individuals as well. One expert group estimated that there would be a total of 1057
agricultural NGT products to emerge in Europe in the next 10 years under current
regulation, while the other expert group estimated 1485 products to emerge.
In the second phase of the discussion, groups were instructed to estimate numbers
for a hypothetical European scenario of complete deregulation. To begin, the teams
obtained 10 min for orientation, working with the following prompts and available
laptops for online research:
• How many individuals in Europe have the know-how to conduct NGT-based
product developments for agriculture?
Internet research
• What universities or other institutes convey knowledge in this field?
• How long have respective training programs existed?
• How many people have thus been trained in Europe by now?
• How many topic experts are estimated to exist at present in the EU, considering
also immigration and emigration?
Subsequently, the teams obtained 10 min to arrive at numerical estimates for the
deregulation scenario. This discussion phase was guided by the following prompts:
• Out of all persons in the EU who have the know-how to conduct NGT-based
product developments for agriculture, how many have the motivation and access
to equipment in order to implement projects?
• How many projects does each motivated and well-equipped expert conduct on
average within a decade (considering that some projects might be conducted
alone, others within companies or groups)?
• What is the average success probability with which each project achieves the
NGT product they try to develop within 10 years?
During the initial expert discussion held early in 2022, the experts came to the
following conclusion:
It was estimated that there were approximately 20,000 individuals in Europe with
the subject knowledge to conduct agricultural product developments using NGT.
Out of this group, it was expected that 1500 individuals had the motivation and
access to necessary equipment to actually implement NGT-based projects. Assum-
ing each individual dedicated 10 years to their respective product developments and
the probability of success for each year of development was 0.6, the expert discus-
sion yielded an expected value of 1500 × 10 × 0.6 = 9000 product developments in
Europe given the hypothetical scenario of complete deregulation.
These estimates suggest that the current European regulation results in a reduc-
tion of around 98% of completed product developments in the sector of NGT-based
plants for agriculture, when compared to the hypothetical scenario of deregulation
(9000 – 162 = 8838 fewer product developments). These estimates are depicted in
Fig. 5, illustrating the use of the innovation regulation triangle in the description of
governance approaches.
Fig. 5 Based on estimates

from an expert discussion,
European governance of
NGT in agriculture can be
described as “very strict,”
allowing for the
implementation of only 2%
of the product developments
that would be expected in a
hypothetical scenario of
complete deregulation
When the expert discussion was repeated by the end of 2022, different numbers
emerged. One group estimated that under a hypothetical scenario of deregulation,
135,000 agricultural NGT products could emerge in Europe within the next 10 years,
while the other group arrived at an estimate of 270,000. The significant difference
between these estimates reflects the uncertainties that experts face when considering
hypothetical scenarios that diverge significantly from the current situation in
Europe—an aspect that should be taken into account when interpreting these
numbers.
Despite this variation, all expert groups agree that there is a drastic reduction in
the number of NGT product developments due to the current strict regulation.
According to one expert discussion by the end of 2022, there is a reduction of
99% in NGT product developments in Europe compared to the deregulation scenario
(133,943 products out of 135,000). By comparison, the second expert group esti-
mates a trimming effect of 99.5% (268,515 products out of 270,000).
In summary, the expert discussions indicate that the current regulation results in a
reduction of potential NGT product developments for agriculture in Europe by
approximately 98%, 99%, or 99.5%, compared to what would be expected under
complete deregulation. These estimates provide a numerical impression of the level
of strictness with which NGT are currently regulated in Europe.
5 The TYPE Method to Estimate Product Developments

in a Place Without Regulation
In the case studies above, the calculation of hypothetical scenarios without regula-
tion has been conducted based on the following simple methodological approach,
which can be reapplied on behalf of other innovation domains (Table 2). We
introduce this method as the TYPE framework, standing for tools, lifetime years,
success probability, and expected products.
Out of the 4P framework of creativity and innovation (Fig. 1), this estimation
method begins by determining numbers for 3P, namely, already existing products
Table 2 Factors used to estimate numbers of successful product developments in a place for
scenarios of complete deregulation
Place
Old products People Process New products
“Tools” “Lifetime years” “Success probability” “Expected products”
(tools), the lifetime years people invest in creative developments using these tools,
and their process or success probability per year.
These estimates are characteristic for places at certain times. For instance, in our
case study, it has been estimated that currently 20,000 persons in Europe possess the
domain knowledge to use NGT in agricultural projects. In the expert discussion, this
appraisal depended in part on the number of universities that offer respective
education in Europe and their student numbers per year.
Clearly, there is an upper limit to the domain experts that can exist in a region,
based on the overall population size. In 2021, the state with the smallest population
size on Earth has been determined to be the Pitcairn Islands with 50 inhabitants.1
Obviously, a state that only has 50 inhabitants could not possibly have 20,000
experts in any particular knowledge field. The larger the state and its population,
the larger its innovation potential in terms of people who can have the expertise and
can invest work years in novel product developments.
Similarly, tools are place-specific. For example, Europe in the 1950s did not have
access to NGT for agricultural projects, because these technologies were only
invented later in history. Similarly, some countries today may not have access to
these tools because they have not kept up with the latest technological
advancements.
In a scenario without regulation, the likelihood of successfully completing a
creative project is largely dependent on the tools used. For example, when working
on plants with specific desired traits, the probability of success varies depending on
the tools used. The application of NGT increases the probability of success within a
specific time frame, such as one work year, in comparison to traditional selective
breeding techniques when targeting the same plant trait, such as enhanced drought
tolerance. In addition, the expertise of the individuals involved can also be consid-
ered. If the product developers have limited knowledge in the use of the tools, it can
make sense to assign a lower probability of success compared to those who have
received state-of-the-art education in the subject domain.
In a scenario that includes regulation, the probability of successfully completing a
creative project depends on a range of other factors as well. For instance, if product
developers have to invest 50% of their work time in documentation, product
developments take at least twice as long, because the active work time in projects
has been halved. In addition, there might be switching costs for creators, who need to
take care of two types of processes: creative and administrative.
1
https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/689720/umfrage/bevoelkerungsaermste-laender-der-
welt/
To sum it up, the TYPE method aims to estimate realistic numbers of successful
product developments in an innovation domain of interest. These estimates can be
calculated for regions under current regulation, looking some years into the future.
For comparative purposes, estimates can also be calculated on behalf of hypothetical
scenarios of complete deregulation.
In the remaining part of this chapter, we will look into another modeling
approach. It is dedicated to the calculation of key figures, where we specifically
suggest the monitoring of a factor called innovation potential. It is an integrative
measure of the resources for creative work that a community has available. These
resources provide the basis for creative productivity in the future.
To some degree, the TYPE method and calculations of the innovation potential
integrate information from the same variables. In particular, both approaches look
into tools, invested lifetime years, and the yearly success probability in creative
developments. These factors reappear in the modeling approaches, as they do in
creativity literature at large. To provide further pointers, for the impact of tools, we
refer to Enquist et al. (2008) and Kolodny et al. (2015). For the impact of population
size or person-time, we refer to Henrich (2004), Derex et al. (2013), and Creanza
et al. (2017). For the impact of project success probabilities, we refer to Arnold
(2016), who discusses various creativity approaches from random trials to more
systematic searches and their different lengthiness and success probabilities.
Notably, the two methods introduced in this chapter—which integrate informa-
tion on tools, people, and success probabilities—serve different purposes. In contrast
to the TYPE method, the calculation of the innovation potential does not yield
realistic numbers of expected product developments in a region. Instead, it is
introduced as a key figure to characterize the creative output that is possible in a
region, numerically integrating aspects of output quantity and output variety.
6 Introducing the Computational Process Model

of Invention to Calculate Key Figures of Innovation
Potential in a Region
In economics and business administration, it is common to calculate key figures that

provide an overview of economic situations and their development over time. One
example is the gross national income or the gross national product. These indicators
aggregate and integrate information from various economic variables, condensing
them into a single overall number. Key figures are used to identify problems,
determine strengths and weaknesses, gather information, control or monitor, docu-
ment, or plan actions. They provide interested parties with a quick overview of
economic developments. This becomes possible by collecting data and calculating
key figures at regular intervals, allowing for comparisons and trend analyses.
We propose that creativity and innovation studies should also develop key figures
to provide an overview of the innovation potential in a specific place, to facilitate
Fig. 6 The computational process model distinguishes seven mechanisms of invention, which
have been found to resurface in human creative activities. The model builds on the lucky leap
modeling approach (Kolodny et al., 2015). In its present form, the model is discussed in detail by
Corazza and von Thienen (2021) as well as von Thienen et al. (2023)
comparisons and trace developments over time. Such key figures can be determined
for places like a state or country and its entire population, but also for smaller-scale
places such as an organization and its employees.
To begin, we introduce an indicator for the innovation potential in a region. It can
be calculated based on the computational process model of invention. This model
identifies seven different mechanisms of invention that have been found to be
recurrent in human creative processes throughout history and prehistory (Fig. 6).
Governance approaches can impact each of these invention mechanisms. On such
grounds, profiles can be created that depict strengths and weaknesses of innovation
policy in a region. Those governance profiles must be formulated in relation to
policy goals. For example, if a region wants to promote innovation in a specific field,
it should support the application of invention mechanisms in that work area. By
contrast, if a region has ethical or risk concerns about certain types of innovation,
policy can discourage the use of those invention mechanisms in order to decrease the
respective innovation potential in the community. Against this background,
strengths of current governance approaches can be described when policy wants to
encourage innovation in a work area and the taken policy measures effectively serve
this end, or when policy aims to reduce creative developments in a particular
application field and the taken policy measures actually lead to such reductions.
In order to prepare for the calculation of the innovation potential in a region, let us
briefly look into the computational process model and the seven mechanisms of
invention it distinguishes:
1. Basic inventions emerge (see Boxes 1, 2, and 3 in Fig. 6). This is when an
invention appears for the first time. For instance, at some point in human (pre-)
history, agriculture and the wheel appeared for the first time.
2. Basic inventions evolve into invention branches. These branches exhibit two
major characteristics: diversification and refinement (e.g., Boxes 1.1, 1.11, or
1.12 in Fig. 6). For instance, agriculture diversified into livestock production and
crop production, with specialist knowledge expanding in each field. Refinement
means that solutions become more effective over time, in light of a continuous
value or development goal. For instance, crop yields have increased over time.
3. Invention combinations emerge (e.g., boxes 1&2, 2&3 and 1&2&3 in Fig. 6). For
instance, combining the basic inventions of agriculture and the wheel yields
vehicles for agriculture, like a hay cart.
4. Toolkits are developed (e.g., Boxes 1a, 1b, 1c, and 1d in Fig. 6). Toolkits make
the implementation of a basic invention more efficient and/or effective. For
example, alongside the invention of agriculture, toolkit inventions such as the
plow and water management systems were developed, so that agriculture could
be implemented in more effective ways.
5. Exaptations emerge (e.g., boxes 1′, 1*, and 1♦ in Fig. 6). Novel uses are found
for already existing technology. This occurs by identifying basic principles in
past inventions and reusing them to invent something new. For instance, a basic
principle of the wheel is something spinning around an axis. This principle can be
reused to create a windmill or pulley.
6. Values are extracted, maintained, or changed (e.g., Boxes 1-α and 1-β in Fig. 6).
Every invention conveys values and can elicit value discussions. When values
stay constant, incremental innovation emerges, which means that already
established solutions become fine-tuned by changing details. For example, in
agriculture, there is an ongoing concern for maximal crop yields, and so plants are
bred constantly for this purpose. When societal values change, innovation is led
to explore novel directions, and leap innovation is likely to emerge. In this case,
novel solution avenues are found that vary greatly from past solution strategies.
For instance, novel values of food taste or sustainability can guide innovation
projects toward novel kinds of crops, even when this entails compromises
regarding crop yields and the use of nontraditional breeding technologies.
7. Finally, inventions can become game changers for creativity and innovation in
one or multiple fields (cf. surrounding frame in Fig. 6). In such cases, an invention
greatly facilitates the ability of the entire community to engage successfully in
creative projects. For example, the development of the printing press enabled
knowledge to be passed on more reliably to future generations, and it became
easier to disseminate knowledge across wider geographical regions.
All inventions taken together (e.g., all boxes shown in Fig. 6) can be addressed as
the overall set of tools that a particular community has available.
6.1 Calculating the Baseline Innovation Potential in Society
Based on the computational process model and in line with the TYPE estimation
method, three positive factors are proposed for calculating the baseline innovation
potential of a community.
(+) Tools: These are past inventions, or existing products, that are available to
creators (e.g., every box in the computational process model).
(+) Lifetime years: This refers to the number of work-ready persons in the commu-
nity or more specifically to the years of lifetime they dedicate to creative
explorations with the given tools.
(+) Success probability: This refers to the probability of each lifetime year invested
in creative exploration to yield successful outcomes, i.e., novel solutions, inven-
tions (a new box in the computational process model).
Apart from these three positive factors, there is one that can prove a hindrance
(cf. Katz, 1990; Ram, 1987; Heidenreich & Spieth, 2013).
(-) Innovation resistance: This factor captures the loss of creative outcomes in a
community that is not interested in or opposed to innovation.
The resistance factor quantifies the loss of tools after their invention due to lack of
support from the community. When innovation resistance is at its maximum, the
community does not use or preserve novel tools provided by inventors, so every
invention that is made is lost again afterward. By contrast, when innovation resis-
tance is zero, the community’s set of tools grows at its maximum rate. Every novel
solution that inventors provide is secured afterward in the community; nothing
gets lost.
Against this background, we propose a simple model to overview key factors that
impact the innovation potential in society.
Definition 1 The innovation potential is the product of lifetime years, tools, and the
yearly project success probability, minus innovation resistance, so that
IP = LY T SP - IR:
Since some creative projects can be shorter than a year, one could also choose a
different or more abstract time unit. However, empirical data on how long it takes
humans to make notable creative contributions in the world suggests that a year is a
rather fine-granular and meaningful unit (cf. Sect. 7). Moreover, it is certainly
possible to calculate with numbers, such as 0.25 LY, equaling 3 months, or any
smaller or bigger number.
Overall, the innovation potential is a key figure that integrates information on
possible output quantity and variety of creative work in a region. More specifically,
the yearly success probability is a quantitative metric of how many projects will be
completed per year, due to the successful development of an invention. The tools
variable reflects the diversity of solutions that a community already has at its
disposal. Lifetimes years are multiplied with both factors. By investing their lifetime,
individuals can turn abstract success probabilities into tangible outcomes, resulting
in a specific number of new inventions (quantity aspect). Additionally, by investing
their lifetime, individuals can also explore different combinations of available tools
(variety aspect). However, the baseline innovation potential can be limited or
reduced by innovation resistance, which hinders the adoption of new inventions in
the community.
6.2 How Governance Can Impact the Innovation Potential

in Society
The baseline model to compute the innovation potential in society comprises four
factors, three of them positive (increasing creative potential) and one of them
negative (reducing creative potential). Each of these factors can be impacted by
governance. Furthermore, interventions can have either positive or negative impacts
on each factor. Sometimes, governance is complex. Some measures increase the
innovation potential, while other measures trim it. For this reason, it seems helpful to
keep these factors apart, to allow for more pinpointed analyses of the impact that
each intervention has.
Definition 2 (a) The innovation potential in a regulated environment equals “life-
time years plus regulated lifetime year gains minus regulated lifetime year losses”
multiplied by “tools plus regulated tool gains minus regulated tool losses” multi-
plied by the “yearly project success probability plus the regulated gains in success
probability minus the regulated losses in success probability” minus the “innova-
tion resistance plus the regulated gains in innovation resistance minus the regulated
losses in innovation resistance,” so that
rIP = LY þ rLYgain - rLYloss T þ rTgain - rTloss SP þ rSPgain - rSPloss

- IR þ rIRgain - rIRloss :
This can also be expressed more shortly as follows.

Definition 2 (b) The innovation potential in a regulated environment equals regu-
lated lifetime years, multiplied by regulated tools, multiplied by the regulated yearly
project success probability, minus the regulated innovation resistance, so that.
rIP = rLY rT rSP - rIR:
In a next step, we consider sample governance interventions that impact different

factors in the model.
Some of the considered governance approaches are “hard interventions” in terms
of changing the law code. Other approaches are “soft interventions,” such as
facilitating or sponsoring desired cultural activities. The discussion begins with

factors that impede creativity and innovation in society (Sect. 7), followed by a
discussion of facilitating factors (Sect. 8).
Of course, this overview of possible political interventions does not claim to be
complete. However, the model can help to clarify political objectives (e.g., make
access to a tool easier or more difficult) in order to increase or decrease the
innovation potential in a particular work area. This may facilitate the selection or
development of suitable governance interventions. In addition, it becomes easier to
monitor in descriptive terms how policies differ between countries or how interven-
tions evolve within one country.
7 Governance Interventions that Impede Creativity

and Innovation
Subsequently, we will discuss three major avenues of how governance can impede
creativity and innovation in a region. This occurs via (1) prohibition, (2) administra-
tion, and (3) legal inertia. All of these factors reduce the innovation potential that
otherwise would exist in the community. Readers are welcome to reflect on further
governance interventions they can think of, which also trim creativity and innovation
in the region.
7.1 Prohibition
Prohibition occurs when the reuse of an invention is not legally permitted in a

regulatory environment. This prohibition can be generic—the invention must not
be reused in any project. Such a prohibition is seldom. In most countries, even
inventions that are considered highly dangerous can be “reused” in the sense of
experts authoring scientific publications about them or displaying artifacts in
museums. Therefore, typically, when regulation restricts the reuse of an invention,
this limitation is context-specific. For instance, in many countries, gene-editing
technology must not be used to alter the human genome, but in some countries it
may be used in animal germ lines.
In terms of modeling, regulatory prohibitions reduce the amount of tools that
members of society can use in creative pursuits, so we are quantifying the factor
rTloss. To consider an example, let us assume there is an interest in the breeding of
crops for sustainability purposes. A community with the following tools and no
prohibition can explore at least two invention branches.
Community 1, Deregulated
Basic Inventions: Crop Cultivation, Conventional Breeding, New Genomic
Techniques.
Values: Traditional Farming, Sustainability.

One invention branch in this community can investigate the following
combination:
Crop Cultivation, Conventional Breeding, Traditional Farming, Sustainability.
This path will investigate the potential of sustainable crop cultivation using
traditional farming methods, in this case conventional breeding.
Another invention branch can explore the following combination:
Crop Cultivation, New Genomic Techniques, Sustainability.
This path will examine the potential for achieving maximal sustainability in crop
cultivation through the use of leap innovation, probing approaches that deviate
significantly from traditional farming methods.
When the application of NGT is restricted in crop cultivation, it limits the
available tools for breeders, resulting in a narrower range of options. Despite NGT
being a recognized technology in society, it is excluded as a potential tool for
developing new crops.
Community 1, Regulated.
Basic Inventions: Crop Cultivation, Conventional Breeding.
Values: Traditional Farming, Sustainability.
With this reduced set, only the first invention branch can be explored by members
of society. In this modeling example, rTloss = 1. Regulation reduces the set of tools
from 5 (crop cultivation, conventional breeding, new genomic techniques, tradi-
tional farming, sustainability) to 4 (crop cultivation, conventional breeding, tradi-
tional farming, sustainability).
7.2 Administration
Lifetime is one of the key bottlenecks for high-ranking creativity. In research on

creative processes of humans across various subject domains, it was found that
individuals commonly need at least 10 years of training before they can author
internationally recognized creative works in the field (Bloom, 1985; Hayes, 1989;
Ericsson et al., 1993). The time difference between the beginning of an individual’s
study time and their most highly appreciated creative work in life is even much
greater. A typical finding is that at least another decade passes between the person’s
first publication in a field, which is already based on substantial training, and their
best creative output (Simonton 1997, 2000; Kaufman & Kaufman 2007).
Even for experts who are already well-trained, lifetime devoted in concentrated
ways to a creative project remains essential for success. A lifetime that is imbued
with parallel or scattered tasks, due to interruptions at work, is worth little compared
to lifetime that can be devoted seamlessly and in self-determined ways to the task at
hand. When people have to think about project-external tasks alongside creative
work, this induces cognitive load, which is known to reduce performance in the long
term. Moreover, enduring cognitive load and interruptions at work can be
burdensome to the extent of posing a significant health risk (Mizuno et al., 2011;
Baethge & Rigotti, 2013; Sonnentag & Frese, 2012; Keller et al., 2020; McKee
2022).
In this context, it is important to emphasize that high-ranking creativity is
cognitively very demanding. The “hobby-type creativity” where people produce a
mediocre clay sculpture to decorate their homes has little if any impact on the set of
tools in society as depicted in the computational process model. The model
addresses inventions such as agriculture or the wheel—examples of notable,
nontrivial creative outcomes according to common classifications of creative
achievement (Kaufman & Beghetto, 2009). Especially projects tailored toward
leap innovation usually require the full devotion of all cognitive resources by the
creators.
When regulatory environments force creators to run through formal admission
procedures prior to conducting creative projects, this does not only cause a loss of
lifetime (Fig. 7). Depending on the amount of administrative effort, a few, many, or
all members of society can lose interest in creative projects concerning that domain,
as it costs “too much time and energy.” Even when people remain willing to work
creatively in the field, they can lose a considerable amount of their lifetime years
through lengthy administrative processes.
It should also be noted that especially high-performing creators are often pas-
sionate about the creative work they conduct (Arnold, 1959/2016; Amabile, 1996;
Csikszentmihalyi, 1997; Hennessey et al., 2015). These people are exceptionally
engaged and successful in their creative pursuits in part because they love what they
do. If they cannot do what they love, because they are forced to engage in bureau-
cratic administrative activities instead, a lot of frustration can result. Especially high-
performing creators thus can be tempted to change their environments (potentially
leaving their organization or country) in order to find better working conditions,
where they experience more creative freedom and face fewer disturbances.
For all these reasons combined, administration typically contributes to the factor
rLYloss, which represents the loss of lifetime years that society invests in creative
endeavours to achieve innovation.
Another factor to consider is that administration usually costs the applicants
money. Financial resources impact the project success probability, as more money
means that creators have better opportunities to organize themselves in a way to
succeed in their endeavor. Therefore, administrative procedures usually also feed
into the factor rSPloss.
7.3 Legal Inertia
Innovation resistance is a general factor that reduces the innovation potential in

society. There can be at least two major sources for this resistance. One is a cultural
factor, in particular the fear of novelty or a preference for traditional solutions in the
community (Zajonc, 2001; Blair & Mumford, 2007; Mueller et al., 2012; von
Predicting Creativity and Innovation in Society: The Importance of Places,. . .
Fig. 7 When administrative processes are bureaucratically organized, they can cause massive damage to creativity and innovation in society. In particular,
creators are forced to invest their limited resources (learning time, money, patience, etc.) in the administrative rather than in the creative process, where these
resources would be greatly needed
67
Thienen et al., 2019). It has also been noted that cultures sometimes seem to display
a “tiredness of change,” and then continuity and adherence to tradition become
dominant values (Katz, 1990).
Beyond these cultural influences, regulatory environments can also induce resis-
tance. In particular, laws can be outdated—for instance, if they were made for earlier
technologies that are quite unlike currently emerging tools. There are by now case
studies from numerous innovation domains showing how outdated laws pose severe
obstacles in the handling of novel solutions (Armitage et al., 2017; Becher, 2021;
Schmidt et al., 2020). In these cases, new solutions cannot be seamlessly integrated
into the existing regulatory context, leading to time delays and sometimes even
harsh, long-enduring legal disputes that bind many resources. The pace of techno-
logical change is clearly challenging for regulators. Against such a background, De
Barro et al. (2011) provide an interesting case example of a creative and rather
improvisational solution to cover a novel technical development under existing
regulation.
Legal inertia refers to the time delay between the invention of a novel tool and
revisions in legal texts to address both old and novel tools in appropriate ways. As a
proxy for quantifying legal inertia, we suggest a function that incorporates the
number of years since the law was last updated in light of technological advance-
ments. For example, in Europe, the use of NGT for food and feed is still regulated
based on the state of knowledge and technology as of 2001. This has led to a
processing of more recent technology that many European scientists find “bewilder-
ing” (Schmidt et al., 2020). In terms of modeling, legal inertia flows into the factor
rIRgain.
8 Governance Approaches to Encourage Creativity

and Innovation
Regulatory environments can encourage creativity and innovation with regard to all
four factors that determine innovation potential in the model. This means to look out
for measures that increase lifetime years, tools, and the project success probability
while minimizing innovation resistance. Such interventions feed into the factors
rLYgain, rTgain, rSPgain, and rIRloss in the model.
8.1 Measures to Increase Lifetime Years
Lifetime years dedicated to creative work in a particular domain are a major predictor
of inventions and other creative solutions that can be expected in the work area.
Lifetime years depend on the number of persons in society, who possess the required
domain knowledge, access to tools, and motivation to make creative developments
in the subject area. At any location (e.g., in a particular town or country),

policymakers can reshape the environment to court or hinder creative work in a
specific topic domain. Measures can pinpoint all four factors that impact lifetime
years.
1. Measures in terms of migration, housing, etc. that increase the number of persons
living in a particular area raise the innovation potential at this location.
2. Schools, universities, museums, etc. in the area, which convey knowledge
regarding a particular work domain, increase the innovation potential at this
location in the subject domain.
3. Measures to increase tool-related factors are discussed in Sect. 8.2.
4. There are many ways of motivating people to be more creative in a particular
field, thereby increasing the respective innovation potential. One strategy is to
provide financial incentives for successful projects, which can be facilitated by
intellectual property rights or patent law. Another approach is to increase visibil-
ity for exemplary projects in the desired areas of activity through the support for
exhibitions, workshops, and other cultural events. In addition, creative projects
thrive most profusely in a “maker community.” These communities can be highly
domain-specific: An area that has a creative community regarding custom cars is
not necessarily the same as an area that places its emphasis on creative gardening
projects. Policy can provide support for maker communities.
Similarly, we already discussed how administration typically reduces lifetime
years. Therefore, minimizing currently existing administration demands is another
way to increase lifetime years.
8.2 Measures to Increase the Availability and Use of Tools
Tool-related factors can be increased in several ways. The first important measure is
to maintain what already exists. Unless tools are actively maintained (e.g., by
preserving books in libraries and artifacts in museums), prior inventions often get
lost (Henrich, 2004; Enquist et al., 2008; Mesoudi & Whiten, 2008; Castro & Toro,
2014). In this context, preserving tools also includes the active teaching of what
exists and how to use it as part of education programs.
The next important question concerns access to tools, which includes issues of
infrastructure. Stores and streets allow people to purchase certain tools. “Rental
stations” like libraries can even grant access for free. The tools within reach for
creators determine the kind of projects they can conduct.
Because the development of novel tools is typically time- and labor-intensive
(Corazza & von Thienen, 2021; von Thienen et al., 2023), a next important inter-
vention is to help society learn from solutions that already exist in other cultures
(Creanza et al., 2017). Measures in this context span a variety of approaches. We see,
for instance, how policy can foster friendly cultural exchange with other nations and
communities. Immigrants can be encouraged to actively share their knowledge and
tools from their country of origin. International import-export solutions and customs
agreements can be designed in ways that facilitate the exchange of goods.
At the same time, in some cultural areas, it is also important to clarify potential
complications. Especially in the biological field, “goods” cannot be exchanged
without a closer look. There is a notable danger of introducing a foreign species,
which can become problematic for the native species. This means some cultural
areas exist, in which the exchange of “goods” needs to be regulated in more
cautious ways.
When it comes to the production of novel tools in a community, again a number
of measures can be taken. This may begin with political decisions to welcome
creativity and innovation. Generally, interventions that increase lifetime years ded-
icated to creative pursuits and the project success probability while reducing the
innovation resistance will eventually increase newly emerging tools.
Notably, when policymakers become creative and think up novel solutions for
governance, this also means adding novel solutions to the overall set of tools in the
community.
8.3 Measures to Increase the Project Success Probability
A number of governance strategies can help to increase the success probability in

creative projects. For instance, there can be direct project funding from the state or
region. Similarly, tax burdens can be reduced to support creative work in a desired
work domain.
In addition, economic measures that generally increase funding in an area (via
investors, banks, etc.) also benefit innovation. One important measure in this context
can be laws to secure benefits for the creator in the case of successful developments
(e.g., via patent law). Investors are more willing to finance creative projects when
good project outcomes translate reliably into financial gains.
Another key measure is to support education for creativity and innovation.
Trained community members can conduct creative projects in better informed,
more experienced, and ultimately more successful ways. For instance, design think-
ing provides such a general training to enhance capacities for creativity and inno-
vation, irrespective of the specific project content (Plattner et al., 2009; Brown &
Katz, 2009; Kelley & Kelley, 2013; Roth, 2015). In this regard, the government can
assess the number of training facilities in a region, next to percentages of people
from the overall population who have been educated in creativity and innovation.
Furthermore, policy can help establish support systems, such as services to
interconnect experts, to facilitate their exchange of insights. This can include the
support on an active club landscape and/or fair events. Here, persons with interests in
a creative work domain can come together to exchange ideas and experiences, as
well as to help each other.
Apart from these already existing approaches, there is a potential to fundamen-
tally redesign administrative processes, turning them into creativity support systems.
This redesign can build on the insight that creativity and administration share major
goals and, in this way, they can become more synergistically interconnected.
Ultimately, the creative process itself is geared toward developing new and helpful
products, which usually should be as harmless as possible. Goals such as banning
risks are therefore typically identical in the creative process and in the administrative
process. In light of this, administrative processes could become more seamlessly
interconnected with ongoing creative work. For instance, by answering administra-
tive questions, creators could see themselves making important progress in their
creative work and coming closer to high-quality outcomes. These are still possibil-
ities to be investigated in the future.
8.4 Measures to Reduce the Innovation Resistance
Since innovation resistance reduces the innovation potential in society, measures to

minimize the innovation resistance benefit the potential.
There are straightforward governance approaches to help counter the cultural
resistance against innovation, especially the fear of novel solutions in society
(cf. Sect. 7.3). These measures help people feel safe. They convey an understanding
that novel products are not dangerous. Such measures include safety checks for
novel products, as currently realized via administrative procedures prior to the
release of novel products. Of course, finding feasible ways to conduct safety checks
is a creative challenge in itself (Committee, 2016). In addition, the regulator can
introduce liability law and provide a legal basis for redress.
Beyond this, policy can facilitate innovation that is respectful of needs and
interests across the whole society. When a creator develops inventions that directly
counter the interests of other parties, resistance is the natural reaction. For instance,
an invention that renders cars obsolete endangers the economic basis and invest-
ments of people who work for the automobile industry, who have bought cars, or
people who have merely invested time and money in a driving license. The novel
solution can also endanger personal passions and ways of experiencing joy, as when
someone loves cars and driving. Affected persons will try to secure their existing
benefits, typically by rejecting or even actively fighting the novel solution. Policy
can facilitate the discourse in society about which values matter to whom and which
needs might be important to address in all innovation projects.
Beyond public debates, education matters. Design thinking, as one approach to
innovation education, highlights responsibilities of the innovator (e.g., Meinel & von
Thienen, 2022). Policy can help educate and prepare creators for their influential role
in society. Innovators can be guided in producing those inventions that are mindful
and respectful of a broad range of needs while learning to avoid producing poten-
tially harmful new products and services. In this sense, it may even become a
country’s “good mark” and reputation that they have specifically well-trained
innovators whose products are especially well thought out. These products would
be preferred on the market as it could be assumed that they have many advantages
and the most minimal detrimental effects possible.
Finally, policy and regulation need to provide an environment where different
interests across society and their occasional clashes can be discussed productively.
At least, conflicts of interest should be balanced in a civilized, tolerant, and foresee-
able way—not according to the “law of the strongest.” Just having a dependable
legal system at all is an important factor in this regard.
9 Conclusion and Outlook
It has long been acknowledged that a person’s environment—or place—strongly

impacts their prospects for creativity and innovation. This chapter makes a start in
modeling such environmental impacts, with a specific focus on the role of gover-
nance. It introduces a number of methods for studying and modeling the impact of
places.
The TYPE method aims at calculating realistic numbers of product developments
in a region. It focuses on a selective innovation domain of interest. Here, the method
allows comparisons between expected product developments based on the current
regulation, compared to a hypothetical scenario of deregulation. In the latter case,
citizens can work creatively in the innovation domain without having to meet
particular legal requirements.
The innovation regulation triangle allows a characterization of governance
strategies in a field between three extreme poles: (1) zero regulation, (2) maximal
regulation focused on risks, and (3) maximal regulation focused on benefits. In the
future, this framework could be developed further to help find ideal or desirable
positions in the spectrum. A likely goal could be to find a governance approach that
is open to some innovation, being mindful of risks associated with stagnation in a
country. The looked-for governance approach might also integrate considerations of
product risks and benefits.
To illustrate the TYPE method and innovation regulation triangle, we have
conducted small case studies on genetic engineering for agriculture in the
European Union. Clearly, numerical estimates could be determined in even more
elaborate ways, and we hope that more comprehensive case studies will emerge in
the future. In the meantime, structured expert discussions have proven feasible to
gain some first orienting numbers. In three such discussion rounds taking place at
different times in 2022, the experts estimated that the European Union faces a
trimming effect in the development of NGT products for agriculture of 98%, 99%
or 99.5% within the next decade under the current regulation compared to expectable
numbers in a scenario of complete deregulation.
Finally, based on the computational process model, we have suggested some key
figures for creativity and innovation studies. In particular, they permit the calculation
of an innovation potential in society, based on the resources that are available for
creative work in a particular region. This model helps to facilitate discussions and
research as to how exactly governance approaches impact creativity and innovation

in society. In particular, political interventions can cause gains and losses in a
number of key parameters that feed into the overall innovation potential.
On this basis, we have reviewed three sample governance approaches that reduce
resources for creativity and innovation in a region: (1) prohibiting the reuse of
particular tools, (2) introducing administrative procedures, and (3) establishing a
legal system that displays inertia.
In addition, we have reviewed a number of different governance approaches that
increase the innovation potential, i.e., resources for creativity and innovation in
society. These are (1) measures to increase the lifetime years that citizens can invest
in creative work, (2) measures to increase tool accessibility and operating knowledge
among citizens, next to the diversity of tools in the region, (3) measures to help
creators work more successfully in their projects, and finally (iv) measures to reduce
the innovation resistance in the community.
Next steps can be taken in terms of mathematical modeling approaches. Both the
TYPE method and the calculation of the innovation potential are currently designed
to be as simple and straightforward as possible. This has led to the choice of a static
modeling approach. To complement this, it might be desirable to formulate a
dynamic modeling approach, where the success probability of people working in a
particular creative project increases from year to year. After all, people learn in these
projects, and they make progress.
Furthermore, in order to understand the regulatory impact on creativity and
innovation even better, additional refinements can be introduced. For instance, the
chapter addresses “liability law” merely as a keyword. Of course, there are many
different options on how “liability law” can be formulated and worked out in detail,
with somewhat varying effects on creativity and innovation. Here, the model pro-
vides a framework to scan systematically facilitating and hindering effects of
different regulatory choices, and it hopefully supports informed governance
decisions.
As future developments can focus more narrowly on specific factors of interest, it
is also possible to widen the scope away from the specific impact of governance.
This means modeling the impact of places more generally. The basic structure used
in the current approach seems suitable for reuse in other contexts. It could be adapted
to model environmental impacts in a broad range of application fields, including the
impact of organizational environments or the impact of class environments in
education.
Overall, we hope to have raised awareness for the importance of governance as a
key place factor in the development of innovation. It would be a pleasure to see
research that is more active, and discussion emerge in this field.
Acknowledgments We thank colleague Ilia Berg for the graphic design in Figs. 1, 2, and 7, as well
as Dr. Sharon Nemeth for the English proofreading.
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An Exploration of Agile Governance
in Rwandan Public Service Delivery
Reem Abou Refaie, Lena Mayer, Karen von Schmieden, Hanadi Traifeh,
Abstract While derived from software engineering, “agile” as a concept has

become increasingly sought-after among public sector organizations in the last
decade as the means to becoming more responsive, flexible, adaptive, and rapid in
their behavior. However, there is a limited understanding of what it means to be agile
in the public organization context. How do public sector organizations change when
agile approaches are introduced. This chapter contributes to the literature by explor-
ing the practitioners’ understanding and approach to agile governance and identifies
the knowledge gaps facing their applications and practices. To carry out our inves-
tigation, we conducted in-depth semi-structured interviews (n = 14) with public
service providers from Rwanda’s “one-stop shop” platform, where agile methods are
used in the development of digital public services.
1 Introduction
As public organizations strive toward flexibility, adaptability, and seamless service

delivery, many governments have adopted new working practices from (strategic)
design to agile governance practices (Mergel et al., 2020; Gong et al., 2020). Agile
working practices often focus on design-led processes such as prototyping, experi-
mentation, and user testing in iterative loops, relying on epistemological frameworks
from action research and ethnography. Hence, these practices depart from or transi-
tion away from linear processes of research, validation, implementation, assessment,
and adaptation (Learmonth & Harding, 2006). Agile governance also incorporates
novel organizational, cultural, and mindset elements—such as tolerance of failure—
which depart from traditional Weberian bureaucracy logic. Additionally, agile
governance challenges elements of strict individual performance management and
R. A. Refaie (✉) · L. Mayer · K. von Schmieden · H. Traifeh · C. Meinel

HPI School of Design Thinking, Hasso Plattner Institute for Digital Engineering, Potsdam,
Germany
e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]; offi[email protected]

78 R. A. Refaie et al.
performance appraisal put forth by the new public management. Instead agile
governance propagates more collaborative and team-driven managerial approaches
as well as iterative evaluation cycles that hallmark people and their creativity.
As an emerging area of research and practice, agile governance has its roots in the
software engineering domain. However, agile governance practices go beyond agile
software development to cover other domains such as agile project management,
agile acquisition, agile evaluation, and agile regulation (Mergel et al., 2018). Created
as an alternative to waterfall approaches, “The Agile Manifesto” (Beck, 2001)
stressed collaboration, adaptation, and iterative reviews rather than sequential and
linear steps (Beck, 2001). In this sense, agile values are useful approaches in an era
of rapid change. More recently, public organizations began to realize the added value
of agile beyond software development, which led to the rise of “agile” as a new way
of governance that academics and policymakers are grappling with. Examples of this
increased interest include the Agile Nations Charter (2020) spearheaded by the UK
government and the Agile Regulation Toolkit issued by the World Economic
Forum (2020).
Described as an “evolving concept” (Mergel et al., 2020, p. 161), agile gover-
nance remains an opaque concept and a contested practice. With the exception of
Mergel et al. (2020), and McBride et al. (2021), who critically engaged in what
“agile” is, and what it is not, agility has not yet been fully captured in the govern-
mental context. In Mergel’s (Mergel’s, 2016; Mergel’s et al., 2020) view, agile
governance is “a holistic concept that does not refer to an isolated area of agility,
such as software development or project management.” On the other hand,
McBride’s study makes the distinction between “being agile” and “doing agile.”
In this sense, the study argued that agility is a modifier to government, which already
exhibits agility.
Based on the previous literature, we argue that gaining a deeper understanding of
agile governance requires the consideration of the entanglement of three different
domains (i.e., technology, innovation, and organization). We address this entangle-
ment from a practice approach; thus, our unit of analysis is the “doings and sayings
of entangled configurations through which phenomena are produced” (Schultze
et al., 2020, p. 817). A practice approach is needed to “explain agile transitions as
an ongoing, continuous, long-term transformation, rather than clearly circumscribed
stages of agile adoption” (Hoda & Noble, 2017 p. 141). We also draw from
institutional theory, where we define “institutional logics” as “socially constructed,
historical patterns of cultural symbols and material practices, assumptions, values
and beliefs by which individuals produce and reproduce their material subsistence,
organize time and space, and provide meaning to their daily activity” (Thornton
et al., 2013, p. 50).
We conducted in-depth semi-structured interviews (n = 14) with public service
providers from Rwanda’s “one-stop shop” platform (iremboGov, 2022), where agile
methods are used in the development of digital public services. Using an inductive
qualitative research design, this chapter identifies understandings of agile gover-
nance among public service providers, the agile methods they use, and how they are
implemented.
An Exploration of Agile Governance in Rwandan Public Service Delivery 79
RQ1: What characterizes agile governance approaches in the public service pro-
viders’ perspectives and practices?
RQ2: How do public organizations change when agile methods are introduced?
We contribute to the literature by offering a better understanding of how public
service providers perceive agile governance and how these perspectives are trans-
lated into work practices, which can lead to the reshaping of practices at the
organizational level. Based on our findings, practitioners can gain insights on how
to better leverage agile governance approaches to develop digital public services.
The chapter is structured as follows. Section 2 presents an overview of digital
transformation, agile governance, and institutional logic presenting the theoretical
background and existing related works. In Sect. 3, we describe the methods applied,
the methodological quality, data collection, and data management and analysis,
while Sect. 4 describes the case study context. In Sect. 5, we present the results of
this study, addressing the research question and discussing theory usage. Section 6
concludes, discussing contributions and study limitations and offering recommen-
dations for subsequent research on agile governance.
2 Related Work
Agile governance has an interdisciplinary character, therefore requiring a combina-

tion of theoretical backgrounds. We draw from two relevant bodies of knowledge:
(1) digital transformation in the literature of public organizations to understand the
organizational context in which agile governance is implemented in light of digital
technologies’ impact on public organizations and (2) institutional logic theory,
which is relevant in understanding agile governance as a new and competing logic
and practice.
2.1 Digital Transformation and the Rise of Agile Governance

in Public Organizations
Public organizations are experiencing immense institutional changes as a result of

digital transformation, and implementing agile governance is one way they have
attempted to manage these changes. In the context of public services, the develop-
ment of digital public services requires redesigning and reengineering government
services from the ground up to fulfill changing user needs. At the center of these
efforts are users—both internal and external users—of digital services who are
included in the digital transformation efforts. Such organizational change or trans-
formation is grounded in the ongoing perceptions and practices of organizational
actors and emerges out of their explicit or implicit actions and experiments with the
everyday possibilities, failures, opportunities, and unintended consequences that
they encounter. To have any effect, reform initiatives must ultimately result in
changes in the work processes of public organizations and in the attitudes and
behavior of employees who work in these organizations (Ahmad et al., 2020).
Therefore, to make sense of the introduction of agile as a “new way of governing”
(Mergel et al., 2020), in the context of digital transformation in public organizations,
we draw from institutional logic theory.
2.2 Adoption of Agile Methods as a New Institutional Logic

and Practice
Agile adoption or the implementation of agile methods is a relatively new phenom-

enon in public management. Previous research (e.g., Patanakul & Rufo-McCarron,
2018) from digital engineering has been overly focused on how specific agile
methods are adopted and how high-level agile properties were rolled out in digital
government projects. This understanding of agile adoption often follows multistage
adoption models, which put forth a predefined set of agile practices over time. These
are process-heavy and inflexible and ignore contextual differences across jurisdic-
tions and policy sectors.
Departing from sequential prescriptive adoption frameworks for the understand-
ing of agile governance, and drawing on institutional logic theory, we study agile
governance as an organizing principle for an organizational field, which is made up
of a community of actors grouped by their joint values and beliefs (Friedland &
Alford, 1991; Scott et al., 2000). In this sense, “logics are important in understanding
institutional change because a change in the field’s dominant logic is fundamental to
conceptualisations of institutional change” (Reay & Hinings, 2009 p. 630). They
form the basis of the guiding behavior of field-level actors, and they refer to the
belief systems, perceptions, and related practices that dominate an organizational
field (Scott, 2014).
A core proposition of institutional logics is that interests, identities, values, and
assumptions of individuals are embedded within the prevailing institutional logic. In
this perspective, institutional change is understood as the movement from one
dominant logic to another (e.g., Greenwood et al., 2002; Hoffman, 2017). Therefore,
to understand agile transition in the context of public sector organizations, we must
be concerned with the perceptions, practices, and beliefs of the people within the
target organization.
In applying institutional logic theory to organizational change, previous studies
have shown how a new logic may be introduced to a field and become dominant—
providing new guidance for field members (Kitchener, 2002; Hensmans, 2003; Scott
et al., 2000). This is the case for many government reforms that proceeded agile
governance, e.g., new public management. Others have also shown that the intro-
duction of a new logic can instigate tension with the existing dominant logic as was
illustrated in the case of Scott (2014), who pointed out the inherent rivalry when
multiple logics exist. The study proposed that many organizational fields are char-
acterized by two or more competing belief systems. Studies also proposed that
conflicting logics coexist during transition times until one side or the other wins
and the field reforms around the winning dominant logic (Hensmans, 2003; Hoff-
man, 2017) or a new logic that is a hybrid version of two previous logics (Glynn &
Lounsbury, 2005; Thornton et al., 2013).
Our goal is to identify agile governance as a new institutional logic in public
organizations that has the potential of becoming a dominant logic. This chapter
explores how field-level actors—in this case, public service providers—perceive
agile governance both as a concept and how they engage with it as a work practice.
We are also interested in the impact of this new institutional logic on the organiza-
tional culture and practices.
3 Methodology
Our research design followed an inductive qualitative research using a single case
study approach (Yin, 2008). We analyzed the case study to gain an in-depth
knowledge of the practitioners’ understanding and approach to agile governance
and to identify the knowledge gaps facing their applications and practices. A
qualitative approach to researching agile governance provides an opportunity to
concurrently explore individual perspectives and practices as well as broader pro-
cesses and contextual factors (Bryman, 2004).
The case study was drawn from the Central African country of Rwanda, where we
explore the provision of public service delivery. We chose this case for two main
reasons: (1) Despite theoretical and empirical developments in this direction, insuf-
ficient attention has been paid to developing country contexts, and (2) access to
firsthand insights on their doings and sayings with regard to the public sector’s
utilization of agile approaches to develop digital services.
The selection of Rwanda’s one-stop shop “IremboGov” was also made on the
basis of high expectations about the information content it would provide. For our
study, we sought an organization that was set up to produce high-end, seamless
digital solutions for citizens and businesses. The second criterion was that the chosen
organization uses agile approaches to develop digital public services. The third
criterion was that the case should include collaboration between several public
agencies and sectors, which can give us access to different perspectives. A fourth
and final criterion when selecting the case was that it has had been running for some
time (8+ years), thus having the potential to yield information about agile
experiences.
The lead author conducted an in-depth case study of Rwanda’s public service
delivery system, in the context of a research study with IremboGov, the country’s
one-stop shop platform for delivering public services online. In 2014, the Irembo
project was established as a public-private partnership (PPP) initiative by the
government of Rwanda (GoR) together with RwandaOnline Platform Ltd. (now

Irembo) to digitalize all public services into a single window platform.
4 Data Collection and Analysis
To obtain an adequate set of interviewees, we used purposive and snowball sampling

(Van Thiel, 2022). We used this sampling to recruit interviewees from various
central level administrative positions across seven main departments, namely, engi-
neering, product and user support, partnerships, strategy, communication, adminis-
tration, and human resources (n = 14). The first round of semi-structured interviews
were conducted in English during December/January 2020/2021, and the second
round took place in January 2022.
Due to the limitations imposed by the pandemic, all interviews were conducted
remotely via Zoom and recorded (audio and video) with the informed consent of the
interviewees and transcribed using Otter.ai, a transcription software. To triangulate
our findings, we utilized multiple data sources including digital regulations and
national strategies. Especially relevant for this chapter was the observation of
monthly governance cluster meetings conducted by the first author during a research
stay in Kigali, Rwanda, in 2018/2019.
Recognizing the nascent stage of topic knowledge, we adopted a predominately
inductive approach. We collected and analyzed data iteratively, shifting between
empirical data and theoretical concepts in a cycle between interviewing, transcrib-
ing, analyzing, and checking back with the theoretic body of knowledge and our
focus on agile governance perceptions and practices. To analyze the data, we
pursued a stepwise coding, which consisted of open, axial, and selective coding
using Atlas.ti (Gioia, 2020). After the first round of interview write-ups and sum-
maries, we employed the open-coding stage to generate first codes, which were used
to condense the transcripts and obtain an initial overview of all case data (Yin, 2008).
5 Findings
This section contains the findings gained from the analysis of the data of the
14 experts interviewed. They are supported by quotes from the interviews as this
illustrates the experts’ different perspectives, helps to enhance the transparency of
the research process, and enables other researchers to follow the reasoning.
We asked the interviewees what they believe agile governance is like. Many
noted that above all agile governance is about adaptive and collaborative manage-
ment, an experimentation mindset, and delivering services that respond to the needs
of citizens.
5.1 Adaptive and Collaborative Management
Many explained that agile governance is about having political leadership that
exhibits a strong willingness to collaborate with other key stakeholders in order to
achieve a shared vision and coordinate joint action in order to achieve it: “We
discussed this in quite a lot of different African governments. And I feel like in
Rwanda, there is a mix of this. In Rwanda, when we want to achieve something,
everyone tries to go in the same direction” (P14).
Agile governance is when the leadership allows for quick changes in direction
and guides the response to a fast-changing context with various partners and
workflow interdependence: “You never know what this is going to be because
maybe you had in mind that you wanted to add new services or you wanted to
redefine the experience for this specific service. Then there is an incident with the
payment platform because your partner bank had an infrastructure incident. This is
what happened recently. There is a fire in the house, and you cannot redesign
anything, and you should just focus on doing the minimal, which is fixing the
issues” (P9).
At the project management level, many noted that short projects and flexible
deadlines play a very important role by providing the framework within which
decisions are made for project development and implementation to achieve the
intended strategic goals. This is in line with the transition from sequential to
concurrent product development. This process/method significantly shortens devel-
opment cycles as involved in agile software development and lean management. One
administrator pointed out that agile governance entails having short targeted pro-
jects, which allow practitioners to pivot implementation strategies while still work-
ing toward the original objective of the project and the wider organization.
We don’t have long projects with things that are set in stone; it’s more like things are
moving. Even though we have a common objective, the way to achieve it can change. (P1).
Another set of project management practices that are associated with agile
governance are having regular team meetings, where priorities are discussed and
altered depending on the most recent developments. The practice of weekly meet-
ings or sprints was highlighted by several interviewees.
And if I look at how it works currently, they have the product and engineering team, for
instance. They have weekly sprints, and they focus on what should be the priority for the
week. (P9).
Most of the respondents pointed that in practice, adaptive and collaborative

management require open communication and regular team exchanges and discus-
sions. One respondent emphasized the usage of digital collaboration tools to main-
tain smooth and flexible communication, which plays a dominant role in enabling
adaptability and flexible decision-making.
By having short deadlines and teams that are communicating a lot, I would say, yeah, on a
daily basis, of course, using the right tools, for instance, WhatsApp, JIRA, Slack, etc., is
essential. This way we ensure that whenever some things pop up, we can reprioritize. (P13)
Another respondent added that this regular exchange via digital communication
tools allows managers/leadership to be in constant touch with the rest of the team.
This constant interaction provides the opportunity to make the necessary high-level
decisions in collaboration with the relevant stakeholders:
The tools that enable the cooperation and strong leadership that can also do this trade-off
because it’s not always the junior engineer that is going to be able to know what he or she
should focus on solving. (P8)
In the same vein, another respondent clarified that a key practice in adaptive
management is to hold open team discussions in order to reach a common under-
standing before a course of action is determined.
It’s not like there’s no discussion. We always give our input as to what we are requested to
do. There’s always some discussion. But after we’ve come to a common understanding, it’s
imperative that we deliver that very quickly. (P2).
5.2 Organizational Culture of Experimentation and Iteration
When asked to explain agile governance, the majority of the respondents spoke
about elements of repeating processes and specific tasks to reach better results, as
well as remaining curious, trying something new, incorporating the learnings, and
trying again. In this sense, agile governance is perceived as an organizational culture
that allows mistakes and errors and ensures the use of new methods of iterations and
experimentation. One respondent explained iteration as a way of working, whereby
developing digital services undergo continuous improvement based on gathering
feedback and implementing swift changes: “It’s not really like you do something and
then you put it out there and then that’s it. It’s a continuous process of gathering
feedback and then taking action on the feedback as quick as possible” (P1).
Most of the interviewees described their work as guided by an experimentation
mindset within an agile environment. Most highlighted experimentation as a remedy
to the complexity of the work done by public service providers in Rwanda’s digital
public service delivery system. Although some praised experimentation as a way to
take pressure off of public administrators as they are able to iterate on the way they
do things, there was still a reference to fear of getting something wrong. This implies
a lingering culture of risk aversion yet signals a transition to a tolerance of failure as
iteration is embraced.
I would say that the complex work we do is supported by working in agile methodology as
well as an agile environment, which helps us to remain experimental and curious. Also it
removes the pressure from getting something wrong, as I can constantly recheck and iterate
on the way I do my work and the way I collect the data. (P3)
Most of the interviews highlighted agile governance in the context of iterative

problem analysis, whereby one respondent elaborated on the problem-analysis
approach by continuously asking whether the solutions proposed add value to
citizens.
We go through the problem, and we ask ourselves how can this work better for the citizens?
We talk to the product managers, they put it in writing, they go back to the developers, and
then, after the development of the service, I come back to check it from the citizens’ point of
view. After these steps, we can then launch the improvements. (P2)
Applying iteration to the public service design process, one respondent explained
that iteration also involves going further into problem analysis, stepping beyond the
high-level symptom and really examining the root cause from various perspectives
before a solution is tested.
I can go deeper into a problem and try to analyze what happened. Is this the way the service
is designed? Is it the result of a mistake we made while in the development journey? That’s
where I go deeper and try to talk to product managers to develop. Why is it like this? Is it our
issue? Is it our partners? You know, we don’t do everything on our own; we have partners.
Sometimes they also have problems and issues that can affect the public. We also have to go
through that cycle to check where the problem is. (P10)
Remunerating ways to dig deeper into problem analysis, another respondent

recalled extracting data from calls and service reports. This helps to zero in on
recurrent issues and at the same time provides leverage to push for changes vis-à-vis
the engineering team.
We analyze our calls, and we generate reports to see the highlights. Then we drill down into
those issues and say, why is this particular issue coming back? Then we’ll go back and look
at the way the service is designed and see if there’s any particular thing that keeps coming
back to maybe make it harder for citizens to apply. We then sit with the product team to tell
them, we propose that the changes are made this way, you can improve this particular
service, because we have numbers to back it up. (P12)
As an integral part of an iterative problem-solving process, respondents also

mentioned testing solutions before implementation. One respondent explained that
a key aspect of testing is leveraging the diverse mandates and areas of expertise
within the team. For example, he distinguished between the engineering team
members and the other departments who do not understand the codes behind the
services and will, therefore, only be concerned with usability of the service.
From the technical side, we come up with a possible solution to what we call a testing
environment where production team people that don’t know but codes in everything can just
use the front end, yeah, to test now, is this service working perfectly. After validation, they
ship it to production and that’s when citizens can start using it. (P12)
In reference to the process of designing digital public services, another engineer

concurred by describing the testing environment in detail: “After doing our technical
tests, development testing environment, where we bring in products, partnership
operation, then we show them how what we developed works. So, from that
operation and partner partnership, department will be like, oh, okay, so this is how
things work. We show them and then they are the ones who go to the agents and
other partners to show them” (P8).
One respondent stated that testing environments are really about looking at the
service from the citizen-user’s point of view. In this example, the engineer
empathizes with the citizen by putting himself in the citizen’s shoes and roleplaying
an alternative scenario in order to reveal issues with the service.
We do this both ways because there is this path of testing as an engineer as you get into
codes. And also there’s this other part that you work out as an end user. Even if you read the
requirements, you ask how it fits the needs of an end user. Do you understand it as a person,
you think the end user (who doesn’t have an idea of what you’re doing) will understand it?
The way you understand it? That’s my role. (P9)
Another respondent highlighted testing environments as a form of monitoring

where the partnership department represents the needs of their clients vis-a-vis the
engineering team, thereby ensuring that the designed digital services are iterated in
ways that deeply reflect the citizens’ needs. This implies an act of balancing the
different perspectives within one team in order to optimize the designed services: “I
would say that, by having this strong partnership and user ops team. The partnership
team is close to the partners, and the UserOps team, close to the day-to-day needs of
the citizens. This helps to put pressure on the engineering team to say, let’s not just
do it, because it’s easier for you or because you think it makes sense but listen to
what we tell you and what the partners did, and what the user said.” (P6).
5.3 Citizen Orientation and Engagement
Central aspects of agile governance are the citizen engagement and user-centricity of
services, which are supported by design tools that allow continuous interaction with
citizens to better meet their needs. One respondent candidly explained it: “We just
want to make the process better and better. The question is how we deliver more
citizen centric services, to the point that you know, even the hardest of services today
can still be simpler to access” (P12).
Elaborating on this, several respondents described Irembo as “an agile company,
because one of our main goals is to delight our users, who are mainly citizens” (P8).
However, the multiplicity of users makes the task of delighting all users a difficult
one. A product designer working for Irembo emphasized that despite the strides
made with regard to enhancing the accessibility and usability of digital services,
limited digital knowledge and literacy remain a common issue faced by many
citizens.
“Before the design of the services was really complicated, even if some people in
a developed country don’t really have the digital knowledge, and literacy is really
low. Even applying for a small service was quite demanding for some people. So the
idea behind that was just to make a service really simple for even those without much
experience in applying for a service” (P5). Nevertheless, the product designer
reaffirmed that a dominant perception that drives public service providers is the
design of “more seamless, more accessible and inclusive services for
everyone” (P5).
Achieving this, however, necessitates ongoing consultations and frequent course

corrections in order to maintain effective service delivery. This was reflected in
many of the respondents’ narratives pointing to the fact that in practice: “For me, I
think that as an agile organization, the government of Rwanda did the right thing in
designing the services, whereby the partners [private sector, government institutions]
were consulted, meaning that they let us know what they wanted, the services they
wanted, and on our end, we presented what citizens wanted. We came up with an
agreement for service provision” (P5).
Citizen orientation is embedded in an assessment of satisfaction and an evaluation
of the citizens’ response to digital public services. One respondent explained that the
design of the digital services is dictated by how the engineering team responds to
citizen feedback. This often takes the form of adjusting the design, features, and
functionality of the services, at times even at a drastic level.
Whatever we do, we are first looking at how the citizen responds to this. With that in mind,
you will find that from a software engineering perspective, we find ourselves changing too
much. Today we’re doing something and then when we put it out there; it’s not fully
received as we expected, and then there is change to something else. And there’s also a lot
of research involved, because we need to make sure what we deliver is actually what citizens
want. (P10)
To do this, another respondent elaborated on how they gather data through social
media in order to assess citizen satisfaction with the digital public services. “What
we usually get out of the interaction is that it gives us a general picture of how people
feel about the product, and then we’re able to go back and improve it. The feedback
that we get from radio and social media leads us back to the drawing board. There we
discuss some of the issues that we found on ground with the product team and our
partner institutions” (P14).
Outcomes of such assessments have a direct effect on the digital public service
delivery strategy and infrastructure. One respondent recalled that despite having a
one-stop shop for all public services, public feedback revealed that people still
perceive applying for services as cumbersome. In response to this, Irembo
established an intermediary system of around 4000 agents around the country with
the mandate to support citizens with accessing digital services in exchange for a
small fee.
We had many issues; people would feel uncomfortable to apply for services for themselves.
We had to go through Irembo agents, people whose jobs were just to assist Irembo. For us,
we were okay with that. Because if people were not comfortable and they paid a little money
to those people to apply for them, that was okay. (P13)
6 Discussion and Conclusion
This study set out to investigate what characterizes the new institutional logic of
agile governance in the public service providers’ perspectives and practices.
Our findings provide vivid examples in feedback comments that an agile

approach to governance supports the Rwandan public service provider’s desire to
show that they can respond and adapt to changes in the technological and market
environments. This includes citizens’ increased expectations for efficient and effec-
tive online services. This is translated into a narrative on agile governance as a
bundle of methods, a public service management approach, and a service delivery
logic.
Results revealed that as a new institutional logic in the digital public services
system, agile governance was clearly prevalent in the perception and practices of
field-level actors. However, the extent to which this can be characterized as funda-
mental change in governance requires further investigation over a longer period,
which allows for temporal comparisons.
An important limitation is that our findings reflect the specific situation in
Rwanda and should be validated in other countries with different state structures,
cultures, and maturities in e-government. Additionally, we would like to address the
issue of the long-term adoption of agile government. Due to the situated and
discourse nature of our findings, it is difficult to predict the long-term perceptions
and practices associated with agile governance. Future research is necessary to
characterize how those manifested patterns of agile practices in public organizations
develop and evolve over time. It should also consider factors like level of agile
knowledge, digital literacy, and size of the organization. Upcoming research can
further investigate the circumstances leading to agile governance being a successful
approach for digitalization.
Acknowledgments We thank the HPI-Stanford Design Thinking Program and our colleagues in
Rwanda for enabling this study and research collaboration. Many thanks to Dr. Sharon Nemeth for
copyediting and language support.
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Voices from the Field: Exploring
Connections Between Design Thinking
Approaches and Sustainability Challenges
Nicole M. Ardoin, Alison W. Bowers, and Daniella Lumkong
Abstract The range and complexity of the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Devel-
opment Goals make clear the need for innovative, effective, and efficient problem-
solving approaches involving the people most impacted by the issues being
addressed. In previous work, we argued that design thinking provides a useful and
appropriate process for generating sustainability-oriented solutions and outlined five
characteristics of design thinking that support this argument. In this chapter, we
present findings from 20 semi-structured, qualitative interviews with sustainability
practitioners, designers, and university professors from 9 countries who have used
design thinking approaches in their work. Based on a deductive coding analysis of
the interview data, we found support for all five of our suggested design thinking
characteristics as facilitators of sustainability solutions. Nearly all interviewees
appeared to value design thinking as a tool for sustainability work because design
thinking is participatory and people-focused. Many interviewees also emphasized
that design thinking encourages creativity, diversity in thought and action, systems
thinking, and a streamlined approach to action. These findings add further support
for calls to use design thinking as a tool in sustainability work and suggest a need for
more in-depth exploration to solidify a theoretical understanding of why, how, and
N. M. Ardoin (✉)
Social Sciences Division, Doerr School of Sustainability, Stanford University, Stanford, CA,
USA
Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources, Stanford University,
Stanford, CA, USA
Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
A. W. Bowers
Social Sciences Division, Doerr School of Sustainability, Stanford University, Stanford, CA,
USA
D. Lumkong
School of Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

92 N. M. Ardoin et al.
under what conditions design thinking approaches are effective in the quest for
addressing sustainability challenges.
1 Introduction
In 2015, the 193 United Nations member states approved the 2030 Agenda for
Sustainable Development (United Nations, 2015). This ambitious document served
as a call to action to developing and developed countries to work toward global
peace and prosperity, guided by 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and
169 targets. The 17 goals focus on a range of issues including, but not limited to,
poverty, hunger, education, gender equality, human health, energy, and industry.
Although these goals provide a set of discrete targets, they were articulated knowing
that sustainable development requires consideration of the complex ways in which
people and their environment are intertwined. This complexity makes addressing
issues of sustainable development difficult, time consuming, and resource intensive
and demands new ways of thinking and problem-solving. Given the complexity of
achieving sustainable development, we previously asserted that design thinking
provides a useful, appropriate, and perhaps even necessary approach for addressing
sustainability issues (Ardoin et al., 2022).
Based on findings from an exploratory literature review (Ardoin et al., 2022), we
identified five design thinking characteristics that support design thinking as a
beneficial process for seeking solutions to climate change, biodiversity loss, water
scarcity, and other wicked socioecological challenges. Through the process of
conducting the exploratory literature review of design thinking and sustainability
research, we confirmed that many professionals are already using design thinking
approaches to tackle sustainability issues.
As a result, we became curious about the experiences of academics and practi-
tioners working in fields at the nexus of design and sustainability, wondering
whether they would agree with the five design thinking principles we identified as
supporting sustainability solutions. To explore this, we conducted 20 semi-
structured interviews with professionals who had used design thinking in their
sustainability work. The 20 interviewees included designers, sustainability practi-
tioners, and university professors from 9 countries. In this chapter, we present an
analysis of the interview data designed to explore the level of support for the five
design thinking characteristics we previously identified (Ardoin et al., 2022).
2 Background
Many scholars have acknowledged the role of design in sustainability (Ardoin et al.,
2022; Ceschin & Gaziulusoy, 2016; Dewberry & Sherwin, 2002; Fry, 2020;
Manzini, 2007). As Papanek (2022, chap. 2) writes, “Design must be the bridge
Voices from the Field: Exploring Connections Between Design. . . 93
between human needs, culture and ecology.” Design can contribute to sustainable
development through numerous pathways: Designers and researchers have created
new approaches and tools such as eco-design, design for sustainability, and life cycle
assessment (Bhamra & Lofthouse, 2016; Finnveden et al., 2009; Karlsson &
Luttropp, 2006) to name a few. In a previous chapter for this book series, we argued
that design thinking provides an ideal set of tools and a mindset for identifying and
implementing sustainability solutions (Ardoin et al., 2022).
Scholars in related fields and areas of interest—such as education and the learning
sciences (Koh et al., 2015), public health (Roberts et al., 2016; Oliveira et al., 2021),
and the social sector more broadly (Liedtka et al., 2017)—have encouraged the use
of design thinking, noting its success in addressing complex, wicked problems.
Building on previous discussions linking design thinking and sustainability (e.g.,
Clark et al., 2020; Young, 2010) and our experiences with design thinking
approaches, we examined the use of design thinking to address sustainability issues
(Ardoin et al., 2022). We explored five characteristics of design more intensively
through the literature and in practice: inspiring creativity; participatory or people-
focused; diversity in thought and action; a holistic, systems thinking mindset; and a
streamlined, action-oriented approach. (See Table 1 for a description of how each of
the characteristics helps address sustainability issues.)
3 Methods
To explore the level of support for the five identified design thinking characteristics,
we conducted qualitative interviews with professionals (academics and practitioners)
who have used design thinking in their sustainability work. We collected and
analyzed the interview data as described below.
3.1 Data Collection
As the interviews marked our first collection of qualitative data from people who had
used design thinking in sustainability work, we sought to ensure that we addressed a
core of similar topics in each interview. To do so, we developed a semi-structured
interview guide (Corbin & Strauss, 2015; Rubin & Rubin, 2012) using a limited
number of prepared questions (see Table 2). Three members of the research team
conducted the interviews and adapted the interview guide and wording as appropri-
ate, asking clarifying questions and probing when appropriate to the interviewee’s
context. The interviewers strove to leave time for the interviewees to share additional
information, as desired.
For the interviews, we sought to identify professionals who had used design
thinking approaches in their sustainability work. We used four methods to identify
potential participants: (1) professional contacts in the design world with a
Table 1 Design thinking characteristics and their connection to sustainability solutions

Design thinking characteristic Connection to sustainability solutions
Inspires creativity Design thinking emphasizes process over product, meaning
that the journey of working toward a solution can be just as
important as whether one actually gets to a single “right”
answer in the end. The creative confidence mindset and
iterative nature of design thinking encourage participants to
try taking action and working toward a solution or many
possible solutions. Without fear of failure or judgment,
individual and collective creativity can lead to accelerated
innovation and new ways of thinking, which are critically
needed in the sustainability space
Participatory and people-focused Rather than telling people what to do in a top-down manner,
a design thinking approach supports curiosity, collabora-
tion, and active, participatory learning. Design thinking
lowers, and at times removes, the barrier to entry during the
initial solution generation process as a broader group of
participants are encouraged to contribute in unencumbered
ways. Focusing on people’s needs and experiences builds
ownership and enthusiasm, concurrently encouraging par-
ticipants to construct their own knowledge about sustain-
ability, grounded in personal and socioculturally relevant
experience, including the causes, impacts, and potential
solutions
Encourages and inspires diversity The design thinking process signals that we are all in this
in thought and action together, similar to the collective mindset recognizing that
sustainability challenges require perspectives from all
experiences, walks of life, and points of view. Design
thinking engages, and indeed requires, diverse teams; this
diversity enhances the richness of content, innovation, and
action that arises from the group process. Diverse groups
provide a greater number and variety of resources upon
which the sustainability solution process can draw and helps
ensure that the solution set produced is equitable, inclusive,
and appropriate
Adopts a holistic, systems think- Combining design thinking and sustainability means
ing mindset emphasizing the multiple spatial and temporal scales of
sustainability throughout the design process. By encourag-
ing and employing a systems lens, design thinking helps
participants envision the interconnectedness of complex
sustainability challenges and, in the process, imagine more
creative, collaborative, context-appropriate solutions
Offers a streamlined, action- Design thinking’s supportive environment can empower
oriented approach people or teams to take action, which can be especially
important in situations where they might otherwise be
daunted by a large-scale problem or one without an imme-
diate solution. Design thinking provides structures and
support to organize the problem-solving process in an effi-
cient, streamlined way, encouraging communication and
collaboration among a diverse range of stakeholders,
engaged across complex sustainability challenges. The
action orientation focuses everyone on a solution space in a
collective, community-oriented way
Note: From Ardoin et al. (2022). Reprinted with permission
Table 2 Semi-structured interview guide

Participant’s background
• Can you tell me about your background in design/design thinking and sustainability?
Design thinking
• How would you define design thinking?
• What do you see as the benefits of design thinking? In your opinion, what makes for a successful
design thinking process?
• What are the limitations of the design thinking approach? What might be some possible dangers
or challenges?
Design thinking and sustainability/climate change
• How might design thinking approaches be applied to issues of climate change and sustainability?
• Can you describe for me a time when you used a design thinking approach to address a problem
related to sustainability (probe: e.g., something related to climate change, biodiversity loss, water
scarcity/drought)?
Teaching about design thinking and sustainability/climate change
• What competencies do you think people need to address sustainability issues?
• Imagine you’re designing a course/workshop on design thinking for sustainability. What would
you include in it?
sustainability focus and who were known to a member of the research team;
(2) Internet searches using keywords such as “sustainability,” “designer,” “climate,”
and “design thinking;” (3) a listing of designers on the Climate Designers website
(https://www.climatedesigners.org/); and (4) chain-referral (“snowball”) sampling in
which interview participants recommended others we should interview (Noy, 2008).
Following protocol approved by Stanford’s Institutional Review Board (IRB), we
contacted potential participants by email and we invited them for an interview. We
shared information about the study and consent procedures. We scheduled inter-
views with all those who responded and agreed to be interviewed.
Between July and October 2022, we conducted 20 interviews with 10 designers,
6 sustainability practitioners, and 4 university professors. The 20 participants came
from 9 countries (9 from the USA, 3 from Australia, 2 from Italy, and 1 each from
Finland, France, Kenya, India, Singapore, and South Africa). In terms of gender, ten
participants identified as male and eight identified as female. (Two participants did
not provide information about their gender identity.) Interviews averaged 41 min in
length and were conducted over Zoom. After receiving consent from the inter-
viewees to participate in the interview and allow us to record, we recorded the
interviews in Zoom. We uploaded the audio files to otter.ai to generate an initial
transcript. A team member then listened to the audio file, compared the audio with
the transcript, and edited the transcript to improve accuracy. For analytic purposes,
we uploaded the final transcripts into NVivo, a software program that facilitates
analysis of qualitative data.
3.2 Data Analysis
Initial qualitative coding of the data involved descriptive coding as two team
members read each transcript and coded for general patterns and trends (Saldaña,
2021). In this chapter, we focus on the second round of coding in which we
deductively coded the transcripts using the five design thinking principles that we
identified in previous work (Ardoin et al., 2022): inspiring creativity; participatory or
people-focused; diversity in thought and action; holistic, systems thinking mindset;
and a streamlined, action-oriented approach. One team member acted as the primary
coder and coded excerpts of text when those excerpts aligned with one of the five
principles. A second research team member reviewed the coded data for consistency
and alignment of the a priori codes. We discussed any coding discrepancies until
consensus was reached (Bingham & Witkowsky, 2022).
Once we completed the second round of coding, we examined the frequencies
associated with each of the five main codes (the five design thinking characteristics).
We iteratively reviewed the coded data to identify any patterns within each code.
The primary coder used the qualitative technique of memoing (Keane, 2022) to
record reflections and questions about the data. In the Findings section below, we
share the level of support we found for each of the five design thinking character-
istics and present selected excerpts from the transcripts that illustrate participant
agreement with each characteristic. We use pseudonyms for the participants to
ensure confidentiality, and we edited the excerpts for clarity while retaining the
intended meaning.
4 Findings
The 20 participants described how they used design thinking in an array of sustain-
ability contexts, including climate action, fossil fuel divestment, ethics and climate
change, food systems, and small-scale fisheries. We found support for all five of the
design thinking principles identified in Ardoin et al. (2022) (see Table 3). Almost all
interviewees (n = 17) provided responses indicating they valued design thinking as
an approach to sustainability issues as design thinking is participatory and
Table 3 Number of interviews coded at each design thinking principle

Design thinking principle (Ardoin et al., Number of interviews (n = 20) demonstrating
2022) support
Participatory and people-focused 17
Inspires creativity 10
Encourages diversity in thought and action 10
Adopts a holistic, systems thinking mindset 9
Offers a streamlined, action-oriented 9
process
people-focused. Half of the interviews (n = 10) mentioned creativity and diversity as

important design thinking principles when addressing sustainability. Finally, we
coded nine interviews as showing support for the systems thinking and streamlined,
action-oriented aspects of design thinking.
4.1 Design Thinking Is Participatory and People-Focused
Of the five characteristics, we coded the design thinking principle of being partic-
ipatory and people-focused as having the most support in our interview data.
Seventeen participants stated they valued design thinking in their sustainability
work because the process centers on people, giving a voice to those most impacted
by sustainability problems and helping ensure solutions are relevant, practical, and
accepted. For example, two interviewees said:
I think that, in my experience, knowing what I know, I think design thinking can only be
community focused. So learning about collaborative co-creation, I have my process when-
ever I work with a freelance client or something like that. I always bring them on the journey
and ensure that I’ve heard them, that they feel heard and understand what I do and that they
see value in it before any real work happens—because without that human connection and
understanding, there’s not enough trust, there’s not enough belief, there’s not enough
understanding or insight into the process. So I think that for design thinking to work it
needs 100% to have people that you’re solving problems for involved in the process,
especially when it comes to climate. Because you might think that you understand the
anxiety that young people have until you actually meet them, and they tell you face to face,
how they’re feeling—and that’s a whole different experience. (Aidan, Sustainability
practitioner)
I also think that there’s a moral—that’s the wrong word—ethical . . . (pause) I’m not a fan of
the idea of imposing a solution on anyone, and I think that, when you’re working in
sustainability, and you’re working with social challenges, it can be very easy to fall into a
situation where you’re imposing a solution on somebody. I think that the power of having
people involved in that process, even if it’s not the final people that receive the benefit of that
service—but people who are proxies for them, if that makes sense—I think that has a lot of
moral strength. This is not just in terms of the “do good” sense of the word but means more
that “we worked with you to achieve this.” (Gina, Sustainability practitioner)
As alluded to in both Aidan’s and Gina’s responses, the design thinking process
can help build trust and relationships, an idea that interviewee Kara explicitly
mentioned as well.
It can also build closer relationships with communities in which you’re working, which is
important. It can help build trust, and I think those are also important components to reduce
the power dynamics between designers and people you’re designing for or with. It can be
nice to find ways of involving folks. I think we find the most success when there’s more of
that collaboration happening. . .How human-centered that the process is—I think that’s
something that we really love about design thinking, is that it is so focused on putting
people’s needs and goals first. (Kara, Sustainability practitioner)
Several participants described the role empathy plays in design thinking and how
this is a major strength of design thinking.
One of the big parts of design thinking is building empathy and learning about the problem
from the people who are facing the problem directly versus just assuming that you know
what the problem is and applying your biases to that. . . .The biggest thing about being and
working directly with the stakeholder is building empathy and trying to understand their
point of view, as they call it. What is the problem from their perspective? And how is it that
they’re uncovering this problem? . . .But until you’re there and really walking through
that. . .you start to test those assumptions and you learn from people firsthand what the
problem really is. So, it’s unlocking those really unique insights that I think is the most
valuable part of design thinking, and a big part of that is working directly with the people,
talking to them, doing these types of interviews, living their experiences, going out fishing
with them at 3 am. (Alexander, Sustainability practitioner)
Really going through the motions of that first kind of empathy building stage—it’s some-
thing that I think people speed through. And even within the world of applied design
thinking, I think it often can be given short-change. But for us, that’s usually the most
valuable, continuing piece of design thinking . . . forcing us to sit in that empathy-building
work and really experiencing it and, you know, really questioning a lot of our assumptions
about what people are doing and why. (Doug, Designer)
What’s the core thing about design thinking? It’s the human-centered design aspect to
it. And I think that’s probably also the most important thing for solutions—looking to
address sustainability or climate change issues, which means really being aware of all of the
stakeholders. And that step of empathizing is really key for that, too. I know a lot of these
issues are impacting people differently and impacting specific communities in certain ways.
And I think using that methodology when addressing climate change or sustainability issues
[and learning] to be extra aware of the perspective and the experience of those different
stakeholder groups is key. I think that could be one of the biggest advantages of the design
thinking methodology . . . not just for being aware of [the specific] perspective, but also for
understanding how solutions . . . will be feasible or not in those contexts and how they can
actually be implemented effectively. (Elena, Designer)
Finally, design thinking’s people-centered focus also goes to the root of sustain-
ability issues as it recognizes that, as Lorenzo says, sustainability problems are
people problems.
The involvement of people, in my opinion, is very important because we are talking about
sustainability. We are talking about human behavior . . . because the climate crisis is 100%
human-driven and so the involvement of citizens. . .is crucial. (Lorenzo, Designer)
4.2 Design Thinking Inspires Creativity
Ten interviewees discussed how design thinking provides space for creativity and
innovation to flourish and how creative, innovative solutions are needed in the
sustainability space.
. . .the last element is certainly creativity. . .For me personally, the benefit is the freedom for
approaching a problem that you’ve probably already addressed, but in a new way, and to be
more creative about thinking it through. (Alexander, Sustainability practitioner)
It encourages innovation, because it encourages you to explore a whole world of potential

solutions that are available to you from the craziest, wildest ideas to the most traditional
ones. (Elena, Designer)
The very first [design principle], which just keeps coming up over and over in my mind, is
innovation, innovation, innovation, innovation. It creates surprises that enable you to find
novel solutions that you wouldn’t have otherwise thought of, and that creates a competitive
advantage as a company. I’ve got countless little examples of that in my current practice.
(Gina, Sustainability practitioner)
And really, what we’re doing is . . . playing the facilitation role, but we’re also pushing an
innovation mindset with people and giving them permission to come up with solutions that
they may not have felt authorized to come up with previously. . . So, as a facilitator, you’re
changing their mind and authorizing them to think big and, as a content subject matter
expert, you are giving them new ideas, new thinking, new tools, making linkages that they
might not otherwise make. (Dale, Designer)
So, I think the benefits are that . . . it could lead to this way of thinking [that is] innovative or
[that brings] unexpected solutions because designers look for inspiration in all different
places. And so the way a designer might address a problem—even though the design
thinking process is presented as linear—is, in fact, less linear than maybe other disciplines,
you know. The inspiration might come from the strangest place. So I think it’s that creativity
and the unexpected connections and the serendipity. I think all of this is what could possibly
lead to more innovative solutions. (Lisa, Designer)
Some participants explicitly acknowledged the need for creativity because of the
complexity of sustainability challenges, noting that the design thinking process
helped people think about problems and solutions in new ways.
I think there’s huge potential for this framework in this process to be used for all sorts of
environmental challenges. I think, in general, creativity is going to be one of our best ways
forward. And I think there’s always room for innovation. I think that’s something that design
thinking also does so well: It gets people out of these standard solutions. . . . It’s kind of the
“how might we” . . . Also, a great framing that I think came from design thinking [is] just
thinking about problems differently. That’s really exciting to me because . . . the world’s
going to only get more complex, and so I think we’re going to need these frameworks to be
able to help us imagine something new. We’re going to need to continue to be thinking in
new ways about how to solve these difficult challenges. (Kara, Sustainability practitioner)
4.3 Design Thinking Encourages and Inspires Diversity

in Thought and Action
Ten participants discussed how design thinking excels at bringing together different
types of people, leading to more innovative and effective solutions.
The other thing I love about design thinking for this kind of challenge is it has the
opportunity to be really collaborative and to help people work together across differences.
So, I think we’re going to need a super diverse group of people working on environmental
challenges. Design thinking, I think, is a great framework to include a lot of different voices
in that conversation and to help build a solution that is the result of a lot of people’s ideas.
(Kara, Sustainability practitioner)
A design-focused interviewee shared several scenarios in which the diversity that

design thinking promotes leads to transformative ideas.
There’re two things I’ll call out. One is about co-design, which we see as a totally
non-discretionary part of design thinking. Co-design for us means that you’re bringing
lots of different voices and perspectives to the design table, shifting from a consultation
way of thinking into a collaborative way of designing a change. That happens in a couple of
different ways. It might be happening in workshops with stakeholders and representatives
who have lived experience of something all mixed together. Or it might be happening in user
research, when we’re talking to people and bringing their perspectives in. Or it might be
happening in testing and, when I say testing, I don’t necessarily mean testing user interface.
It might be about testing a concept, or testing a story, as a way of expressing a regulatory or
legal or policy change and making sure that those voices are heard back at the design table.
So, I think, when you co-design well, you avoid negotiating down to the least-worst solution
and, instead, you find yourself actually transforming things, like thinking about the funda-
mentals differently. So, that’s a good co-design process and that’s because there’s all these
different perspectives that have suddenly been clashed together, and a lot of assumptions die
in that conflict and a lot of new ideas get sprung out as well. (Dale, Designer)
When discussing diversity among those involved in the design thinking process,
some participants valued the diversity among themselves (as the facilitators/lead
designers) and the “user groups” with whom they work. For example, a university
professor, Dario, described the value of working directly with farmers: “I think that
this was perhaps the most interesting case to mention because these were definitely
the type of stakeholders that were most different from us . . .this made the exchange
between us very rich.” Other participants valued the diversity that existed among the
people with whom they were working. Two university professors described the
value that people from different disciplines and fields of study bring to the process:
Something I’ve learned increasingly [through] teaching conservation biology is we can
know all the biology in the world, but if we can’t work with social scientists, humanists,
and others at communicating what we know, then what we’ve learned is not that useful. So
integrating lessons from sociology, from economics, from political science, from art, and
communication and social media [is important]. I think there’s an enormous need to tap into
the interface of how people are influenced and what information is doing the influencing. . .I
think academia is ideally positioned to participate in design thinking. I mean, most acade-
micians aren’t familiar with design-thinking methods. So people who are, I think, have an
enormous potential to tap into the knowledge of academicians on the latest findings, what
works, what resonates with people, how to communicate with people. I know there’s a
tremendous amount of research on all of these topics, and I think there’s an enormous
potential for design thinking. (Theo, University professor)
It may not be that somebody sketching on a storyboard in a workshop comes up with the
brilliant idea, but then, when you step back and you look at the five storyboards that you’ve
generated, and then you apply that experience and the expertise from different disciplines—
you can come up with something really different and unique. (Gabriella, University
professor)
4.4 Design Thinking Adopts a Holistic, Systems Thinking

Mindset
Nine interviewees emphasized the importance of how design thinking approaches

encourage people to take a holistic view of the problem and solution, acknowledging
the value of systems thinking.
I think [a benefit of design thinking] is the opportunity to take a holistic look at a systems
level of an issue, and then engage a much wider group of brains in working out what to do
about it. A lot of problems are solved at a simplistic or reductionist level. Design thinking
done right is a prophylaxis against that. (Dale, Designer)
[Design thinking is valuable in] taking a step back and looking at the whole picture and
identifying where there are opportunities to continue with processes that you’ve done before
and are static and normal and relatively straightforward. (Eddie, Sustainability practitioner)
One interviewee, a university professor, described how she values the systems
thinking approach inherent in design thinking, noting that it encourages examination
of both human and nonhuman components of a system.
With the approach of design thinking, including the different perspectives and also the
non-human perspectives, or their role, and just the existence of those non-human elements in
the world around us—that’s definitely something that is really precious. (Gabriella, Univer-
sity professor)
Finally, some participants viewed a systems thinking approach as separate from

what they see as design thinking but also described how they combine systems
thinking with design thinking.
The way we put it simply is that we use systems thinking and design thinking as two
different and complementary approaches to understand the system. Systems thinking in
general helps us to zoom out and understand the whole and design thinking helps us to zoom
in . . . Understanding the micro to connect it with the macro, but also to envision change in
the sense that some of the interactions that we have at small scale can influence the bigger
picture. (Dario, University professor)
4.5 Design Thinking Offers a Streamlined, Action-Oriented

Approach
Nine participants valued design thinking for the way the approach can spur action,
often by offering a series of suggested steps, a framework, and guidelines.
I think having concrete steps is really helpful, and we hear from organizations that many of
them just aren’t really sure where to start. It’s kind of like “Design a behavior change
campaign” and I mean, like, great, how do we do that? . . . Similarly with design thinking,
just having this tested process of, “Okay, start here, then try this,” [is helpful]. Even though
it’s nonlinear, I think the ability to repeat steps is really helpful—or to be able to start
somewhere and go back. I think working within the journey is helpful as well. But having
that very concrete guidance to create something is really helpful. We got some feedback that
it helps people be more intentional in really thinking through their solutions. I think that’s
great. (Kara, Sustainability practitioner)
I think some of the benefits would be that it is a guide. If you feel as if a project is going off
the tracks, you can, you know, do your research, and see if there’s something within that
methodology that you can grab onto to bring it back on track. (Matthew, Designer)
Other participants valued design thinking because it offers an organized process

that can be used even with and by those unfamiliar with design.
It’s kind of creating a framework in which we can organize our ideas, our activities. It’s
providing us a method. So instead of going random, we know that every time we have a
project or any deal we want to develop, there is a first phase in which we need to really know
what we’re talking about. So [first there is] this research phase. Then we can start to frame
the specific problem we want to solve. . .So another thing in which design thinking for us is
useful, it gives the opportunity to people that are not used to design thinking or design in
general to use the methods, the tools, and to try to readapt them in different contexts, even if
they’re not an expert. So, it’s very useful, in my opinion, [as a] framework and a guide that
can be well explained and, if supported, can also be used by those who do not know design.
(Lorenzo, Designer)
One interviewee, a sustainability practitioner, focused on climate change as a

behavior change problem and described how the design thinking approach facilitates
shifting behaviors especially in the context of undertaking rapid action.
Well, I think design thinking and [related] strategies are basically behavior change strategies.
A lot of our challenges in the climate space are behavior challenges. How do we change
people’s behavior in terms of either their specific actions, individually or collectively? This
is why I say that the psychology of habit formation and habit change really is important to
think about. Once you understand that, then you can use design strategies to say, “Well, how
do we break those habit cycles? And how do we help institute new strategies?” And [I use]
my little exercise, which is very simple, and anybody who looks at it will say, “Oh, yes,
that’s design 101, maybe.” But it’s been amazing to me how many people in the climate
space are just like, “Oh, this is really good. This will get people moving.” I think, you know,
we have a behavior problem. We have a psychological problem when it comes to climate
change, so we need to use psychology and design strategies to get people moving. It won’t
solve the problems, but it will get people to start taking action. (Sam, Sustainability
practitioner)
A designer whom we interviewed also valued the efficiency of design thinking

approaches:
Just like having a blueprint, [design thinking] is very cyclical. It really prioritizes rapid
prototyping, getting tangible stuff in people’s hands, and getting real customer feedback
earlier than maybe you would otherwise be comfortable showing something to someone.
. . .Especially in the world of physical goods, where it’s so easy to just spend years designing
a product and never wanting to actually hand it over to customers until it’s absolutely perfect.
A lot of products and companies can fall into that trap. But design thinking reminds us that
it’s so much better to provide a very low-resolution prototype to people early and to catch
basic mistakes as fast as possible so that you can learn and improve without wasting a ton of
time and money on something that isn’t going to actually go anywhere. (Doug, Designer)
5 Discussion
Since writing our previous chapter (Ardoin et al., 2022), several new studies have
been published reporting examples of design thinking being used in a sustainability
context. Törnroth et al. (2022), for example, developed and tested a design thinking
workshop for citizen designers in Sweden to engage with urban renewable energy.
Gozzoli et al. (2022) reported on the use of design thinking with a local community
in Thailand to address sustainability in urban community development. In both
instances, the authors emphasized design thinking’s ability to encourage collabora-
tion and give voice to impacted communities. Massari et al. (2022) created a design
thinking model called CEASE (communities, engagement, actions, shareability,
ecosystems) to address sustainable food-related behaviors; the model highlights
the value of empathy and creativity in the design thinking process. He and Ortiz
(2021) further developed a design thinking framework for sustainable business
models and explored its use with a Chinese company.
Several studies discussed the use of design thinking in higher education settings.
Avsec and Jagiełło-Kowalczyk (2021) reported on the use of design thinking with
undergraduate architecture students as part of an effort to address the United Nations
SDGs in architectural education. Their study found that design thinking increased
self-directed learning among architecture undergraduates with improvements in a
range of skills needed to create sustainable architecture design. Similarly, Manna
et al. (2022) sought to bring an awareness of sustainability to undergraduate mar-
keting education. These researchers developed a multicourse initiative that used
design thinking to connect students with a local community organization to explore
sustainability issues in a wetland area. Although the authors reported challenges with
implementing the design thinking approach, they asserted that the benefits of the
approach outweighed the challenges, commenting, “It is time for educators design-
ing marketing curricula to prioritize the development of ‘big picture’ critical thinking
skills that marketing needs, particularly in these times of global uncertainty” (Manna
et al., 2022, p. 372). Taimur and Onuki (2022) described design thinking as a
transformative learning approach needed to create competent leaders who can
address complex, sustainability issues. They reported on courses from universities
in Japan and Germany that used a design thinking approach in digital and hybrid
learning.
The findings from our interview-based study contribute to this growing evidence
base by analyzing qualitative data to consider the level of support for five core design
characteristics hypothesized to contribute to the search for sustainability solutions.
Data from the interviews tapped into the direct experiences of practitioners,
designers, and university professors working in the sustainability field. Across the
20 interviewees, we found support, at varying levels, for the design thinking
characteristics of inspiring creativity; being participatory and people-focused;

encouraging diversity in thought and action; taking a holistic, systems thinking
perspective; and offering a streamlined, action-oriented approach.
The semi-structured interview protocol did not explicitly share or prompt for
these specific design thinking characteristics; rather, the protocol provided partici-
pants with the opportunity to offer thoughts on what may make design thinking
approaches appropriate for use in the context of sustainability-related challenges.
Deductive coding revealed the presence of the five design thinking characteristics in
many of the interviews. The characteristic of participatory and people-focused
received the strongest support, with 17 of the 20 interviews coded as demonstrating
this connection with design thinking. Half or nearly half of the interviews (ten or
nine interviews) were coded for each of the remaining four characteristics. This
research thus demonstrates support in practice for the five design thinking charac-
teristics initially identified in Ardoin et al. (2022).
6 Reflections and Conclusion
Our findings suggest immediate implications for research and practice. Additional
qualitative or mixed-methods research—including in-depth case studies, ethno-
graphic work, and focus groups—could contribute to theory development regarding
how design thinking augments the search for sustainability solutions. A logical next
step building on this study’s findings would be to incorporate a larger number and
more diverse perspectives and experiences of those who use design thinking in their
sustainability work through employing, for example, a Delphi study or leveraging
survey methods. Practical implications involve further use of design thinking in
addressing sustainability challenges and, for those unfamiliar with design thinking,
providing training in design thinking approaches, including specifically addressing
their application in sustainability contexts. The interviews provided insight into
which sustainability issues have been addressed by practitioners as well as recom-
mendations for building capacity related to using design thinking in sustainability
work. Further analysis of these data, combined with future studies, will provide
additional insights addressing questions of scope, scale, and pedagogy for efforts
combining design thinking and sustainability.
Reflecting on both this study and our literature review (Ardoin et al., 2022), we
see long-term implications for research and practice involving the intersection of
design thinking and sustainability solutions. Our initial work has focused on existing
literature and practitioner experiences, with our findings indicating an opportunity
for researchers and practitioners to engage more deeply with the conceptualization of
design thinking. A common theme across both studies was a popular view of design
thinking as a step-by-step formula (Carter, 2016). We suggest moving the discussion
beyond the basic principles of design thinking—such as its participatory, action-
oriented nature—to delve more deeply into the underlying processes that promote
creativity and problem-solving. This direction for research and practice might
include engagement with the core abilities of design thinking, which cover aspects
such as navigating ambiguity, synthesis, and abstraction, among others (Carter,
2016; Stanford d.school, n.d.). With optimism, we look forward to expanding
upon this initial work to better understand the ways in which design thinking
approaches can support researchers and practitioners alike in efforts to pursue a
more sustainable world.
Acknowledgments This research was supported by the Hasso Plattner Design Thinking Research
Program (HPDTRP). We are grateful for the feedback received at the HPDTRP workshops and
appreciate the support received from Jill Grinager and Sharon Therese Nemeth. Thanks to Carissa
Carter and Sarah Stein Greenberg of the Stanford d.school for their guidance at various stages of
this work. We appreciate research and editorial assistance from past and current members of the
Stanford Social Ecology Lab, particularly Theo Bamberger, Estelle Gaillard, Pari Ghorbani,
Veronica Lin, Kathleen O’Connor, Sarayu Pai, Indira Phukan, and Wilson Sherman. Finally, we
are deeply grateful to the interview participants who shared their experiences and reflections.
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Part 2
Prototyping
User Perceptions of Privacy Interfaces
in the Workplace
Michelle S. Lam, Matthew Jörke, Jennifer King, Nava Haghighi,

and James A. Landay
Abstract Intelligent workplace systems that support well-being offer the potential
to reduce stress and burnout, promote physical activity, or increase creativity and
collaboration while at work. However, such systems rely on the collection of
sensitive personal information that can pose significant privacy risks to users. In
this chapter, we investigate how user perceptions of privacy vary with privacy
interface designs and framing scenarios. In a user study with 60 participants, we
present participants with four privacy interfaces based on different privacy frame-
works and study how perceptions of comfort and control vary depending on the
owner of the sensing technology and the user’s relationship with that owner. We find
that participants express greater comfort and control with interfaces that foreground
contextual information and provide relationship-based access control. Moreover,
participants display lower feelings of comfort and control when the technology is
deployed company-wide or by a manager with whom they have a negative relation-
ship. Concerningly, we find that interfaces based on technical privacy metrics are
poorly understood and have the potential to promote a false sense of security. Taken
together, our findings have implications for the design of privacy interfaces and can
inform future large-scale studies on privacy attitudes in the workplace.
M. S. Lam · M. Jörke (✉) · N. Haghighi · J. A. Landay

Department Computer Science, Stanford School of Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford,
CA, USA
[email protected]
J. King
Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, Stanford University, CA, Stanford, USA
110 M. S. Lam et al.
1 Introduction
Intelligent workplace systems that support well-being offer the potential to reduce
stress (Adler et al., 2022; Howe et al., 2022), increase creativity and collaboration
(Jun et al., 2019; Mandryk & Inkpen, 2004), encourage physical activity (Conn
et al., 2009), and optimize productivity (Costa et al., 2019; Kimani et al., 2019; Mark
et al., 2017) while at work. Such systems necessarily rely on data collection in the
workplace, such as through passive monitoring using wearables or logging software.
However, amid growing academic and public concern around workplace surveil-
lance (Kantor & Sundaram, 2022) and “bossware” (Corbyn, 2022), user privacy is a
fundamental concern. Data collected for the purpose of improving well-being can
expose sensitive health information (Harwell, 2019), can be shared by employers
with unwanted third parties (e.g., insurance companies) (Sloat, 2022), or can be
misused to monitor and surveillance workers (Kantor & Sundaram, 2022). For
instance, a survey of mental health apps by the Mozilla Foundation in 2022 reports
that many employer-provided mental health apps share sensitive information with
employers, often unbeknownst to the employee (Sloat, 2022). Thus, data privacy
must be an integral concern in the design of workplace well-being support systems
(Diel et al., 2022; Partnership on AI, 2022). Benefits to employee well-being will not
be realized if they come at the expense of employee privacy.
In this work, we present our findings from an online user study (N = 60) to assess
how users’ perceptions of privacy vary depending on the owner of the sensing
technology and depending on whether the user’s relationship with the owner is
positive or negative. In our study, we present each participant with four privacy
interfaces inspired by several privacy frameworks in the literature and manipulate a
framing scenario that describes the context of deployment. We measure participants’
perception of comfort and control across the various conditions and framing scenar-
ios, as well as their comprehension of and confidence in privacy-preserving features.
We find that participants expressed increased comfort and control with interfaces
that provide contextual information about sensed data and allow relationship-based
access control. However, these preferences are highly dependent on the deployment
scenario. Participants expressed decreased comfort and control in conditions where
the system was deployed company-wide and in conditions where they had a negative
relationship with their manager. Finally, interfaces that heavily rely on technical
privacy metrics were not only poorly understood in general but led to a false sense of
security and adoption of less private settings among users with low comprehension.
Our work has implications for the design of workplace well-being support systems,
namely, that privacy interfaces must be evaluated with consideration of the deploy-
ment context and workplace power dynamics. We additionally find that technical
privacy metrics should be coupled with user-centered design approaches to ensure
that users make informed decisions about their privacy.
User Perceptions of Privacy Interfaces in the Workplace 111
2 Background
The interface designs and framing scenarios employed in our study draw upon four
privacy frameworks from the literature, which we briefly summarize here.
Nissenbaum’s theory of privacy as contextual integrity (Nissenbaum, 2009)
frames privacy violations as inappropriate flows of personal information that violate
contextual information norms. Five contextual parameters govern information
norms: the data subject, data sender, data recipient, information type, and form of
transmission. This theory of privacy informed the design of our scenario-based
interface, which highlights these key contextual parameters, as well as the
technology-owner dimension of our framing scenarios.
Next, we designed a relationship-based interface that primarily broke down
privacy controls in terms of user relationships in line with work on relationship-
based access control (Fong, 2011; Petronio, 2002). Relationship-based access con-
trol is a mechanism for granting access to personal data based on relationships
among users, which may also be context dependent.
Drawing on work in multiparty approaches to privacy that highlights the collec-
tive, interdependent nature of online privacy (Humbert et al., 2019), we then
designed a socially conscious interface that surfaced the privacy behavior of trusted
peers and enabled users to share endorsements or warnings about privacy settings.
Notably, users may be susceptible to peer influence in social settings (Mendel &
Toch, 2017; Tyagi et al., 2016), adopting both beneficial and detrimental privacy
practices based on the behavior of their peers and their relationships with those peers.
Finally, we designed a privacy metrics-based interface that incorporates user
controls based on common metrics from the technical privacy literature. In particu-
lar, we explore two technical privacy approaches. First, we explore differential
privacy (Dwork, 2008), which injects carefully chosen noise into each individual’s
data such that their information is private in isolation but inferences can be made in
aggregation over larger populations. The second approach we explore is
k-anonymization (Sweeney, 2002), whereby data is masked or aggregated such
that each individual cannot be distinguished from at least (k - 1) other individuals
in the dataset. Prior work has shown that lay users frequently have inaccurate mental
models of technical privacy solutions (Dechand et al., 2019; Kang et al., 2015; Wu &
Zappala, 2018) and that technically savvy users often adopt risky privacy practices
despite their technical knowledge (Barth et al., 2019; Kang et al., 2015).
3 Study Design
Our work aims to understand how privacy design frameworks play out in realistic
workplace deployments. To what extent are user reactions to privacy-focused design
patterns impacted by details of the deployment scenario?
3.1 Research Questions
Across the four different privacy design approaches we identified, we sought to

address the following core research questions:
RQ1: To what extent does the owner of the sensing technology impact user percep-
tions of comfort and control?
RQ2: To what extent does the valence of the user’s relationship with the sensing
technology owner impact user perceptions of comfort and control?
In the context of this study, the user of the technology is an employee, the owner
of the technology is the organization or individual that controls the system and its
data, and valence refers to whether the relationship between the user and owner is
positive or negative. Our decision to study privacy perceptions as a function of the
technology owner and the valence of the user’s relationship with that owner reflects
the power dynamics present in workplace settings and is informed by the privacy
frameworks discussed in the previous section.
To tackle these questions, we instantiate each of the four privacy design frame-
works as a concrete privacy interface in the workplace context, as described in Sect.
3.2. Then, we present these privacy interfaces to everyday users in a survey
experiment to understand user preferences in various contexts. Each user is assigned
a random framing scenario, which modifies factors such as the owner of the
technology and the valence of the user’s relationship, as described in Sect. 3.4.
3.2 Privacy Interfaces
We prototyped four user interfaces that each captured different privacy design
frameworks: (1) a scenario-based interface, (2) a relationship-based interface,
(3) a socially conscious interface, and (4) a privacy metrics interface.
Across these interfaces, participants viewed hypothetical data sources organized
into two categories: physical activity (daily step count, heart rate, flights climbed,
and daily sleep hours) and work activity (stress level and browser history). The
socially conscious interface only displayed the first three data sources (daily step
count, heart rate, and flights climbed) due to space constraints.
3.2.1 Scenario-Based Interface
The first interface, drawing upon the contextual integrity theory of privacy
(Nissenbaum, 2009), places emphasis on communicating the key contextual param-
eters of the sensing technology to the user. The interface is broken into categories by
the kind of data collected (e.g., “physical activity” vs. “work activity”), and listed
within those categories are specific data sources (e.g., “daily step count” and “heart
Fig. 1 Scenario-based interface
rate”) (Fig. 1). Each of these data sources can be expanded to view additional details;
in this view, details include information about the what (the requested data), who (the
audience of the data), why (the purpose for the data collection), and how (the data
collection strategy). The user can then enable or disable each of these data sources
based on the provided information.
3.2.2 Relationship-Based Interface
The next interface draws upon the proposals for relationship-based access control
based on theories of relational privacy (Petronio, 2002) to primarily orient privacy
settings around relationships with other users (here, coworkers). This page allows
users to create custom groups of coworkers and specify data permission settings for
these different groups (Fig. 2). Once a user group is created, the user can specify a
custom set of data access settings that will only apply to that group of users. These
settings include the data aggregation level and the same individual data sources and
category groupings present in the scenario-based interface. Again, each data source
can be individually enabled or disabled from this page. For example, the user could
create a custom group of “trusted teammates” and opt to grant them higher level of
data access than “superiors.”
Fig. 2 Relationship-based interface
3.2.3 Socially Conscious Interface
The third interface captures ideas related to multiparty approaches to privacy

(Humbert et al., 2019) by surfacing the privacy choices made by coworkers and
allowing users to factor this information into their own privacy decisions (Fig. 3).
This page allows users to create a custom set of “selected peers” whom they trust,
and the members of the peer group agree to share their privacy habits to help each
other stay safe. Then, for each data source, users can either select that the data
collection be “allowed” or “blocked,” and they can view additional information
about the data source. Below each option, they can see icons showing the profile
photos of the peers in their group who have selected that option (either to allow or to
block that particular data source). Finally, users can choose to select the “endorse
choice” or “warn peers” buttons to take a more active stance on their privacy
settings. These buttons will trigger push notifications to their peers with a custom
message explaining why the privacy setting should be allowed (for endorsements) or
blocked (for warnings).
Fig. 3 Socially conscious interface
Fig. 4 Privacy metrics interface

3.2.4 Privacy Metrics Interface
The last interface is based on technical treatments of privacy: differential privacy

(Dwork, 2008) and k-anonymity (Sweeney, 2002). Similar to the scenario-based
interface, this page features different data sources with collapsible sections (Fig. 4).
When expanded, each section displays detailed information on the data collected in
terms of the anonymization level and privacy-preserving noise level. Each of these
metrics is accompanied with a visual representation of the privacy metric and text
description providing an interpretation of that metric in plain language. Users can
select to enable or disable collection of that data based on this information.
3.3 Framing Scenarios
We then set up framing scenarios to address our research questions around the
impact of technology owners and the valence of a user’s relationship with these
owners. We create four tiers of technology owners in a workplace context: (1) com-
pany, (2) team, (3) manager, and (4) teammate. Then, for the last two owners which
involve a personal relationship with an individual (manager and teammate), we
explore relationships with either a positive or negative valence. Based on these,
we develop six scenario variants to prime our study participants before they evaluate
our privacy interfaces.
1. Company-oriented scenario where a large tech company deployed the sensing
technology and the privacy interface.
2. Team-oriented scenario where the user’s particular team within the company
owned the technology.
3. Manager-oriented (positive) scenario where the user’s team manager owned the
technology and the user had a positive relationship with the manager.
4. Manager-oriented (negative) scenario where the user’s team manager owned the
technology and the user had a negative relationship with the manager.
5. Teammate-oriented (positive) scenario where another member on the team
owned the technology and the user had a positive relationship with the teammate.
6. Teammate-oriented (negative) scenario where another member on the team
owned the technology and the user had a negative relationship with the teammate.
Each of the scenarios is conveyed to study participants through a brief paragraph
at the start of the survey. This paragraph describes the participant’s role, the new
sensing technology that is going to be introduced, the owner of that technology, the
purpose of the technology, and, if applicable, the valence of the participant’s
relationship with the technology owner. Below is an example of the paragraph for
the manager-oriented (positive) scenario. The full text for all six scenarios can be
found in Appendix Section 1.
You are an engineer on a small eight-person team, and you have a very positive, strong
relationship with your manager, Jamie. You’ve worked with Jamie for 2 years already,
and you trust that they make great decisions for the team.
Jamie has recently started a pilot program to improve team members’ general well-
being by collecting data using work-issued devices like laptops and phones. To allow team
members to manage the privacy of this data, Jamie has created an interface where
employees can control what data can be analyzed.
3.4 Survey Design
Our survey experiment was conducted using Qualtrics, a survey management plat-
form that allowed us to deploy random assignment to our framing scenarios and
random ordering of our privacy interface sections.
The survey was broken into the following sections: (1) a brief introduction to the
survey; (2) a single randomly selected framing scenario from the six described in
Sect. 3.4; (3) a page with questions about each of the four privacy interfaces, shown
in randomized order; and (4) a final overall rating of all interfaces and a concluding
page to provide demographic information.
On the framing scenario page (Fig. 5a), we explained that we would be showing
four different designs for privacy settings pages in the following sections of the
survey. We asked for participants to answer the questions for each design based on
the context we provided with the framing scenario. Since it was important that
participants indeed absorbed the content of the framing scenario before proceeding,
we added attention check questions below the scenario paragraph. We asked about
which entity owned the technology and, if applicable, about the valence of the
participant’s relationship with that entity. Participants needed to answer these ques-
tions correctly before they would be allowed to proceed to the next page.
On each privacy interface page (Fig. 5b), there was an image of the interface and a
detailed description of its functionality, as in Sect. 3.2. Each of the interfaces was
paired with a set of questions designed to gauge the participant’s sense of comfort
and control. We also included a “feature importance” question where we listed
several key features of the particular interface and, for each, asked participants to
indicate the importance of that feature in informing their privacy choices.
Finally, we included additional interface-specific questions for the socially con-
scious interface and privacy metrics interface. For the socially conscious interface,
we asked participants to indicate their likelihood of endorsing one of their privacy
settings or warning peers about choosing a setting that differed from their own. For
the privacy metrics interface, we also asked questions to examine the participant’s
objective comprehension of the metrics as well as their confidence in their level of
comprehension. These answers would help us to assess the participant’s ability to
make informed decisions about privacy settings. Each of the privacy interface pages
also included an optional free-text question to provide any additional comments
about that interface.
Fig. 5 Qualtrics survey. (a) The framing scenario survey page, here displaying the team-oriented
scenario. (b) A privacy interface survey page, here displaying the scenario-based interface
3.5 Participant Recruitment
We recruited study participants using Prolific, a platform for sourcing research

participants. Our study included 60 participants, providing about 10 participants
for each framing scenario condition. Since the survey required approximately
10 min, we compensated participants $2.00 for taking part in our study. The study
was advertised on the platform as a “10-minute Workplace Privacy Settings Sur-
vey.” We filtered to participants located in the USA who had a minimum approval
rate of 95% on the platform.
4 Results
Our study (N = 60) found that participants were influenced by the framing scenario
manipulation.
4.1 Participant Demographics
Based on the demographic questions from our survey, participants in our study
consisted of 27 women and 33 men; for race, 36 participants identified as White,
11 as Black or African-American, 5 as Asian, 3 as multiracial, 2 as American Indian
or Alaska Native, 1 as Hispanic, and 2 preferred not to state their racial identity. For
age, we had 14 participants from 18 to 24, 30 from 25 to 34, 11 from 35 to 44, and
5 from 45 to 54. Lastly, for educational background, we had 4 high school graduates,
13 with some college, 10 with an associate’s degree, 20 with a bachelor’s degree,
10 with a master’s degree, and 3 with a professional degree.
Due to random assignment, there were not exactly ten participants in each of the
framing scenario conditions. There were 10 in the company-oriented scenario, 11 in
the team-oriented scenario, 10 in the manager-oriented (positive) scenario, 10 in the
manager-oriented (negative) scenario, 8 in the teammate-oriented (positive) sce-
nario, and 11 in the teammate-oriented (negative) scenario.
4.2 User Perceptions of Comfort and Control Across

Interfaces
4.2.1 User Comfort
Across the interfaces, there was generally greater comfort in team-oriented rather
than company-oriented framings, with 66% vs. 38% positive comfort ratings
a
Response Very uncomfortable Somewhat uncomfortable Neither comfortable nor uncomfortable Somewhat comfortable Very comfortable
b
3: Manager-oriented (positive) 12% 18% 70%
2: Team-oriented 27% 7% 66%
6: Teammate-oriented (negative) 23% 16% 61%
4: Manager-oriented (negative) 38% 20% 42%
1: Company-oriented 42% 20% 38%
5: Teammate-oriented (positive) 38% 28% 34%
100 50 0 50 100
Percentage
c
UI2: Relationship-based 28% 15% 57%
UI1: Scenario-based 28% 17% 55%
UI4: Privacy Metrics 28% 18% 53%
UI3: Socially-conscious 33% 20% 47%
100 50 0 50 100
Percentage
Fig. 6 User comfort results. (a) Legend for comfort ratings. (b) Comfort results, by framing
scenario. (c) Comfort results, by privacy interface
(Fig. 6b). There was greater comfort for positive rather than negative manager-
oriented scenarios, with 70% vs. 42% positive comfort ratings. Somewhat surpris-
ingly, there was greater comfort for negative rather than positive teammate-oriented
scenarios (61% vs. 34% comfort).
Among the four interfaces, participants appeared least comfortable with the
socially conscious interface (47% comfort), but comfort levels appeared comparable
among the other interfaces, ranging between 53% and 57% comfort (Fig. 6c). Users
expressed less comfort with this interface especially for the team-oriented (45%
comfort compared to a mean of 73% comfort on other interfaces) and negative
manager-oriented scenarios (30% comfort compared to a mean of 46.7% comfort on
other interfaces).
4.2.2 User Control
Similar to comfort, participants felt a greater sense of control in team-oriented rather

than company-oriented framings, with 77% vs. 52% positive control ratings
(Fig. 7a). There was a greater sense of control for positive rather than negative
manager-oriented scenarios, with 80% vs. 60% positive control ratings. Surprisingly
again, there was a greater sense of control for negative rather than positive
teammate-oriented scenarios (70% vs. 44% control).
Among the four interfaces, participants expressed greater control with the
relationship-based interface (73% control); the level of control appeared comparable
among the other interfaces, ranging from 58% to 65% control (Fig. 7b).
a
Response Very insufficent Somewhat insufficient Neither sufficient nor Somewhat sufficent Very sufficient
control control insufficent control control control
b
100 50 0 50 100
Percentage
c
UI2: Relationship-based 12% 15% 73%
UI1: Scenario-based 22% 13% 65%
UI4: Privacy Metrics 17% 20% 63%
UI3: Socially-conscious 20% 22% 58%
100 50 0 50 100
Percentage
Fig. 7 User control results. (a) Legend for control ratings. (b) Control results, by framing scenario.
(c) Control results, by privacy interface
4.3 User Reactions to Privacy Metrics
Next, we investigated our participants’ responses to technical privacy metrics in the

privacy metrics interface. For the two privacy metrics—privacy-preserving noise
level and anonymization level—we explored participants’ objective comprehension,
confidence about their comprehension, and preferred privacy metric setting.
4.3.1 Privacy-Preserving Noise
Objective comprehension. To assess participants’ understanding of privacy-

preserving noise, we asked them to select all answer choices that are true about a
high privacy-preserving noise level based on our description. There were six answer
choices, and three of them were indeed true. We calculated a correctness score for
each participant where their score improved by +1 for each answer that they selected
that was correct and decreased by -1 for each answer that they selected that was
incorrect. This means that a score of +3 indicates that a user only selected correct
answers, and a score of -3 indicates that a user only selected incorrect answers. We
found that there was substantial spread in participant comprehension; only 17 par-
ticipants displayed full comprehension as measured by our survey question (Fig. 8).
Comprehension vs. confidence. We then compared these participant comprehen-
sion scores against participants’ self-rated confidence in their comprehension of the
privacy-preserving noise metric. We found that generally, higher comprehension
was associated with higher confidence (Fig. 9a). Among participants with full
comprehension, 77% indicated that they were either somewhat confident or very
confident in their comprehension, compared to 63.7% of participants with
15 Correctness score
-3
-2
10
count
-1
0
1
5
2
3
0
-3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3
Privacy-preserving noise answer correctness
Fig. 8 Participant comprehension of privacy-preserving noise
a
Privacy-preserving noise conf.
3 18% 12% 71% Higher
comprehension
2 40% 0% 60%
1 20% 20% 60%
0 33% 33% 33%
-3 44% 11% 44%
-2 67% 0% 33%
Lower
-1 31% 31% 38% comprehension
100 50 0 50 100
Percentage
Response Very unsure Somewhat unsure Neither confident nor unsure Somewhat confident Very confident
b
Ul4: Metics
3 35% 24% 41% Higher

40% comprehension
2 20% 40%
1 20% 0% 80%
0 67% 0% 33%
-3 11% 11% 78%
-2 100% 0% 0%
Lower
-1 15% 31% 54% comprehension
100 50 0 50 100
Percentage
c
Ul4: Metics
3 35% 24% 41% Higher
2 20% 0% 80% comprehension
1 10% 0% 90%
0 0% 0% 100%
-3 11% 11% 78%
-2 33% 67% 0%
Lower
-1 0% 38% 62%
comprehension
100 50 0 50 100
Percentage
Response Very insufficent control Somewhat insufficient control Neither sufficient nor insufficient control Somewhat sufficient control Very sufficient
Fig. 9 Privacy-preserving noise: comprehension results. (a) Privacy-preserving noise:

comprehension vs. confidence. (b) Privacy-preserving noise: comprehension vs. comfort. (c)
Privacy-preserving noise: comprehension vs. control
correctness scores above zero and 37.0% of participants with correctness scores of
zero or below. However, these same figures indicate that there was still quite high
confidence among those with low comprehension (overconfidence), and there was
substantial lack of confidence among those with high comprehension (under-
confidence). Then, comparing participant comprehension against comfort and con-
trol ratings, we found that the highest levels of comfort and control appear to be tied
to participants who had a moderate-to-low comprehension level (Fig. 9b, c).
Preferred setting. Lastly, we looked at participants’ stated preferences in setting
the privacy-preserving noise level. For this metric, participants had the option to set
their noise level at “Low: a low amount of added noise, so a low level of privacy, but
high quality evaluations of your well-being”; “Medium: a medium amount of added
noise, so a moderate level of privacy and moderate quality evaluations of your well-
being”; or “High: a high amount of added noise, so a high level of privacy, but low
quality evaluations of your well-being.” The majority of participants placed the noise
setting at a “Medium” level (Fig. 10a). Breaking down these results by comprehen-
sion level, we found that users with lower comprehension more often chose a “Low”
or “Medium” noise level, which corresponds to less privacy (Fig. 10b). Meanwhile,
participants with higher comprehension more often chose the “Medium” or “High”
noise level, but still more participants tended to choose the “Medium” rather than
“High” noise level.
a 40
30
noise level
LOW
count
20
MEDIUM
HIGH
10
0
LOW MEDIUM HIGH
Privacy-preserving noise level
b Privacy-preserving noise level
10
noise level
LOW
count
MEDIUM
5 HIGH
0
-3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3
privCorrect
Fig. 10 Privacy-preserving noise: preferred settings. (a) Privacy-preserving noise: overall pre-
ferred setting. (b) Privacy-preserving noise: preferred setting by comprehension
4.3.2 Anonymization Level
Objective comprehension. To assess participant comprehension of anonymization

level, we asked them to select the most precise and correct interpretation of an
anonymization level of “5.” There was only one correct answer choice for this
question, so this served as a binary indicator of comprehension. We found that
more participants appeared to understand anonymization level (selecting the correct
option 4), but many participants selected a nearly correct answer (option 3), which
was not the most precise option (Fig. 11).
Comprehension vs. confidence. We then compared participants’ comprehension
of anonymization level against their confidence in their comprehension. We again
found that comprehension was tied to slightly higher confidence (Fig. 12a); partic-
ipants who correctly answered the comprehension question reported slightly higher
confidence (60% somewhat or very confident) than those who did not (50% some-
what or very confident). Nonetheless, we found that there was overconfidence
among those with incorrect comprehension, and there was still substantial under-
confidence among those with correct comprehension. Comparing comprehension to
perceptions of comfort and control (Fig. 12b, c), we found that users with a correct
understanding of anonymization level appeared to have lower levels of comfort
(47% somewhat or very comfortable) and control (53% somewhat or very sufficient
control) than participants who had an incorrect understanding (60% somewhat or
very comfortable; 73% somewhat or very sufficient control).
Preferred setting. We then compared participants’ selected anonymization level
settings against their comprehension and framing scenario. For this metric, partici-
pants had the option to set anonymization level X at any value from 0 to 20, with the
prompt “In the database, you would be indistinguishable from X other individuals.”
Overall, participants set their anonymization level at 8.47 (SD = 5.39). Across
participant comprehension levels, we found similar anonymization level settings
for participants who correctly (M = 8.5, SD = 5.88) or incorrectly (M = 8.43,
SD = 4.95) understood the metric (Fig. 13a). Across the framing scenarios, we
observed trends similar to those we found in the comfort and control measures.
There appeared to be a higher requested anonymization level for the company-
oriented rather than team-oriented scenario and for the positive rather than negative
30
answer choice
20
There are 5 data fields that 5 individuals share in the database
count
There are 5 individual database entries from you

There are 5 individuals who have the same values in the database
10
There are 5 other individuals who have the same values as you in the
database
0
1 2 3 4
Anonymization level quiz answer
Fig. 11 Participant comprehension of anonymization level

a
Anonymization level conf.
23% 17% 60% Correct
23% 27% 50% Incorrect
100 50 0 50 100
Percentage
Response Very unsure Somewhat unsure Neither confident nor unsure Somewhat confident Very confident
b
UI 4: Metrics
37% 17% 47% Correct
20% 20% 60% Incorrect
100 50 0 50 100
Percentage
c
UI 4: Metrics
27% 20% 53% Correct
7% 0% 73% Incorrect
100 50 0 50 100
Percentage
Response Very insufficient control Somewhat insufficient control Neither sufficient nor insufficient control Somewhat sufficient control Very sufficient
Fig. 12 Anonymization level: comprehension results. (a) Anonymization level:

comprehension vs. confidence. (b) Anonymization level: comprehension vs. comfort. (c)
Anonymization level: comprehension vs. control
teammate-oriented scenario (Fig. 13b). The positive and negative manager-oriented

scenarios appeared to have more comparable anonymization levels.
4.4 User Perceptions of Privacy Interface Features
Based on our feature importance questions, we noted several trends among partic-
ipants’ perceptions of privacy interface features (Fig. 14). Generally, the name of the
data source (e.g., “daily step count”) was viewed as having lower importance than
other details. For the scenario-based interface, the what, who, how, and why had
similar levels of importance. For the relationship-based interface, the user set was
slightly more important than the data aggregation level. For the socially conscious
interface, the particular peers in the trusted user set were more important than the
number of peers, and warnings were viewed as having a similar level of importance
as endorsements. For the privacy metrics interface, anonymization level
(k-anonymity) was rated as slightly more important than privacy-preserving noise
level (differential privacy).
a
20
15
Anonym level
10
0
Incorrect Correct
Comprehension
b
20
15
Anonym level
10
0
Company-oriented Team-oriented Manager-oriented Manager-oriented Team-oriented Teammate-oriented
(positive) (negative) (positive) (negative)
Scenario
Fig. 13 Anonymization level: preferred settings. (a) Anonymization level: preferred setting by
comprehension. (b) Anonymization level: preferred setting by framing scenario
Diving a bit more into the socially conscious interface, we asked participants
about the likelihood of endorsing or warning using this page (Fig. 15). We observed
that participants seemed slightly more inclined to endorse a privacy option than to
warn their peers about a different privacy option (Fig. 15b). Across the different
framing scenarios, we find that participants seemed more likely to endorse in
a
Response Very unimportant Somewhat unimportant Neither important nor unimportant Somewhat important Very important
b
Why (purpose) 8% 7% 85%
What (requested data) 7% 8% 85%
How (data collection strategy) 12% 5% 83%
Who (audience) 10% 8% 82%
Metric name 13% 8% 78%
100 50 0 50 100
Percentage
c
User set 3% 10% 87%
Aggregation level 8% 8% 83%
100 50 0 50 100
Percentage
d
PARTICULAR peers 15% 17% 68%
Warning push notif 15% 18% 67%
Endorsement push notif 13% 23% 63%
NUMBER of peers 20% 17% 63%
100 50 0 50 100
Percentage
e 12% 8% 80%
Anonym level DESCRIPTION
Anonym level RATING 7% 13% 80%
10% 15% 75%
Priv-preserving noise DESCRIPTION
18% 7% 75%
Metric name
10% 18% 72%
Priv-preseving noise RATING
100 50 0 50 100
Percentage
Fig. 14 Interface feature importance results. (a) Legend for feature importance ratings. (b)
Scenario-based interface, feature importance results. (c) Relationship-based interface, feature
importance results. (d) Socially conscious interface, feature importance results. (e) Privacy metrics
interface, feature importance results
positive-oriented relationship scenarios. Meanwhile, participants did not seem more

likely to warn in negative-oriented relationship scenarios.
5 Discussion
We found that participants reported the highest comfort and control for the
relationship-based interface, closely followed by the scenario-based and privacy
metrics interfaces. This indicates that participants appreciated relationship-based
access control, detailed information about key contextual information, and addi-
tional information about privacy-preserving metrics. We suspect that lower levels of
comfort and control in the socially conscious interface are due to privacy preferences
being shared with peers. However, these interface ratings also varied widely
depending on the framing scenario.
a
Response Very unlikely Somewhat unlikely Neither likely nor unlikely Somewhat likely Very likely
b
Endorse likelihood 30% 25% 45%
Warn likelihood 25% 37% 38%
100 50 0 50 100
Percentage
c
Endorse likelihood
Warn likelihood
100 50 0 50 100
Percentage
Fig. 15 Socially conscious interface: endorse-vs.-warn results. (a) Legend for endorse-vs.-warn
ratings. (b) Overall likelihood of endorsing and warning. (c) Likelihood of endorsing and warning,
by framing scenario
Across all of the interfaces, participants assigned to the company-oriented sce-

nario displayed consistently lower feelings of comfort and control relative to those
who were assigned to the team-oriented scenario. We observed a similar result
among those who were assigned to the manager-oriented scenario: Participants
who had a negative relationship with the manager displayed lower feelings of
comfort and control than those who had a positive relationship with the manager.
These results suggest that users may be more likely to feel comfortable and in control
of data shared among smaller groups with known and trusted individuals in work-
place settings.
However, these results flip among the teammate-oriented scenarios. Surprisingly,
participants displayed greater feelings of comfort and control when a teammate with
whom they had a negative and distrustful relationship had developed the system.
Moreover, participants selected a lower level of anonymization in the negative
teammate-oriented scenario, further confirming this result. We note that the negative
teammate-oriented scenario explicitly mentions a positive relationship with their

manager and other teammates, so we suspect that participants perceived a greater
overall benefit of privacy interfaces in this scenario due to the contrast in relationship
valence, though future work is needed to further investigate this finding. These
findings indicate that it is important not just to focus on the literal design of our
privacy interfaces but also to evaluate the designs with an explicit consideration of
how the larger context of factors, such as power structures and social relationships,
might result in varying levels of trust and differing reactions to a privacy
intervention.
Participants often struggled to fully understand technical privacy metrics even
when they were explained in words rather than with strict numerical values,
mirroring prior work on inaccurate user mental models of technical privacy measures
(Dechand et al., 2019; Kang et al., 2015; Wu & Zappala, 2018). This lack of
comprehension was paired with an inconsistent pattern of user confidence in their
level of comprehension. While participants who correctly understood the metrics
were generally more confident than those who did not, sizeable portions of the high-
comprehension participants had low confidence in their understanding. Conversely,
sizeable portions of the low-comprehension participants had high confidence in their
understanding. We also found that participants with mid-to-low comprehension of
these metrics felt a greater sense of comfort and control than those with high
comprehension. Finally, we observed that users tended to choose similarly low
anonymization levels regardless of their comprehension level. Users with higher
comprehension of differential privacy selected higher levels of noise only slightly
more often than those with low comprehension, and the “Medium” noise level
remained the most common choice across user comprehension levels. Taken
together, these results suggest that interfaces which heavily rely on privacy metrics
appear to lend a sense of legitimacy and may provide users with a false sense of
security. Moreover, users who do not fully understand these metrics are most likely
to feel an inflated sense of security, even as they select less private settings. While
these findings are preliminary, they suggest that technical privacy measures should
be used with caution, as they have the potential to mislead users. These results
support the notion that user-centered, design-based approaches to privacy are critical
to complement technical, systems-oriented approaches.
5.1 Limitations
Our study was run with a relatively small number of participants, which limited our
ability to confirm hypotheses with statistical tests or perform more robust subgroup
analyses. Thus, our results should be considered exploratory and are intended to
inform larger-scale privacy experiments. We also evaluated a narrow space of
possible privacy interfaces: A larger-scale study with more fine-grained differences
between interfaces could further elucidate which interface design patterns drive
differences in privacy perceptions. Moreover, studies in which participants interact
with functional interfaces using their own personal data could increase ecological
validity. Finally, as indicated by our results on privacy metrics, further work is
needed to design privacy interfaces that not only encourage perceptions of comfort
and control but also lead users to make meaningful and informed privacy decisions
in real workplace scenarios.
6 Conclusion
In this work, we studied user perceptions of privacy interfaces in the context of

workplace well-being support. Our findings indicate that interface designs based on
privacy frameworks such as relationship-based access control and contextual integ-
rity increase user perceptions of comfort and control. Moreover, the perceptions vary
widely based on the owner of technology and the valence of relationships.
Concerningly, technical privacy metrics were both poorly understood and led to a
false sense of security for many participants. This work has implications for future
studies on privacy interfaces in the workplace. Our research indicates that interfaces
should not be evaluated in isolation of the deployment context, and solutions that
heavily rely on technical privacy metrics have the potential to mislead users.
Appendix
1. Framing Scenarios
1.1 Company-Oriented
You are an employee at a large tech company called SearchCo. The company has
recently started a pilot program to improve employees’ general well-being by
collecting data using work-issued devices like laptops and phones. To allow
employees to manage the privacy of this data, the company has created an interface
where employees can control what data the company is allowed to analyze.
1.2 Team-Oriented
You are an engineer on the News App team at a large tech company called SearchCo.
Your team (the News App team) has recently started a pilot program to improve team
members’ general well-being by collecting data using work-issued devices like
laptops and phones. To allow team members to manage the privacy of this data,
the News App team has created an interface where employees can control what data
the team is allowed to analyze.
1.3 Manager-Oriented (Positive)
You are an engineer on a small eight-person team, and you have a very positive,
strong relationship with your manager, Jamie. You’ve worked with Jamie for
2 years already, and you trust that they make great decisions for the team.
Jamie has recently started a pilot program to improve team members’ general
well-being by collecting data using work-issued devices like laptops and phones. To
allow team members to manage the privacy of this data, Jamie has created an
interface where employees can control what data can be analyzed.
1.4 Manager-Oriented (Negative)
You are an engineer on a small eight-person team, and you have a very negative,
strained relationship with your manager, Jamie. You’ve worked with Jamie for
2 years already, and you’ve witnessed them making questionable decisions for
the team.
1.5 Teammate-Oriented (Positive)
You are an engineer on a small eight-person team, and you have a very positive,
strong relationship with your manager and teammates. You’ve worked on your team
for 2 years already, and you trust that your manager and teammates all make great
decisions.
One of your teammates, Jamie, has recently started a pilot program to improve
team members’ general well-being by collecting data using work-issued devices like
laptops and phones. To allow team members to manage the privacy of this data,
Jamie has created an interface where employees can control what data can be
analyzed.
1.6 Teammate-Oriented (Negative)
You are an engineer on a small eight-person team, and although you have a very
positive, strong relationship with your manager and most teammates, you have a
very negative, strained relationship with one of your teammates, Jamie. You’ve
worked with this teammate for 2 years already, and you’ve witnessed them making
questionable decisions for the team.
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Assisting Learning and Insight in Design
Using Embodied Conversational Agents
Rebecca Currano and David Sirkin
Abstract Reflective practices correlate with both insight in engineering design

projects (Currano. 2015 Reflective Practice in Engineering Design) and learning in
engineering education (Chew et al. 2016 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
2016). Schön (Knowledge-Based Systems 5:3–14. 1992) observed that designers
engage in a reflective conversation with design materials as they sketch and proto-
type their ideas. However, students can struggle when learning domain knowledge
and design practices simultaneously. We hypothesized that (1) making the conver-
sation between student designers and their prototyping materials literal and explicit,
rather than metaphorical, can assist in reflection, and (2) the effect can be enhanced
by embodying a conversational agent within the prototype itself. We developed an
embodied conversational agent as a tool to elicit reflection and lead to greater insight
and learning, during a hands-on mechatronics prototyping and design activity. In
addition to guiding learners through a tutorial, the agent answers questions, offers
comments, and asks deep reasoning and generative design questions, which correlate
with convergent and divergent phases of the design process (Eris. DS 31: Proc. 14th
Intl. Conf. on Engineering Design (ICED). 2003). We compare learners’ gained
knowledge, performance, and reactions in conditions with or without a conversa-
tional agent, and using an embodied or non-embodied agent, to evaluate the impact
of (1) conversational communication, and (2) physical embodiment, on learning and
insight. In this chapter, we describe the background and rationale for our study,
details of the study design, and preliminary insights from our pilot data.
1 Context and Human Need
In The Reflective Practitioner, Donald Schön developed the concept of reflection-in-

action—a process of in-the-moment reevaluation and redirection of design
activity—in part through observation and interviews with student and practicing
R. Currano · D. Sirkin (✉)

Stanford University, Mechanical Engineering, Center for Design Research, Stanford, CA, USA
e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]
136 R. Currano and D. Sirkin
designers engaged in open-ended architectural design tasks (Schön, 1983). Over the
last decade of working with engineering design students, we have observed that
student learning and attention are often split between two contexts: (1) the domain
knowledge that underlies the design task and (2) the process of design itself. Being
students, these novice designers are neither formally trained in nor naturally skilled
at reflecting on their process in the midst of action. They learn how to reflect
productively through practice and a concerted effort.
Seeking help and consulting with design educators, practitioners, or domain
experts can support students’ domain and process knowledge, but not necessarily
their reflective practices. As a result, design students often lack direction regarding,
cognizance of, and experience with reflective practice and thus may struggle in
drawing broader insights during their design projects. In addition, the search for
these different types of knowledge entails interrupting the flow of design activity to
identify and contact the requisite expert(s), elicit information, and then synthesize
learnings and how to apply them. This switching between contexts can be a further
challenge to reflection, but it offers an opportunity to develop tools to elicit and
guide reflection on process and content that can be applied during design activity.
2 Prior Work and Background
In extending his work on reflection-in-action, Schön (1992) observed that designers

learn and gather information, identify patterns, construct meaning, and assess qual-
ities in a process of seeing-moving-seeing through reflective engagement with
various media, including sketches, prototypes, and components. He called this a
“conversation with the materials of a design situation,” highlighting the emergence
of unintended effects of moves (e.g., changes, additions, reconfigurations), which
result in the evolution of both the design itself and the designer’s intentions.
2.1 Design Is a Socio-Technical Process
While Schon’s and other works have recognized the integral role visual thinking
plays in design (McKim, 1972), more recent work also shows the importance of
verbal, spoken conversation in helping designers distill insights from and about their
design tasks (Currano & Steinert, 2012). Sonalkar et al. (2016) developed a tool (the
Interaction Dynamics Notation tool, or IDN) to help identify patterns of team
interaction—which were primarily conversational—and showed that these interac-
tions correlate with creativity measures in concept generation design outcomes. This
makes sense, given the socio-technical nature of the design process (Cross & Cross,
1995), and particularly for teams actively communicating with each other and
interacting with shared prototypes.
Assisting Learning and Insight in Design Using Embodied Conversational Agents 137
Cross’ seminal research on the intersection of the social process of design with
the technical and cognitive processes was based heavily on observation and analysis
of the team conversations during their design activity.
2.2 Question-Asking in Design
Also focusing on design processes, Dym et al. (2005) characterized design, in part,
by the focus on asking and answering questions. In particular, Eris (2003) identified
specific types of questioning behavior that designers engage in—deep reasoning
questions (DRQs) and generative design questions (GDQs)—and found that these
correlate, respectively, to convergent and divergent phases of design.
Choi et al. (2005) observed that student designers found it difficult to generate
quality questions. However, using a text-based scaffolding tool to support peer-
questions, they found that simple adaptive questioning prompted reflection, facili-
tating metacognition, and enhancing learning during online discussions.
Schön’s seeing-moving-seeing process suggests that design learning happens
through a reflective hands-on engagement with design materials and that the mate-
rials used by designers in their work serve two purposes: (1) as components of the
prototyping and sketching process and (2) as media for a reflective learning process.
Additionally, the research in question-asking and the social process of design
together indicate benefit in not only asking questions but doing so within the context
of spoken conversation.
We therefore believe that more integrally combining the two roles of design
materials by literally endowing the materials with the capabilities of conversing
about the design process and progress, and adaptively asking convergent and
divergent questions, will enhance design and learning processes, especially for
novice designers.
2.3 Physically Embodying Materials
The concept of embodying materials and endowing them with the ability to verbally
engage designers has been explored in recent studies. In the context of an electronics
prototyping activity, Jung et al. (2014) tested whether an agent that was embedded in
or external to the physical material affected students’ perceptions and learning
outcomes while also varying the agent’s expressions of social interest toward the
participant and activity. They found that an embedded agent lowered perceptions of
task stress, and an interested agent was more likable and socially present. The
influence of either condition on learning outcomes was mixed but suggested rele-
vance to students’ prototyping confidence and performance.
Using a similar prototyping activity, Martelaro et al. (2016) tested how varying
the agent’s expressivity and vulnerability influenced students’ perceptions of trust,
disclosure, and companionship. They found that increased vulnerability led to higher
ratings of trust and companionship, and increased expressiveness produced higher
ratings of disclosure, with trust mediating vulnerability and companionship.
These studies directly inform our guiding questions, research context, and imple-
mentation. While their hypotheses focus on affective expressions of emotion and
attention, and their measures emphasize social relations, our approach addresses a
gap in understanding around the role of (a) interactive questioning conversation in an
agent-based learning context and (b) a teaching agent’s physical embodiment, in
supporting learners’ abilities to reflect and build insight during a design task.
3 Research Approach
3.1 Research Questions
Bringing these three themes together—the role of reflection, spoken conversation,

and divergent and convergent questioning—inspired us to study design learning in
the more interactive and physical contexts of teaching mechatronics. Our guiding
research questions are therefore as follows:
1. Can conversational agents help novice designers reflect, develop insight, and
improve learning by making their conversation with design materials more literal
and explicit?
2. Furthermore, given the physicality of working with materials and prototyping,
can embodying these conversational agents support and enhance reflection,
insights, and learning for engineering design tasks?
3.2 Hypotheses
The aim of this work is to thoughtfully integrate conversation and question-asking

into the prototyping process for novice designers to enhance their learning and
design outcomes. Given the social nature of design and the implicit conversations
embodied in seeing-moving-seeing that lead to the emergence of new insights in the
reflective process, we hypothesize that.
1. Making the conversational layer explicit (via an agent that asks the learner
questions and answers learners’ questions) will spark deeper/broader seeing and
encourage more diverse moving.
2. The physicality afforded by embodying the conversational agent within the
prototype being designed (e.g., as a robot) will assist novice designers’ reflective
process and reduce shifts in attention.
3.3 Research Setting
We have developed a conversational agent, embodied as a robot, that responds to the

moves that learners make and asks questions that elicit and guide reflection within
their process, thereby helping them to learn from and discover new insights and
evolve their designs. Mechatronics prototyping is an opportune context to study the
use of conversational agents in the design process. It provides a natural setting to
integrate an embodied conversational agent into the prototyping materials and to test
its effects on insight and learning. For example, Martelaro et al. (2016) examined
human-robot conversation within a mechatronics tutorial, although they focused on
the social aspects of trust, disclosure, and companionship rather than learning and
insight.
An introductory mechatronics tutorial that we developed and have taught over the
last several years at the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
(Sirkin & Ju, 2014) serves as our starting point (see Fig. 1).
3.4 Study Design
In an experiment employing this conversational agent (implemented using a human-

in-the-loop protocol), participants follow an abbreviated version of the conference
tutorial to build a small paper robot and learn basic mechatronics. The study is split
into four sections: a pre-activity survey to evaluate participants’ knowledge of and
comfort with electronics prototyping, the learning tutorial, a sketched design task,
and a post-activity survey to evaluate student learnings and perceptions of the agent.
The entire study takes about 1 hour.
The study has a 2 (conversational vs. non-conversational) x
2 (embodied vs. non-embodied) design, each corresponding to one of our two
hypotheses. In the conversational condition, the agent speaks in an engaging and
interactive style and asks questions, while in the non-conversational condition, it
communicates the same background and instructions but speaks in a noninteractive
style without asking questions. In the embodied condition, the agent refers to itself,
Fig. 1 Paper robot project from our conference course in electronics prototyping using Arduino
and its voice projects from the paper robot, while in the non-embodied condition, it
refers to the robot as a separate entity and its voice comes from the laptop that
participants use to program the robot.
3.4.1 Conversational Vs. Non-conversational
During the tutorial, both conversational and non-conversational agents offer guid-
ance on how to assemble the robot. They provide information such as component
names and uses (e.g., “A potentiometer is a variable resistor. When you turn the
knob, the resistance changes between the middle pin and the outer pins.”), and they
also offer suggestions about how to correctly connect components together (e.g.,
“You will need to add a resistor first, to limit the current in my/the LED to a safe
value. Otherwise, it might burn out.”).
The conversational agent uses a slightly less formal speaking style appropriate to
spoken conversation, while the nonconventional agent uses a style appropriate to
written instructions. In addition, the conversational agent interjects DRQs (e.g., “A
photocell is an ambient light sensor. What do you think makes its resistance
change?”) and GDQs (e.g., “Can you tell me a few different things you could use
a servo to do?”) to inspire convergent and divergent oriented reflection.
In both conditions, participants can ask the agent questions and receive answers
about components or instructions or ask for statements to be repeated, to ensure that
they have adequate access to the information presented. However, in the conversa-
tional condition, the agent tells participants “You can ask me questions at any time.”,
whereas in the non-conversational condition, it instructs them to direct their ques-
tions to the study administrator.
3.4.2 Embodied Vs. Non-embodied
During the tutorial, both embodied and non-embodied agents provide the same
information but in a different manner. The embodied agent speaks in a self-
referential style (e.g., “Hello, my name is Robbie. I’m a robot and today you are
going to build me.” and “You can plug my potentiometer into the blue sockets of my
breadboard.”), in contrast to the non-embodied agent, which refers to the robot as a
separate entity (e.g., “Today you will be building a small paper robot.” and “Look for
the 10K Ohm resistor on the robot’s breadboard.”). In both cases, the agent speaks
with the same synthetic male voice, raised in pitch and slowed in rate 15% from its
default setting, to better suggest it as being a rough prototype—more youthful and
less authoritative.
At the same time, the embodied agent’s voice emanates from a small Bluetooth
speaker mounted to the same physical platform as the robot’s other components (see
Fig. 2), while the non-embodied agent’s voice originates from the speakers of the
laptop computer that participants use to edit Arduino sketches and upload them to
the robot.
Fig. 2 Paper robot project from the current study, showing the mechatronics platform in three
states: (left) as participants first encounter it, (center) assembled to complete its functionality, and
(right) with components moved off-board and ready to be inserted into the cardboard box in Fig. 1
3.4.3 Designing a New Robot
After participants complete the tutorial, they complete a task to design one or more
different robots using the same types of components, thinking about what they
would want their robot to do and how it might do those things. Participants are
encouraged to think about components at different scales, to incorporate as many
components as they like, and to create additional robot designs if they want. They are
also asked to make sketches and notes as they work out their ideas. To encourage
novelty, our instructions state that we will evaluate all participants’ designs and rank
them based on creativity, but we will not evaluate their drawing skills, just how they
reimagine or reapply the tools they learned in the tutorial. The design task is timed
and takes 15 minutes.
3.5 Data, Measures, and Analysis
Data are collected from three sources: (1) physical actions and conversation by
participants, (2) sketches from the robot design task, and (3) pre- and post-activity
questionnaire and post-activity interview responses. Measures include the depth and
breadth of design ideation, instances of reflective practice (manifest as physical or
verbal conversations with materials), locus of attention, and learning, across study
conditions.
3.5.1 Physical Actions and Conversation
During the tutorial and robot redesign task, we video-record participants’ physical
actions and spoken interactions with the agent for coding and analysis (Heyman
et al., 2014) to identify behavioral patterns and understand levels of engagement
across conversational and embodiment conditions. For coding, two to three
researchers codevelop an evaluation framework based on a subset of the data, using

Cohen’s kappa (Lombard et al., 2002) to check inter-rater reliability, and then they
apply it to the remaining participant interactions. An initial analysis of pilot partic-
ipant data will focus on two alternatives as proxies for reflection and learning: 1)
actions such as asking follow-up questions and manipulating materials while ideat-
ing or answering questions and 2) performance measures such as task completion
time or number of mistakes.
3.5.2 Robot Designs
We also analyze the notes, descriptions, and sketches resulting from the robot design
task, focusing on (1) flexibility, through changes made to the robot’s form, functions,
context of use, or the means through which these new functions are accomplished,
and (2) fluency, through participants’ ability to apply this knowledge to create a
breath of distinct designs.
3.5.3 Questionnaire
We query participants through pre- and post-task surveys and a brief interview, first
about their prior domain knowledge and design process experience and then about
their design intentions, learnings, insights, and reflections. Questions include novel
and standardized measures, such as hedonic and pragmatic user experience scales
(UEQ-S) (Schrepp et al., 2017). Questionnaire data will be fit using generalized
linear or mixed effects models, which offer flexibility in data form and conditions
and support random effects for participants and conditions, potentially lowering the
chance of type 1 error (Boisgontier & Cheval, 2016). We also include questions to
confirm whether participants recognize and respond to the manipulations within their
study condition, including direct questions and measures of social presence such as
copresence, involvement, and engagement (Biocca et al., 2003).
4 Preliminary Findings
4.1 Revisions Made while Piloting
4.1.1 Clarifying Conditions
In pilot testing, we found that having the agent ask intermittent check-in questions
between tasks in the instructions such as “Are you following along so far?” encour-
aged participants to remain engaged in the conversation and speak up at other times.
We also added small interjections like “Ok, great!” and “Good work!” to acknowl-
edge participants’ statements and answers and comply with basic principles of
politeness in conversational interaction. These additions help separate conversa-

tional and non-conversational conditions.
Also, to be sure participants correctly perceive the embodied and non-embodied
conditions, we added three checks. These were (1) a manipulation check
asking participants where the agent’s voice seemed to come from
(robot vs. computer vs. somewhere else), (2) verification of how extensively they
talked with the agent (not at all, somewhat, a lot), and (3) identification of the entity
with whom it felt like they were speaking (the robot they were building, the
computer, or something else).
4.1.2 Clarifying Instructions
During the tutorial task, participants were confused by the presence of lettering and
numbering on both the sockets of the breadboard and the pins of the Arduino.
Updating the early portion of the tutorial to note these distinctions resolved their
uncertainty. Participants also missed hearing or sometimes forgot component names.
Labeling the components in addition to describing them helped participants identify
them more easily. Finally, participants often got distracted when finding, examining,
and assembling components. By better separating and reordering operations, they
could more easily keep focused on one task at a time.
4.2 Observations of Reflective Behavior
In the conversational conditions, we encourage reflection by asking questions about

components just after participants pick them up or plug them in. Similarly we ask
questions about programming component behavior just after they look at the
Arduino code. In the non-conversational conditions, we encourage reflection by
telling participants to notice or observe what happens after they manipulate compo-
nents or upload the Arduino code.
Pilot data in the conversational embodied condition demonstrates that when
participants are asked what alternative things a servo might be used for, they often
hold the components up and test how they work, squeezing the force-sensing resistor
and watching the servo rotate a few times, which then provides inspiration for their
answers. Likewise, when they are asked how else they might modify the ambient
light coming from a photocell, they often wave their hands over the sensor and
observe its effect. These examples show that asking questions during the tutorial can
help promote learners engaging in reflective conversations with the materials of a
design situation and that we can observe the process of seeing-moving-seeing within
these conversations.
We also have preliminary evidence that speaking reflections out loud, rather than
reflecting silently, can help learners think about components and connections and
think through their answers to questions, more effectively. We observed some
instances of participants reflecting aloud about various instructions, wondering for

example, how they can know whether the Arduino (or some other source) is
powering the LEDs or if it would be safe to plug in a second LED without adding
a second resistor. Likewise, arm and hand gestures may help support the ideation
process, as we observed participants gesticulating as they thought (and spoke)
through their answers to GDQs, which sometimes inspired additional ideas.
4.3 Observations of Robot Redesign
Participants took very different approaches to creating and describing their designs.
One sketched several robots, with minimal text, keeping the tutorial robot’s form but
changing which components were used for the eyes, nose, and arms and adding other
features such as a mouth or ears (see Fig. 3). Another used almost exclusively text,
focusing on a single component in each design, stating a task that a robot would use
it to do (e.g., kick a ball or erase a whiteboard) without describing other aspects of
the robot (see Fig. 4). Others took a more needs-oriented approach and used a
combination of sketches and accompanying text to describe how a new device
might use one or two components to solve an everyday problem (e.g., call a waiter
in a restaurant or keep a laptop from going to sleep) (see Fig. 5).
Fig. 3 One pilot participant’s robot redesign sketches focused on alternative configurations,
keeping the overall design but changing or adding components and features
Fig. 4 One pilot participant’s robot redesign designs were primarily text-based, with each focusing
on one function the robot could perform
Fig. 5 One pilot participant’s robot redesign sketches combined text and images, with each
focusing on solving a human need in a different context
The most creative of the designs were the ones that focused on needs. These
explored how components might be used in a new way, and a specific setting, to
solve a real-life problem participants had experienced.
4.4 Questionnaire Responses
Pre- and post-activity questionnaires and interviews included several notable

responses. Referencing her experience building the robot after the tutorial, one
participant said that she “didn’t know what was happening until I closed the lid”
of the cardboard box. Another said her favorite part of the activity was “just seeing
the robot at the very end.” Participants knew they were building a robot, given the
tutorial’s multiple references to “the robot.” However, these comments suggest that
as they were working through the tutorial, participants did not have a sense of the
robot’s final state or that it would be noticeably different from the assembled
components. This raises the question of whether to display an image or physical
copy of the completed robot when participants begin the activity. In the end, we
decided against this, as doing so would have (a) focused participants on reaching an
end goal rather than participating in a learning process and (b) diminished their sense
of discovery upon completing the tutorial. This also raises the question of how
reflecting on steps of the tutorial or functions of the components differs from
reflecting on the overall experience and whether embodiment or asking questions
can prompt the latter during different stages of system integration. To avoid
interrupting the learning process, we decided against asking participants to reflect
on the overall experience during the tutorial.
Regarding the difficulty of the tutorial, participants noted that it was “easier than I
imagined,” “wasn’t as hard as I imagined,” and “very clear for the most part, for
someone without any experience.” They also agreed that they had learned from the
two activities, describing their learnings as “how to put together a robot, also what
some components are, and how Arduinos work.”
When asked what was most challenging about the redesign task, participants
focused on ideation, including “I wasn’t sure I would have any ideas,” “just figuring
out my ideas,” and to “trying to think about something to make,” suggesting that
they may yet lack confidence in their new knowledge. But even so, all participants
were able to produce multiple redesign ideas.
Participants also completed Likert-style questions rating the pace, length, and
difficulty of the tutorial. Pace and length ratings fell at around 4, generally
corresponding to the written comments and indicating that each was appropriate.
Difficulty ratings ranged from 1 to 3, which is the lower end of the scale, but we
consider this appropriate as the tutorial is designed to make electronics accessible to
inexperienced learners, and being slightly easy is preferable to being slightly diffi-
cult. Responses also may not perfectly match experiences, as we observed partici-
pants experiencing challenges, such as remembering component names, discerning
which sockets to plug components into, and responding to “how else might you. . .”
questions.
Altogether, the responses and ratings suggest that the study is well matched to our
participant population and timeframe without being trivial and that it prompts
learning.
5 Moving Forward
Building on the discussion of Data, Measures, and Analysis above, the corpus of
study data will comprise the following:
• Behavioral coding of participants’ physical actions and conversations, which will

now focus on confirming reflective behaviors observed during pilot testing, such
as lifting, holding, and testing components when asked DRQs.
• Sketches of robot designs, which we will evaluate using measures such as idea
fluency (depth), flexibility (breadth), detail and completeness, focus of the robot’s
task (such as solving users’ needs vs. featuring robots’ functions or form), and use
of the provided components in different ways.
• Analysis of questionnaire and interview responses, including a comparison of
pre- and post-activity responses to measure self-assessment of learning.
The pilot’s outcomes thus far inform experiment design for future studies of
agents in support of ideation and learning, as well as technology-supported educa-
tion. We expect the full study’s results to be relevant to the human-computer (HCI)
and human-robot (HRI) interaction research communities.
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How to Tame an Unpredictable Emergence?
Design Strategies for a Live-Programming
System
Marcel Taeumel, Patrick Rein, Jens Lincke, and Robert Hirschfeld
Abstract Programming environments that provide a feeling of liveness help pro-

fessionals and amateurs alike to approach unfamiliar domains with ease through
short feedback loops. Exploration and experimentation are promoted because any
change to the program under construction can be observed immediately. However,
live-programming systems such as Squeak/Smalltalk struggle with the predictable
emergence of adapted program behavior as object communication can be
unconstrained and diverse. While programmers wish for immediate effects, it
would be helpful to at least know whether anything will happen after some time.
In this chapter, we take a closer look at the means available in Squeak to explore and
adjust object state and object behavior so that programmers can ensure the system’s
responsiveness and hence observe gradual or even induce eventual emergence. We
argue that these design strategies are sufficient to architect communication patterns
that reward changes with immediate effects. We believe that our work can help
programmers to better understand their leverage toward a predictable emergence in
systems whose liveness stems from objects and messaging in a space where tools
and applications live side by side.
1 Introduction
Programming feels empowering. We express our creative thought through digital

media to experience and learn from new perspectives on our favorite domains.
Artistic crafts, scientific simulations, and engineering works: People can leverage
the human intellect through computers. There are programming concepts, languages,
and systems that can match—or challenge—our cognitive abilities. It can be intrigu-
ing (and fun) to explore a system’s responses to our (creative) questions. But isn’t
M. Taeumel (✉) · P. Rein · J. Lincke · R. Hirschfeld

Hasso Platter Institute, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany
e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected];
[email protected]; [email protected]
150 M. Taeumel et al.
Fig. 1 The exploratory feedback loop: Programmers translate their goal-oriented intents into
actions that let the tool-driven system adapt the execution to then yield (observable) effects,
which are to be interpreted and evaluated when planning for the next steps. A feeling of liveness
occurs when the loop’s frequency is high; direct manipulation (Hutchins et al., 1985) helps;
continual responsiveness (Shneiderman & Plaisant, 2010) is crucial. However, a timely emergence
can be challenging to achieve (Rein et al., 2016)
programming hard to master? Maybe. Fortunately, the idea of liveness in a program-

ming system makes programming more accessible—and exploration more efficient.
Exploratory programming is expedient for professionals and amateurs alike.
Iteratively, any problem domain unfolds through experimentation; trial-and-error
is encouraged for the sake of learning (Sheil, 1998; Trenouth, 1991). That is, expert
programmers are typically most curious toward unfamiliar challenges (Gabriel,
2014), initially walking in the darkness like beginners, fumbling for light. Along
the way, exploring the problem and solution space entails multiple conversations
(Taeumel et al., 2022) with the programming system (and environment) at hand.
Questions and responses. Input and output. Mouse clicks and animated graphics.
Immediacy (Ungar et al., 1997) plays an important role in this feedback loop
(Hutchins et al., 1985). If the system can answer in a timely fashion, programmers
can safely follow their train of thought. Therefore, a feeling of liveness can boost the
efficiency of exploratory practices (Taeumel et al., 2022; Taeumel et al., 2021).
We consider a programming experience as live when the system takes only a few
milliseconds to adapt its behavior and respond in a meaningful way. See Fig. 1 for
such an idealized feedback loop. In our setting, the act of live programming means
continuously modifying a running system so that its observable effects immediately
yield added value. Unlike other programming flavors, we focus on systems that
allow for updating executable software artifacts in situ while avoiding restarts and
loss of volatile information. Programmers still have to come up with an actionable
plan, but the programming system at hand will not disrupt their train of thought with
unexpected pauses or unclear effects. Instead, all the tools and methods in the system
will be like an unobtrusive extension of the mind.
The programming system of our choice is made of objects that communicate via
messages (Taeumel & Hirschfeld, 2016). This communication yields observable
effects forming all kinds of object-oriented applications such as productivity tools,
multimedia games, and educational simulations. Most notably, programmer tools
and user applications share a single object space, which can expedite exploration
(and experimentation) through short feedback loops. That is, tools allow for atomic
How to Tame an Unpredictable Emergence? Design Strategies for. . . 151
updates of object identity, state, or behavior; the system will adapt immediately.
Unfortunately, programmers might not notice (and understand) effects immediately
as objects communicate concurrently and not always in an observable way. The
objects in question might not even participate in any conversation at the moment and
maybe they never will. Fortunately, our programming system—Squeak/
Smalltalk1—provides several means to cope with such unpredictable emergence.
What does “emergence” mean in other domains? How can this concept help us
understand the challenge of achieving liveness in programming (systems)? We
ground our explanations on the following definitions:
In philosophy, systems theory, science, and art, emergence occurs when an entity is
observed to have properties its parts do not have on their own, properties or behaviors that
emerge only when the parts interact in a wider whole. [. . .]
—Wikipedia on “emergence” (2022-11-10)
Emergence: the act or an instance of emerging. Emerging: newly formed or prominent.
—Merriam-Webster on “emergence” (2022-11-10)
The next phase comprises the emergence of an observable change in the behavior of the
application from the adapted executable form. An observable change can be for example a
changed textual output on the console, a different color of a graphical element, or a changed
way of moving of a graphical element. [. . .]
—Rein et al. on “emergence” (Rein et al., 2016)
As illustrated in Fig. 1, we define “emergence” as the time between after a system’s

adapted execution and before a programmer comes up with the next idea on how to
continue exploration. That is, we see liveness as primarily user-centered because
observation, interpretation, and evaluation (of effects) all lead toward a better
understanding. The system keeps on doing what it is currently programmed to do;
the user (or programmer) sits nearby and perceives (visual or audible) output. A
timely emergence can then lead to a feeling of liveness,2 which makes exploration of
problem and solution space more efficient.
Now, emergence becomes unpredictable not because a certain effect is supposed
to show but because something different happens. Instead, any effect is supposed to
happen and be seen immediately, or at least after some time (Tanimoto, 2013). That
is the challenge: The Squeak/Smalltalk system (Fig. 2) cannot guarantee a timely
emergence because the objects of interest might not currently contribute to (observ-
able) system behavior. The emergence is unpredictable in the general sense. Yet,
there are predictable, domain-specific live-coding systems such as for audio or visual
performance art (Rein et al., 2018), which leads us to our research question:
1
The Squeak/Smalltalk programming system, https://squeak.org
2
Note that a feeling of liveness needs more than a timely emergence. A direct-manipulation
interface (Hutchins et al., 1985) helps users to directly map their intents to actions (e.g., tangible
object commands) as well as quickly figure out the meaning of what they can see (e.g., visual object
representations)0.2. Note that a feeling of liveness needs more than a timely emergence. A direct-
manipulation interface (Hutchins et al., 1985) helps users to directly map their intents to actions
(e.g., tangible object commands) as well as quickly figure out the meaning of what they can see
(e.g., visual object representations).
Fig. 2 The Squeak/Smalltalk programming system: tools and applications are made of objects,
which communicate via messages to yield the desired behavior. Here, stars (★) denote such objects
by example. Especially code objects have no visual representation other than (structured) text
How can we tame an unpredictable emergence in a general-purpose, object-

oriented programming system to provide a feeling of liveness?
For simplicity, we assume that all other aspects of the feedback loop (Fig. 1) are
already optimized: (1) object-based design plan (Meyer, 1998), (2) direct mapping of
intent to action (Hutchins et al., 1985; Maloney, 2002), and (3) very fast adaptation
(Rein et al., 2016). What remains is the challenge after the system has adapted its
execution: the unpredictable emergence.
Continual responsiveness3 is crucial for uncovering gradual emergence in sys-
tems that struggle with predictability (and immediacy) for generic, unoptimized
cases. That is, programmers can only use exploration tools within the system if
one group of objects does not prohibit the communication in other important groups
of objects. For example, mouse clicks should work or event timers fire even if a
costly algorithm consumes precious computing time. Remember that objects repre-
sent tools and applications, and programmers use tools to inspect or modify these
objects. Such means for exploratory programming allow for mitigating
unpredictable emergence by manually “poking around” the objects that should be
affected, maybe giving them an explicit “push” to see what happens. However, the
tools will not work if the system becomes unresponsive. This goal of continual
object communication leads us to our second research question:
3
Desirable response times depend on the particular use cases (Shneiderman & Plaisant, 2010,
p. 445). Typing and cursor movement lies somewhere between 50 and 150 milliseconds. Simple
frequent tasks such as button clicks should be no longer than 1 s until something happens. If it takes
too long, users cannot make the connection between their action and the system’s response. They
might lose track of cause and effect.
How can we design object communication to keep the system responsive to

uncover gradual emergence or induce eventual emergence?
Note that our programming system offers general-purpose tools to create domain-
specific applications. If it can remain responsive during divergent experiments,
insights can converge into specific forms that offer immediate emergence during
onward modification (or use). We are interested in laying out this design space,
which enables a transition from gradual (or eventual) to immediate feedback. Pro-
grammers can then deliberately benefit from actual4liveness at some point when
working on their project.
There is one more building block in Squeak to better fathom the potential of
continual object communication: processes. Each process represents a communica-
tion thread where a chain of messages is to be resolved; objects in that chain are
waiting for a response; the one object at the end might just provide a response; or it
needs to talk to another object first to do so. In programming terms, each process has
a stack of activated methods, which grows and shrinks all the time. There are many
processes in the system, but only a single one can run at a time.5 To ensure fairness,
scheduling depends on processes to give up computing time in a cooperative fashion.
Then, the next process in line will get its turn; the current one goes back to the end.
Additionally, each process has a priority and means to suspend its execution until a
certain event (or semaphore) gets signaled. Processes with higher priority will
always interrupt the ones with lower priority. Consequently, the system’s respon-
siveness will be impaired if the processes responsible for user input and graphics
output do not get their fair share of computing time.
In this chapter, we document design strategies that already exist in the Squeak/
Smalltalk system or are provided by selected research extending that system. We try
to generalize our findings toward continual object communication so that other
object-based systems might benefit from these ideas to improve their liveness as
well. However, we are aware that our thoughts are biased—or too idealized—which
could easily lead us omitting challenges (or hard constraints) specific to other
ecosystems. Nevertheless, we examine the following strategies:
4
To this day, the most promising systems for live programming offer level-4 liveness (Tanimoto,
2013). These systems are “informative, significant, responsive, and live.” Program descriptions are
human-readable and human-executable; modifying these descriptions changes system execution
automatically without any noticeable delay. Systems with level 5 or 6 would be tactically and/or
strategically predictive, but we do not know how such cleverness could be implemented. Squeak/
Smalltalk provides level-4 liveness without immediate emergence (Rein et al., 2016), which,
however, programmers can deliberately induce in their projects.
5
Note that such green threading makes the virtual machine more robust because programmers
cannot corrupt the object memory inadvertently. In an informal way, they can explore and
experiment unless their experiments botch the processes (or means) responsible for continual
responsiveness.
Section2 Programmers can write down and evaluate snippets of source code in
almost any text field to explore the objects at hand.
Section3 An extensible hierarchy of exceptions helps programmers understand and
fix erroneous object communication.
Section4 Code simulation enables a step-by-step observation of objects exchanging
messages; time stands still to be explored and continued on demand.
Section5 Users can hit a special key combination to interrupt an apparently
unresponsive system to then explore it step by step.
Section6 A graceful retreat from one interactive—yet unresponsive—framework to
another, still responsive, one allows users to fix one “kind of liveness” with the
help of another one.
Section7 Watchdog processes can perform all kinds of process-monitoring tasks
such as progress supervision, preemptive scheduling, and recursion detection.
Finally, in Sect.8, we conclude our thoughts on how to tame the unpredictable
emergence in the Squeak/Smalltalk live-programming system.
2 Exploratory Workspace Everywhere
Programmers can type and evaluate code in any text field. The most prominent tool,
which is just a text field plus window decorations, is the workspace. We documented
several patterns around this conversational style with the system (Taeumel et al.,
2022). Yet, considering liveness and emergence, we focus on the basic mechanism
that allows for talking to objects explicitly. Programmers might want to understand
why a group of objects is or is not exhibiting a changed behavior. That is, they might
want to observe gradual or induce eventual emergence.
Text (and source code) is a convenient and direct way of expressing one’s
thoughts. Users can type and easily revise their textual expressions; following an
executable language helps the system understand the user. In Smalltalk, the syntax is
straightforward almost like natural language:
anObject whatIsYourName.
anObject doSomething.
anObject do: #homework within: 60 minutes.
Here, we talk to anObject through three different messages. The first one,
whatIsYourName, might only answer some text that helps us recognize a specific
instance behind this rather generic “an object” label. Maybe it actually calls itself “a
chess game.” This would greatly improve our understanding and how to further
interact with it. The second one, doSomething, might modify something in the
system, as maybe the object is “exhausted” afterward, meaning its own state has
changed as well. The third one, do:within:, appends arguments, which are
objects themselves. The first argument, #homework, is called (literal) symbol and
hopefully means something to the receiving object. The second argument, 60 min, is
actually an example of another—albeit tiny—conversation: We ask the 60 to
convert itself into a duration of 60 min. Both arguments hopefully mean something
to the receiving object. All in all, programmers use this form of textual and direct
communication for exploration in all kinds of programming tools.
Names are the tangible things programmers need to acquire before they can talk
to objects. In technical terms, these names are bindings in a workspace. There is
always the name “self” bound to an object in tools that allow for looking into that
object itself. From the outside, programmers can come up and use any name that
feels memorable and fitting:
| game pawn |
game := ChessMorph new.
pawn := game newPiece: 1 white: true.
Here, we declare, define, and use the names game and pawn for objects that
represent a chess game. If we inspect the game to open a workspace (or inspector)
that allows for looking into the game, we could then choose a more “intimate” way
of talking to that object:
| pawn |
pawn := self newPiece: 1 white: true.
There can be all kinds of programming tools that bind the name self to any
object of interest. Programmers must learn a tool’s scope, which is usually indicated
through visual cues. Multiple tool windows can each represent a scope (and
namespace) of their own. Such a multi-tool usage supports programmers in follow-
ing multiple ideas (or hunches) side by side, which reduces cognitive load and thus
expedites exploration. Still, finding a good name can be quite a challenge.
If you do not know anything specific about an object, there are messages that all
understand:
• Tell me your kind (or class).
• Describe yourself in brief text.
• Show me who is referring to you.
• Show me who you refer to.
There are objects that have a visual representation that might be better suited than
(abstract) text. In recent Squeak, most graphical objects are morphs (Maloney,2002),
which can be rendered per request to collect visual snapshots for pixel-wise exam-
ination. Note that the act of message passing can be observed (i.e., via “debug it”) if a
response is not satisfactory (i.e., via “print it” or “inspect it”).
Through these simple means of direct communication, programmers can explore
all objects in the system. Such an exploration might start with a visual handle or
binding in a tool. Then, a simple “Tell me your kind” will reveal the object’s class. A
class can be used to browse the object’s vocabulary. The correct vocabulary helps
form appropriate messages. Message arguments can still be challenging to find.
However, object communication is often diverse and deep, and so is the exploratory
journey toward improving the system’s feeling of liveness.
3 Exceptions: Error, Notification, Halt
Exceptions bypass normal object communication to implement out-of-the-ordinary

behavior. When an exception gets signaled, it takes a shortcut along the active chain
of messages in a process. That is, the exception ignores the objects waiting for their
responses and instead looks for an exception handler to talk to. That handler can then
try to resolve the issue, abort the communication, or let the user intervene. Both
exception and handler are objects themselves, which means that other objects must
request their assistance in the first place. Whenever a problematic conversation
might occur, one object requests a handler to watch out. Whenever a problem in a
conversation does occur, another object requests an exception to go find the next
handler. This mechanism, which is complementary to normal messaging, can help
ensure responsiveness in the system.
The following example illustrates an ordinary payment process in a supermarket
where a customer realizes that there is not enough cash left in the wallet:
OutOfCashException class >> signal

Customer >> lookIntoWallet |
Customer >> doPayment |
Cashier >> showReceipt |
Cashier >> askForPayment v
OutOfCashExceptionHandler >> watch
Cashier >> treatCustomer
...
Whatever the full chain of messages may be at this moment—maybe the cus-
tomer’s task is to buy milk and put it into the fridge at home—the top messages are
the important ones. The cashier is prepared for this situation because it has happened
before. Maybe the shopping cart can be parked until the customer returns with more
cash later. The situation can be handled. The customer signals this exception as soon
as the empty wallet is noticed. As a result, all communication down to
askForPayment will be canceled. If the customer cannot otherwise proceed in
this situation, the entire shopping process might need to be canceled. But what to put
into the granola if not milk? In technical terms, objects can be in all kinds of
unforeseen, troublesome situations, which then endanger the system’s
responsiveness.
There are three kinds of exceptions: errors, notifications, and halts. First, errors
indicate that something unexpected has happened and that normal messaging can-
not continue. An exception handler has to clean up if necessary; errors are usually
not resumable. For example, ZeroDivision means that at some point the math
has failed. While programmers can override and pretend that some other result is
meaningful, this might lead to even more errors along the way. Again, exploration
and experimentation is encouraged, yet risky when facing errors. Second, notifica-
tions (or warnings) indicate that something less serious has happened and can be
ignored. An exception handler is not necessary but may be beneficial to better
understand the cause of unexpected behavior. Notifications can be resumed. For
example, UnknownSelector triggers an interactive dialog where the user can
choose from known messages (or selectors) to let the source code compile. Third,
halts are an exploratory tool that lets the communication stop at a well-defined point
so that users can investigate the circumstances of unexpected system behavior.
When Halt is signaled, the process will stop, an interactive debugger will open,
and programmers can freely explore the state of affected objects. While time stands
still for that process, programmers can communicate to the objects of interest and
even cause changes.
A crucial instrument for reliable object communication (and a responsive system)
is the error MessageNotUnderstood. In combination with an object’s response
to the message doesNotUnderstand:, programmers can interactively explore
and repair erroneous processes. If the receiver is wrong, they can try to figure out
which object should actually receive that message. If the message is wrong, they can
change it to something more appropriate. However, if both receiver and message are
basically correct, the programmer can choose to only implement the behavior
and thus extend the object. The process will then resume, and the system hopefully
exhibit the desired behavior. That is, MessageNotUnderstood and
doesNotUnderstand: will promote short feedback loops. Programmers can
thus experiment and send what they think is correct to the objects at hand.
There is a system-wide safety net in the form default exception handlers. That is,
normal object communication does not have to use handlers at all, which can be
tricky to foresee in most cases. The default effect of errors or warnings that are not
handled is to signal an UnhandledError or UnhandledWarning exception.
Now, the situation is codified as objects (or errors) again. If those special exceptions
are not handled, they will simply stop the process and open a debugger. Then,
programmers must intervene to fix the issue if possible and necessary. This safety
net allows experiments such as evaluating 7/0 without being punished too seri-
ously. Exploration is encouraged; short feedback loops can be established; an
eventual emergence (of observable behavior) can be induced.
4 Stop and Step: Code Simulation
Message sends are very fast6 thanks to the OpenSmalltalk VM7 (Miranda et al.,
2018), which a promising baseline for message-based liveness and a responsive
system. So, there is plenty of room for extra checks and safety nets that support
6
On a Microsoft Surface Pro 6 with an Intel Core i7-8650U on Windows 10 21H2 in Squeak 6.0,
the VM can process about 190,000,000 sends per second.
7
The OpenSmalltalk VM, https://opensmalltalk.org/
carefree experimentation. As mentioned above, unhandled errors will suspend the

process they were signaled in.
A debugger window will appear, representing a tangible handle for that
suspended process. Programmers can then explore the process’ active methods8
and continue message passing step by step. They might even be able to go back in
time, which is not a feature of vanilla Squeak, but available as a research project.9
Code simulation is the mechanism that allows for understanding and fixing
erroneous object communication as it happens. Live (Ingalls, 2020). In contrast,
code browsers merely show abstract pieces of text without a path to the running
system. It is not obvious that any fast VM also offers a means to look into its
execution details. For exploring communication patterns, however, we argue that it
is necessary to “stop time” for selected processes. A suspended process can then be
simulated, which means that message sending can continue with the help of other
objects: the (method) contexts. Contexts provide access to the message receiver,
active code, argument objects, and the object that is sending the current message
(or active method). Like a puppeteer being in control from the outside, contexts can
trigger a step, which lets the affected process “move forward.” Programmers can
then take their time to observe effects as they unfold.
In Squeak, there are three kinds of objects that reify system execution so that
programmers can explore (i.e., witness) gradual or induce (i.e., cause) eventual
emergence:
• A Message reifies an attempt of a message send and is passed as argument to
doesNotUnderstand: in the case of a MessageNotUnderstood error.
• A Process reifies an active communication thread where objects are waiting “in
line” to get responses from their neighbors.
• A Context reifies a piece of source code in execution, which is the implemen-
tation behind the message an object understands.
We will now use these means to reiterate the shopping experience as described
above, but we will put extra cash into the wallet:
| process customer |
process := [ Customer new buyMilk ] newProcess.
[ process suspendedContext selector = #lookIntoWallet ] whileFalse: [
process step ].
customer := process suspendedContext receiver.
customer wallet add: 500.
process resume.
8
Objects send messages. An object receiving a message will entail a message lookup, which means
that a symbol will be matched to a piece of source code (or byte code). That code represents a
method, which is an implementation of a message. That is why a suspended process has a stack of
active methods, not messages. We use the term “chain of messages” to simplify this detail.
9
Trace Debugger, a back-in-time debugger for Squeak, https://github.com/hpi-swa-lab/ squeak-
tracedebugger
This simple example illustrates a very powerful idea: Domain objects and meta-
objects can interact. From the outside in a workspace, we construct a process for
buying milk. Then we simulate this process up to a point of interest, which is when
the customer looks into the wallet. Then, we experiment by adding extra cash to the
wallet. We can directly ask the process for the current context to then get access to
the customer, which is the current receiver. Yes, we can also look into that cus-
tomer’s wallet; we could take things out of it, but here we add the number object
representing 500. Finally, we let the (shopping) process resume. Is it enough cash?
We will find out as the system execution continues. If necessary, we can always
suspend the process, whose handle (or binding) we still have in our workspace.
Not all communication patterns can be understood through stepwise code simu-
lation. For example, there can be two processes communicating through a shared
resource, where one is adding and one is removing items. Suspending one process
might block the other and vice versa. So, there should be tools that collect and
present changes for groups of objects to reveal steady frames [(Hancock, 2003),
p. 57]. What seems chaotic at the lowest level might oscillate in the middle or even
be steady when observed from afar, like water drops escaping a garden hose as a
constant stream. Considering object state, a data-driven perspective (Taeumel, 2020)
might help programmers understand the flow of information. Considering object
behavior, a higher-level debugger might help programmers understand larger pat-
terns among processes. In sum, emergence does not only affect a few objects as it
might go beyond sending a couple of messages in a single process. The VM is very
fast and that thousands of messages can be exchanged within seconds. Liveness also
implies a certain balance and harmony between all objects in the system.
5 Let the User Interrupt
Squeak’s workspaces offer many ways to get the system stuck. Programmers
experiment with small scripts to explore and poke around. Eventually, some attempt
will have unexpected consequences and consume too much computing time, inter-
fering with other processes that are waiting to be scheduled. Note that the system
only “moves forward.” Objects are created, communicate with each other, get
modified, change behavior, and so on. There is usually no going back, which we
call an immutable past (Rein et al., 2018).
What to do if there is no more user input possible? What if no code snippet can be
typed and evaluated? How can the system be “restored” to a responsive state without
losing information? Smalltalk systems have always had a simple answer for this
situation: Let the user interrupt the interfering process that is consuming all the
computing time at the moment.
Even the most cautious programmers can get the system stuck by accident. For
example, an experiment can become problematic by simply being mistaken about
the (hidden) computing effort:
| n factorial | n := 100000.
factorial := 1.
[ n > 0 ] whileTrue: [
factorial := factorial * n.
n = n - 1 ].
factorial explore. "... will start an object explorer ..."
Here, the problem is not necessarily in the algorithm written by the programmer:
The factorial of 100,000 took only about 5 s to compute. Instead, unpredictable
effects can happen when other tools get involved: factorial explore. An
object explorer, for example, will construct a textual representation of factorial,
which might take some time for thousands of digits. Maybe there is more than one
representation for that number object. Unoptimized tools might omit caching for
costly inputs. Users cannot always anticipate this. The system seems to be stuck. But
why exactly? This is generally not obvious. However, even a few seconds can be
enough. Users can quickly get frustrated when confronted with an unresponsive
system, let alone how it affects their desire for a feeling of liveness.
There is a dedicated keyboard shortcut to interrupt the active process. On macOS,
for example, programmers can hit [CMD] + [.], and a debugger will appear,
representing the interrupted process. They can then explore and repair object com-
munication like they would for unhandled exceptions. This reliable gesture should
be invokable through a physical key, as the (virtual) system could be in any unclear
state where pixels cannot be trusted anymore. Such an interrupt-key press then
simply tells the active process to suspend:
| process |
process := Processor activeProcess.
process suspend.
Note that responsiveness will also be impaired if processes slow down the sys-
tem. If basic interaction works—even if uncomfortable—programmers can use the
process explorer to browse and suspend (or terminate) selected processes. Note that
if tools work, programmers can also write scripts in workspaces to do the same thing.
For example, they can query known process objects via Process
allInstances explore. In general, given the class (object) of a domain
concept, all domain objects can be fetched this way. There is only a single object
space to explore and modify, where tools and applications exist side by side. There
are processes that must be running to keep the system responsive. They should not be
interrupted as user input or graphics output would stop working, which are the basic
means for responsiveness. A simple UI framework might look like this:
| uiProcess |
uiProcess := [ [
InputEventSystem handleInputEvents.
ScriptingSystem evaluateScripts.
GraphicsSystem drawGraphics.
] repeat ] newProcess.
uiProcess resume.
An endless loop of input handling, script processing, and graphics drawing makes
the system “look alive” and responsive. Provided that workspaces inject work into
evaluateScripts, programmers might inadvertently block (or slow down) this
loop, which would affect input and drawing. Consequently, the system must ensure
that another uiProcess will be started as soon as the current one gets interrupted.
And somehow, that interfering script should be excluded from being evaluated a
second time. Also, if an interrupted uiProcess is resumed again, the current one
should be terminated to keep object communication in balance and harmony—too
many cooks spoil the broth.
The correct timing of a user interrupt can be crucial for memory consumption.
That is, too many objects might be created in a short amount of time. While the
system looks unresponsive, object memory might “overflow.” Fortunately, the
OpenSmalltalk VM maps large process stacks to heap memory, which means that
the usually limited stack memory is guarded so that users have more time to press
that interrupt key. Still, such a memory leak can slow down the system even after the
interfering process gets suspended. While obsolete objects get cleaned up all the
time, incremental garbage collection can be essential to ensure responsiveness in a
system with a large object memory. That is, the VM should always clean up
“garbage” piece by piece without the user noticing.
6 Recursive Emergency
The objects that make up the debugger might stop working. That is, unexpected
behavior (or erroneous communication) is not an issue limited to applications but
extends to all kinds of things in the system, which includes programming tools.
Recall that an unhandled error will suspend the process it was signaled in, which will
then result in a debugger for this process. That debugger might as well signal another
error when, for example, it tries to show itself on screen but somehow cannot. What
happens when an unhandled error triggers another error that cannot be handled? We
call this situation a recursive error. Recursion is the concept where a message is sent
again while its response is being prepared. A recursive algorithm ends when a certain
condition holds. For example, the Fibonacci sequence can be implemented as a
method fib: that takes an integer argument n and then answers the result of
(self fib: n - 2) + (self fib: n - 1); the results for n = 1 and n = 2 are
hard-coded to finish this computation. Now, how is a recursive error handled? Is
there also an exit condition? But what to do when this condition holds? A possible
approach to handle recursive errors is to provide several distinctive UI frameworks
as fallback (Taeumel & Hirschfeld, 2016). Each framework has programming tools
and thus means to modify the code base and all other kinds of objects. If one fails, the
other one takes over. We assume that frameworks share as little source code as
possible to increase the chances that an error does not carry over. In vanilla Squeak,
there is Morphic by default and MVC as fallback. Both have debuggers, code
browsers, and object explorers to the rescue. While both use common means, such
as the code compiler, MVC has a much simpler architecture and is less likely to be
extended at this time. Consequently, if an experiment in Morphic fails, tools in MVC
can take over. There can be programming tools even simpler than MVC, which we
demonstrated through the keyboard-only SqueakShell (Taeumel & Hirschfeld,
2016).
The system detects a recursive error by flagging the erroneous process, which
indicates that a debugger is about to open. If the debugger fails to open, that
recursion flag will be detected on the second attempt and then trigger a transfer to
another framework. Since every “thing” is an object in Squeak, frameworks are as
well. They are represented as projects (Taeumel & Hirschfeld, 2016), which are a
way to organize work and describe the basic means of responsiveness. For example,
MVC uses a new process per tool for handling user interaction and graphics updates;
Morphic (re-)uses a single UI process for all tools. When transferring the control
from one project (or framework) to another, the erroneous process will be suspended
immediately to not cause further harm. Programmers can then use the tools available
in that other project to restore responsiveness as desired. As switching between
frameworks can be tedious, we assume that there is only one preferred one where
liveness matters.
If all else fails, there will be the emergency evaluator. With only a few lines of
code, the system can provide a very primitive read-evaluate-print loop. Programmers
can type expressions like they do in workspaces. For simplicity, there is no support
for multiple lines, text selection, or bindings. What must work at this point is
keyboard input, text rendering, and the code compiler. Here is the basic idea (without
output) of the emergency evaluator in pseudo code:
| line char |
[ line := ".
[ [ Sensor keyboardPressed ] whileFalse.
(char := Sensor keyboard) = Character cr]
whileFalse: [ line := line, char asString ].
line = ‘exit’
] whileFalse: [
line = ‘revert’
ifTrue: [ System revertLastChange ]
ifFalse: [ Compiler evaluate: line ] ].
The most important feature is to revert the latest code change. Chances are that
erroneous object behavior is the culprit. Since code (or behavioral) changes are
versioned, reverting those is easy. However, state changes are not versioned. So if an
object has unfortunate state, programmers must figure out a way to access that object
and restore it manually. Recall that allInstances is a very powerful query
mechanism to access any object provided that you know the name of its class.
7 Reliable Watchdogs
One process can watch over another process. That is, programmers can design
processes that monitor responsiveness in the system and intervene if necessary.
Recall that Squeak’s processes schedule cooperatively at the same priority level
and preemptively between priorities. Thus, for example, a process with priority
75 could wake up every 250 ms to then monitor any process below or equal to 75.
Processes under inspection will not change on their own but “stand still” until the
watchdog yields control (to other watchdogs) or suspends for another 250 ms. Recall
that one process can easily access other processes in the system. So, our watchdog
could log current receivers, depth of message stack, or other information that might
be of interest. Note that the power of watchdogs is not constrained to monitoring. All
objects are free to send any message to any other object they have access to. This
freedom entails all kinds of possible side effects such as process termination, stack
manipulation, and actually fiddling around with domain-specific objects in your
application. A common example for a watchdog is the implementation of time-outs
for test runs.
We will now describe four useful watchdogs, which each try to perform their
analysis (and intervention) as quickly as possible to not slow down the system. Their
wake-up time (or frequency) denotes the precision of their work. Consequently,
watchdogs that need more time should wake up less often to not further jeopardize
responsiveness in the system.
Call Tracing and Profiling Squeak offers a sampling-based tool to trace object
communication, which is called message tally. With a high frequency, a watchdog
collects the stack of the tallied process and approximates a call tree from all samples.
Programmers can then explore the most prominent communication patterns in the
tally. The overall execution time can be used to estimate the duration of selected
message sends. Note that sampling-based tracing trades performance for accuracy.
Brief conversations between objects will likely not be traced as process scheduling
does not allow for such fast sampling rates.
Unanticipated Progress Indication There are cases where programmers are will-
ing to wait in front of an unresponsive system so that maximum computing time is
used to finish a workload as quickly as possible. However, they do wish for progress
indication to plan their next steps. If known upfront, such indication can be
requested:
workItems
do: [:workItem | workItem process ]
displayingProgress: [:workItem | workItem label].
Unfortunately, there can be numerous places in the systems where workload can
spike unexpectedly, meaning that there is likely no progress indication in place.
Also, a few long-running takes need a different treatment than thousands of short-
running tasks. That is, any overhead in progress computation and display must be
minimized. After all, programmers expect work to finish as fast as possible. Now,
watchdogs can be used to analyze the process stack and look for such loops where
work items are enumerated:
| workBlock start stop index |

workBlock := [:step | ... ].
index := start.
[ stop >= index ]

whileTrue: [ workBlock value: index.
index := index + 1 ].
Given that a process exposes its current stack, a watchdog can access bindings
such as start and stop and step to reveal progress. Sampling can codify “tasks”
through methods that remain active after repeated observations. Programmers are not
required to prepare such progress analysis for specific cases. The watchdog can use
generic patterns to find tasks. As soon as it finds a task, it can tell the user about task
progress. This indication is not anticipated but welcomed.
Infinite Recursion Detection Watchdogs can find patterns that indicate infinite
recursion in a process, which might indicate potential out-of-memory issues. The
user should be informed that the process in question will be suspended for inspec-
tion. Yet, it might be challenging to distinguish a deeply nested algorithm that uses
backtracking (or dynamic programming) from actual infinite recursion. As false-
positives happen, users should always be in charge of deciding whether or not to abort
a computation. Too many false-positives might disturb the programming experience
up to a point where the watchdog will be disabled for good. Consequently, such
background assistance should be configured to consider domain-specific workload and
personal preferences. Still, generic patterns are a good starting point.
A Time-Slicing Scheduler Fairness in Squeak’s process scheduling depends on the
cooperation of processes running at the same priority level. However, a program-
mer’s experiments might not be so cooperative after all:
[ anObject doExpensiveWork ] fork. "... in the background?"
Here, the programmer might think that performing an expensive task in another
process keeps the system responsive. Yet, for example, in Morphic, all workspace
scripts are evaluated in the same UI process. This means that the programmer either
explicitly puts that task in a process with lower priority or slices it up with an
occasional Processor yield in between. Now, a time-slicing scheduler could
also help with this issue, introducing preemption within a priority level as well. Each
process could just get some milliseconds before going back to the end of the line.
Similar to progress indication, a watchdog can reconfigure process objects as
required. Fairness might be such a requirement to ensure responsiveness in the
system.
8 Conclusion
Admittedly, Squeak/Smalltalk is not the most convenient live-programming system.

Its building blocks, objects and messaging, are expressive and powerful. The system
is for generic purposes by design; there are little constraints to object communica-
tion. An uninformed programmer might get frustrated when some experiment gets
the system stuck. We argued that programmers must know their tools and learn about
the means for exploration (Taeumel et al., 2022; Taeumel et al., 2021) to get the
system “unstuck” again. Responsiveness is the key to observing gradual and induc-
ing eventual emergence.
Processes are the means for (de)composing elaborate communication patterns.
Each process represents an active chain of messages, a topic, a discussion, or a
relevant conversation to be understood. You can type and evaluate snippets of source
code in workspaces everywhere in the system. Chances are that the tool in front of
you—maybe another debugger—provides bindings for objects of interest. Use an
object’s name and ask away; learn more about it. It might tell you why some effect is
or is not showing up. Some messages will even help you fix an erroneous
communication.
There are tool-building frameworks that provide specific constraints for guiding
adaptation and emergence. For example, Morphic (Maloney, 2002) offers the
message step to codify recurrent actions for all graphical objects. Programmers
(should) know that changing code in a step method will be executed at some
point. For another example, Vivide (Taeumel, 2020) describes exploration tools as
rules of data transformation and visual mappings. Programmers can then expect and
rely on certain effects when modifying these rules. We think that frameworks on top
of objects and messaging represent clear learning objectives. Once understood,
programmers can express their goals in framework-specific actions to then rely on
immediately observable effects. The Squeak/Smalltalk live-programming system is
thus capable of providing a predictable emergence for application-specific domains.
Acknowledgments Many thanks go to Dr. Sharon Nemeth for her editorial support. We gratefully
acknowledge the financial support of the HPI Research School on Service-oriented Systems
Engineering (www.hpi.de/en/research/research-schools) and the Hasso Plattner Design Thinking
Research Program (www.hpi.de/en/dtrp).
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Part 3
Enhancement through Design Thinking
What Is Design Thinking?
Jan Auernhammer and Bernard Roth
Abstract This chapter outlines and discusses different perspectives on design

thinking. It provides a schema that illustrates three different understandings of
design thinking: (1) methodology, (2) thinking of designers, and (3) practice-based
design thinking (embodied thinking). We seek to clarify some of the substantial
differences and nuances of alternative understandings of design thinking. Specifi-
cally, this chapter discusses significant nuances between structuralism (i.e.,
information-processing), formal logic (i.e., abductive reasoning), and Gestalt psy-
chology (i.e., humanistic psychology). These differences are based on schools of
thought that emerged in early experimental psychology and that then informed
numerous design scholars. These perspectives have also informed various practice-
based aspects of design thinking, such as variation-selection, meaning-making, and
comprehensive design. By outlining these alternative understandings, this chapter
presents answers to the question “What is design thinking?” from different perspec-
tives. This discussion and outlined schema encourage researchers and practitioners
to articulate their perspective when referring to “design thinking.”
1 Introduction
Over the last decades, “design thinking” has attained global attention, and today
many organizations and educational institutions employ a form of design thinking.
However, the term design thinking is used as an umbrella term incorporating many
different perspectives without a shared understanding of what design thinking is,
similar to the term “design” (Auernhammer & Ford, 2022; Auernhammer & Roth,
2021). This chapter outlines and discusses different perspectives on design thinking
J. Auernhammer (✉)
Mechanical Engineering Design Group, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
B. Roth
Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (dschool), Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
170 J. Auernhammer and B. Roth
Table 1 Early perspectives on design thinking

Design thinking as Reference Based on
Four areas of innovation Arnold (1959) Various psychological perspectives
The ability to separate forms and Alexander (1962)a Various psychological studies,
shape matter into an organized including Piaget (1951) and Arnheim
fashion (1954)
Concept formation Schön (1963)a Various psychological perspectives,
including Dewey (1938), Wittgenstein
(1953), and Wertheimer (1945)
A systematic methodology Archer (1965) Pólya’s (1957) plausible reasoning in
mathematical education
Visual (visuospatial) thinking McKim (1972, circa Gestalt psychology, including
(abstract to concrete thinking 1968) Wertheimer (1945), Arnheim (1954,
languages) 1965, 1969), and Perls et al. (1951)
Information-processing of Simon (1969)a Structuralist psychology, including
human problem-solving Selz (1922) and de Groot (1965)
Information-processing of Eastman (1970)a Structuralist psychology, including
human problem-solving Selz (1922) and de Groot (1965)
A three-step process with vari- Jones (1970) Various influences, such as useful
ous methods techniques, such as Gordon (1961),
Osborn (1957), and Asimow (1962)
Structural and productive Lawson (1972, Various psychological perspectives,
thinking 1980) including Wertheimer (1945), Bartlett
(1958), and Bruner et al. (1956)
A universal, imaginative, and Rittel (1987), and An underlying gestalt perspective
argumentative activity depen- Rittel and Webber without expressing it
dent on social context (1973))a
Abductive reasoning March (1976)a Abductive thinking by Peirce (1871,
1923) and philosophy of science by
Popper (1961a, 1961b, 1962)
Sense- or meaning-making Krippendorff Gestalt considerations
(1989);
Krippendorff &
Butter, 1984)a
Systematic processes of Rowe (1987) Various psychological perspectives,
designing including Gestalt and structuralism
(Humphrey, 1963)
Variation-selection learning Vincenti (1990)a Epistemological ideas of Campbell
model through experience (1987) and their initial application by
Constant II (1980)
a
Did not use the term “design thinking”
starting from its early beginnings in the 1950s and 1960s (as outlined in Table 1). By
doing so, we clarify some significant differences between different understandings
of design thinking. An essential contribution of this chapter is a schema (as shown in
Fig. 1) of different meanings of design thinking. Design thinking is understood as
(1) a methodology, (2) the thinking of designers, and (3) practice-based design
thinking (i.e., embodied thinking). These different understandings have emerged
What Is Design Thinking? 171
Fig. 1 Different perspectives on design thinking
from diverse schools of thought from experimental psychology (Auernhammer &

Roth, 2022; Rowe, 1987). For example, the difference in thinking of designers from
a structuralist and a Gestalt perspective is often distinguished as problem-solving
versus sensemaking, e.g., Krippendorff (1989). We discuss these substantial nuances
of the different meanings of design thinking in detail.
2 Early Perspectives on Design Thinking
The term “design thinking” emerged with various understandings in the 1950s and
1960s. For example, Arnold (1959), a psychologist and engineer, described “design
thinking” in terms of four areas one should think about when creating innovative
products. He and others developed an entire philosophy of design based on various
psychological insights (Arnold, 2016; Auernhammer et al., 2022; Clancey, forth-
coming). Archer (1965), a mechanical engineer, expressed “design thinking” as
systematic designing. He emphasized the shift from the sculptural to the technolog-
ical, which requires incorporating knowledge from different fields (Archer, 1965).
At a conference “where design educators [. . .] gathered to discuss the theme
‘Toward A Science of Design’,” (circa McKim et al., 1967), an engineer and
industrial designer, discussed “the effect of language specialization upon design
thinking” and expressed the importance of many different languages along the
spectrum from the abstract (e.g., visual analogs) to the concrete (e.g., the real
thing). Around the same time, John Christopher Jones (1970), an engineer,
expressed making “design thinking” transparent as a way to allow others from
diverse knowledge domains to participate. In his Ph.D. research at Aston University,
architect and psychologist Bryan Lawson (1972) describes “design thinking” in
architectural problem-solving as a combination of structural thinking (e.g., Bruner
et al., 1956) and productive thinking (e.g., Wertheimer, 1945). Lawson (1980)
further elaborates this perspective of thinking in design in How Designers Think.
Several years later, Peter Rowe (1987), an architect, discusses in Design Thinking
early theoretical positions from psychology applied in architecture and urban plan-
ning, such as the structuralist perspective by Oswald Külpe, Narziß Ach, and Karl
Bühler, as discussed by Humphrey (1963), and the Gestalt perspective, as developed

by Köhler (1929), Koffka (1935), and Wertheimer (1945). Table 1 outlines these
several early perspectives on design thinking.
Various other design scholars and practitioners have discussed the formation of
concepts, intuitive design processes, and logic in design without using the term
“design thinking” (e.g., Alexander, 1962; Eastman, 1970; March, 1976; Schön,
1963). For example, architect Christopher Alexander (1962) investigated how
schemas emerge creatively in children. Working with psychologists Jerome
S. Bruner and George A. Miller, Alexander (1962, p. 207) investigated the creative
ability to shape thought and matter in an organized fashion through children’s
drawings. He shows that creative schematic organization in children, as expressed
in their drawings, can be “understood in terms of the child’s developing ability to
force the forms apart from one another” (Alexander, 1962). Similarly, the architect
and industrial consultant Donald Schön (1963) describes in Displacement of Con-
cepts the formation of new concepts influenced by the work, such as Dewey (1938),
Wittgenstein (1953), and Wertheimer (1945). The assessments of recoded design
and discovery sessions in the Design Invention Group at Arthur D. Little informed
Schön’s (1963) work. Parallel assessments by Bill Gordon (1961) and George Prince
(1968) from the same sessions resulted in Synectics. Another contribution is by
Herbert Simon (1969), a political scientist, and Charles M. Eastman (1970), an
architect, who investigated and described problem-solving and intuitive design
processes based on the information-processing model, promoted by Newell and
Simon (1956, 1965), among others, which in turn is based on work by psychologists
Otto Selz (1922) and his student Adriaan de Groot (1965). Rittel (Rittel, 1987; Rittel
& Webber, 1973), a mathematician and design theorist, outlined the limitations of
the rationalistic doctrine in design. With increased understanding, the problem
changes as a whole and, therefore, can never be fully understood. Rittel does not
cite Gestalt psychologists, such as Wertheimer (1945) or Lewin (1946); however, his
work strongly resembles the same ideas. Rittel (1987) describes the reasoning in
design as a universal, imaginative, and dialectic activity that is not unique or belongs
solely to “the designers.” Another reasoning in design was proposed by architect
Lionel J. March (1976), who describes in The Architecture of Form that the logic of
design is based on abductive reasoning, as developed by Peirce (1871, 1923) and
discussed in the philosophy of science by Popper (1961a, 1961b, 1962). Klaus
Krippendorff (1968), with a similar perspective as Horst Rittel’s, argues for the
importance of the symbolic environment in design. Krippendorff (Krippendorff,
1961, 1984, 2006; Krippendorff & Butter, 1984), a designer and communication
scholar, outlines the designer’s need to make sense of things in the context of people,
contrasting the product designer (Gestalter) with the constructor (Konstrukteur). His
view is based on Gestalt considerations (Krippendorff, 1989).
Based on these various perspectives, as summarized in Table 1, many design
scholars have built on these perspectives (e.g., Brown, 2009; Dym et al., 2005;
Muller, 1989; Roozenburg, 1993). Today, these diverse perspectives, as outlined in
Table 1, are all referred to as “design thinking,” with often little consideration of the
nuances and substantial differences between these perspectives and understandings.
The following sections discuss these substantial nuances in more detail in order to
highlight the different perspectives on design thinking.
3 Design Thinking as . . .
Various scholars have discussed different notions of design thinking. For example,
Jones (1970) distinguished between creative (i.e., black box), rational (i.e., glass
box), and self-organizing design thinking. Others distinguish between the psycho-
logical school of thought, such as structuralism (i.e., Würzburg School) and the
Gestalt Movement (i.e., holistic/humanistic) (Auernhammer & Roth, 2022; Rowe,
1987).
A first design thinking perspective that can be distinct from others is the exter-
nalization of thinking as a (1) recipe or methodology. Such a perspective is inde-
pendent of people and emerged in the Design Methods Movement (Alexander, 1964;
Archer, 1965; Gregory, 1966; Jones & Thornley, 1963). A second perspective is the
(2) thinking of designers, which occurs within the mind of people, e.g., information-
processing, productive reasoning, or Gestalt creation (Eastman, 1970; March, 1976;
McKim, circa McKim, 1968; Wertheimer, 1945). This perspective incorporates
several nuances distinguishing different types of design thinking based on different
psychological schools of thought. The last perspective discussed in this chapter is
(3) practice-based design thinking (i.e., embodied thinking). This perspective
emphasizes that psychic (mental) functions cannot be separated from somatic
(bodily) ones (McKim, 1972). Thinking is not independent of embodied activities,
such as gesturing (Goldin-Meadow, 2003; Tang & Leifer, 1988). These design
practices are along the spectrum between engineering practices, often associated
with the sciences, and sensemaking, often associated with the arts (Krippendorff,
1989; Papanek, 1973; Vincenti, 1990). However, a practice-based comprehensive
design (thinking) provides a third perspective, which emphasizes the importance of
designing for the whole person and environment (i.e., for physical, intellectual, and
profound needs) (Arnold, 1959; McKim, 1959). Figure 1 provides a schema of the
different perspectives on design thinking.
3.1 Design Thinking as a Methodology
Design thinking as a methodology (i.e., systematic method) emerged from research

and developments on “organized” creativity (e.g., Arnold, 1954, 1959; Guilford,
1950; Osborn, 1957; Pólya, 1945; Zwicky, 1948), which informed designers and
resulted in the Design Methods Movement in the 1960s (Archer, 1965; Gregory,
1966; Jones, 1959; Jones & Thornley, 1963). One of the first designers to express
“design thinking” as a systematic method was Leonard Bruce Archer (1965) from
the Royal College of Art in London. Archer (1965) emphasized a rational approach
to design and described design thinking as follows:
In the face of this situation there has been a world-wide shift in emphasis from the sculptural
to the technological. Ways have had to be found to incorporate knowledge of ergonomics,
cybernetics, marketing, and management science into design thinking. As with most
technology, there has been a trend towards the adoption of a systems approach as distinct
from an artifact approach. [emphasis in bold added]
Archer (1965) provides various checklists and arrow diagrams that bring together
knowledge from different disciplines into a structure representing the design act.
Underlying Archer’s (1965) systematic method is George Pólya’s (1945) work on
heuristics and plausible reasoning in mathematical education. Pólya (1945) outlines
a set of steps: (1) Understand the problem. (2) Make a plan. (3) Carry out the plan.
(4) Look back on your work. He also outlines various heuristic strategies, including
those titled Analogy, Draw a Picture, Generalization, Subconscious Work, Test by
Dimension, Variation of the Problem, and Working Backwards. Pólya (1945, p. 122)
developed his plausible reasoning on the work of philosopher Ernst Mach, mathe-
matician Jacques Hadamard and F. Krauss, and psychologists William James,
Wolfgang Köhler, and Karl Duncker. For example, Duncker (1935, 1945) described
in On Problem Solving (Psychologie des Produktiven Denkens) the discovery of
various strategies to determine new solution means, identified in his think-aloud
protocol research. The various heuristic strategies, identified in psychological
research, expanded into design methods.
3.1.1 Design Methods (Heuristic Strategies)
Various creative, useful techniques in engineering, design, and industrial consul-

tancy emerged based on the findings and insights from experiential psychology
research on heuristic and creative strategies (e.g., Arnold, 1962b; Crawford, 1954;
Gordon, 1961; Osborn, 1957; Zwicky, 1948). These heuristic and creative strategies
further developed into design methods. John Christopher Jones (1970) wrote one of
the first comprehensive methods books, Design Methods: Seeds of Human Futures.
He argues that designers needed new methods to deal with the complexity inherent
in problems and wanted to bring ergonomics and other disciplines to industrial
design (Jones, 1970). Design methods are the “attempt to isolate the essence of
designing and to write it down as a standard method, or recipe, that can be relied
upon in all situations” (Jones, 1970). Jones (1970, p. 45) expressed the value of the
methodological approach as follows:
A major advantage of bringing design thinking into the open is that other people, such as
users, can see what is going on and contribute to it information and insights that are outside
the designer’s knowledge and experience. [emphasis in bold added]
To make design thinking transparent, Jones (1970) states three stages: (1) divergence
(i.e., extending the boundary of a design situation), (2) transformation (i.e., creative
patternmaking), and (3) convergence (i.e., reducing uncertainties progressively).
Each phase contains several heuristic strategies and useful techniques outlined as
design methods.
In the 1980s, the systematic method developed further in Europe in engineering
design (Hubka & Eder, 1987; Pahl et al., 1996). Similar to Jones (1970) attempting
to bring design thinking into the open for others to contribute, David Kelley Design
(DKD) developed a methodology handbook in 1989 “to provide a living record of
the process to which any DKD designer can contribute” (Curtis, 1990). The essence
of this methodology included the following activities: Brainstorming, Quick pro-
totypes, Size the product, Get everybody in the same room, Look wide, Get narrower
and narrower, Iterate, Smart people, User chooser, Working with the client, Working
with vendors, and Working with the industrial design firm (Curtis, 1990). This
methodology then developed further into IDEO’s Designkit (Ideo, 2015). The
DKD handbook included a “Floss talk” by David Kelley from 1989 that included
concepts such as “Fail sometimes, be Left-handed, get Out there, be Sloppy and be
Stupid, and Off the wall? Maybe” (Curtis, 1990). These concepts became the various
mindsets in IDEO’s (Ideo, 2015) Designkit. The term “mindset” emerged with the
introduction of the “growth mindset” (Dweck, 2006), which has been part of the
human potential movement that was deeply ingrained in Stanford’s Design Division
(Arnold, 1959; Fadiman, 1986; McKim et al., 1967).
In general, design processes and methods are abstractions from people’s thinking,
psychological principles, and heuristic strategies as identified in psychological
research. Many design scholars outlined their own version of processes that are
logical sequencing of heuristic strategies. For example, the double diamond visual-
ization is based on Guilford (1950) productive thinking of divergent and convergent
thinking. As outlined by Jansson and Smith (1991), design fixation is a
recontextualization of Duncker’s (1935, 1945) functional fixedness. Similarly,
reframing is the heuristic strategy that allows overcoming the block of “functional
fixedness” by rephrasing the problem, identifying problem variations, and determin-
ing new purpose-means relationships (Duncker, 1935, 1945; Pólya, 1945; Selz,
1922).
3.1.2 Today’s Design Thinking as a Methodology
Today, there are many recipes or “cookbooks” on design thinking that include step-
by-step processes and related tools and methods that all resemble the same process of
exploring problem situations, creating solutions, evaluating the problem-solution fit,
and implementing (Dubberly, 2005; Ideo, 2015; Kumar, 2012; Liedtka & Ogilvie,
2011). Each phase has particular heuristic strategies and associated techniques. For
example, Dorst (2015) outlines in Frame Creation several heuristic strategies, such
as understanding the problem (Archeology) and conflict analysis (Paradoxes), as
identified by Duncker (1935, 1945), in a logical sequence. Such recipes are generally
employed in short design thinking or participatory design workshops/sprints. How-
ever, this recipe approach is not without criticism for various reasons.
3.1.3 Critique of the Methodology Perspective
Various scholars have questioned and criticized design thinking as a methodology

(Alexander, 1971a, 1971b; Jones, 1977, 1991; McKim, 1972, 1980c). Jones (1977)
fundamentally changed his mind on the notion of design methods and criticized the
methodology perspective as “[he] dislike[ed] the machine language, the behaviour-
ism, [and] the continual attempt to fix the whole of life into a logical framework.”
Jones (1991) repeats his criticisms in Designing Designing as follows:
We sought to be open minded, to make design processes that would be more sensitive to life
than were the professional practices of the time. But the result was rigidity: a fixing of aims
and methods to produce designs that everyone now feels to be insensitive to human needs.
Another result was that design methods became more theoretical and many of those drawn to
the subject turned it into the academic study of methods (methodology) instead of trying to
design things better. The language used to describe designing, and to describe the aims and
purposes of things designed, became more and more abstract. The words lost touch with how
it feels to be a designer and how it feels to inhabit the systems being designed.
In a similar manner, Christopher Alexander (1971a) expresses the absurdity of the

idea of design methods in the Preface to the Paperback edition of the Notes to the
Synthesis of Form as follows:
[. . .] so many readers have focused on the method which leads to the creation of the
diagrams, not on the diagrams themselves, and have even made a cult of following this
method. Indeed, since the book was published, a whole academic field has grown up around
the idea of ‘design methods’ - and I have been hailed as one of the leading exponents of these
so-called design methods. I am very sorry that this has happened, and want to state, publicly,
that I reject the whole idea of design methods as a subject of study, since I think it is absurd
to separate the study of designing from the practice of design. In fact, people who study
design methods without also practicing design are almost always frustrated designers who
have no sap in them, who have lost, or never had, the urge to shape things. Such a person will
never be able to say anything sensible about ‘how’ to shape things either.
In response to a question about future work in design methodology, Alexander

(1971b) replied, “I would say forget it, forget the whole thing. Period.” Similarly,
McKim (1972, p. 26) criticized the step-by-step methodological approach as a
“cookbook pattern,” as follows:
There is no single way to experience the material presented in this book. Indeed, a step-by-
step procedure is not recommended. Visual thinking in relation to a challenging problem
does not proceed in cookbook fashion (for example, (1) recenter your viewpoint, (2) add a
dab of inner imagery, (3) now make six sketches, (4) cook in the brain overnight.) Visual
thinking that is equipped with a rich repertoire of visual responses moves far more flexibly.
Consequently, learning to think visually should occur in a flexible way.
In 1980, McKim (1980c) repeated his criticisms with stronger phrasing, that “[t]
he strategy approach presented in this book is emphatically not intended to be used
as a step-by-step problem-solving method” [emphasis added in italic]. In his writ-
ings, he highlighted that seeing, imagining, and visually expressing, including
prototyping, are not independent to the embodied activities of people and their
abilities, values, needs, and emotions (McKim, 1972, 1980a, 1980c, circa McKim,
1968). The emphasis is not on following a process but on developing human

capacities, such as awareness, attitudes, and abilities (Auernhammer & Roth,
2021). Similarly, Arnold (1959) emphasized that questioning, observing, and asso-
ciating are not a step-by-step process but attitudes of the inventor that “[. . .] should
be going on all the time, simultaneously or in almost any kind of combination or
sequence.”
The criticism highlights that design thinking as a methodology separates methods
from actual practice (Alexander, 1971a; McKim, 1972). It reduces the effortful,
complex, and time-consuming act of invention into a highly abstract set of steps and
frameworks, ignoring essential human abilities and motivation (Arnold, 1959; Jones,
1991). This perspective dehumanizes the designers’ sensitivity and ability, such as
cognitive flexibility, into a process and methods (Jay, 1962; McKim, 1972, 1980c).
A universal recipe is not applicable in every context, as each situational circum-
stance requires different responses (Auernhammer & Leifer, 2023; Auernhammer &
Roth, 2022; Koffka, 1927; McKim, 1980c). Methodology ignores the fact that not
the method, such as brainstorming, produces creative ideas. The psychological
safety and freedom enacted by participants allow open conversation that is condu-
cive to creativity (Arnold, 1959; Arnold et al., 1960; Rogers, 1954).
In general, design thinking as a methodology is a recipe or cookbook representing
the essence of designing in an abstract process coupled with various methods (e.g.,
heuristic strategies and useful techniques). The benefit of making design thinking
open and transparent is that it allows various persons from different backgrounds to
contribute with their knowledge. However, it dehumanizes design into abstract
processes separate from situational circumstances and human qualities, such as
abilities, experiences, values, needs, and emotions. Another perspective that focuses
on internal thought activities is design thinking as the thinking of designers.
3.2 Design Thinking as the Thinking of Designers
The research on the thinking of designers emerged from development in experimen-

tal psychology, providing research approaches, such as think-aloud protocols
(Arnheim, 1954, 1965; Bartlett, 1958; de Groot, 1965; Duncker, 1926, 1935;
Koffka, 1912; Köhler, 1925; Selz, 1922; Wertheimer, 1945). Early experimental
psychology research informed various design scholars and sparked research on the
thinking in design. In the 1960s, design scholars investigated creative problem-
solving and schema creation (Alexander, 1962; Gordon, 1961; Harman et al., 1966;
Schön, 1963). At Harvard University, Alexander (1962) investigated schema crea-
tion in children through their drawings. In the San Francisco Bay Area, Bob McKim
and Jim Fadiman studied the effects of psychedelic agents (LSD-25, mescaline) on
creative experiences (Harman et al., 1966). The study resulted in various creative
solutions and patents (Fadiman, 2011). Notably, Doug Engelbart was part of this
creativity study (Markoff, 2005). He introduced the first personal computer in the
Mother of All Demos around the same time. This study also revealed the importance
of visual thinking and imagery in creative discovery, design, and invention (McKim,
1972, 1980a). Gordon (1961) and Schön (1963) investigated creative discovery in
design by investigating and reflecting on their creative group sessions. In the 1970s,
various scholars examined creative and intuitive thinking in design (e.g., Akin,
1978; Eastman, 1969, 1970; Lawson, 1972, 1979).
In these early developments in research on thinking, different schools of thought
emerged that influenced the various design scholars (Auernhammer & Roth, 2022;
Cross, 1982; Humphrey, 1963; Rowe, 1987). These schools of thought are (1) struc-
turalism (e.g., information-processing), (2) functionalism (i.e., pragmatism),
(3) Gestalt psychology, as well as other schools including constructivism. Research
from a structuralist perspective, as developed by Selz (1922), de Groot (1965), Paul
M. Fitts, and George Miller, informed design scholars, such as Eastman (1969,
1970), Simon (1969), Akin (1978), Maher and Poon (1996), and many others. The
functionalist, as developed by Dewey (1933, 1938) in combination with Gestalt
psychology, in particular, Wertheimer (1945), informed the work by Schön
(Bamberger & Schön, 1983; Schön, 1963, 1983, 1992). Similarly, Maslow (1943,
1954, 1956) combined the dynamism from functionalism (e.g., Dewey, 1933;
Dewey, 1938; James, 1909) and holisticness from Gestalt psychology (e.g., Gold-
stein, 1934; Koffka, 1935; Wertheimer, 1945) into humanistic psychology, which
influenced the work at Stanford’s Design Division (Arnold, 1959; Auernhammer &
Roth, 2021; McKim, 1959, 1972; Wilde, 1972). The combination of functionalism
from Peirce (1871, 1923) and ideas from structuralism, as discussed by Popper
(1961a, 1961b, 1962), informed March (1976) on abductive reasoning in architec-
tural design. These different schools of thought provide different nuances in thinking
in design.
3.2.1 Design Cognition as Information-Processing
At Carnegie Mellon University, Allen Newell, Herbert Simon, and John C. Shaw
(Newell et al., 1958; Newell & Simon, 1965, 1972) and Charles Eastman (1969,
1970) examined human problem-solving and intuitive design processes through an
information-processing perspective. The perspective is based on research by Selz
(1922), who outlined productive thinking as creating complexes (i.e., schemata) of
purpose-means relationships (Zweckmittelverbinding). Interestingly, this theory was
criticized as a “machine theory” by Benary (1923), which informed the research that
sparked the field of artificial intelligence in the 1950s. The information-processing
theory became a dominant perspective in design cognition, resulting in various
descriptive design processes and models (e.g., Akin, 1978; Dorst & Cross, 2001;
Eastman, 1970; Maher & Poon, 1996; Simon, 1969; Ullman et al., 1988).
A new solution is determined by creating a purpose-means (i.e., problem-
solution) relationship complex through direct, reproductive, or anticipative produc-
tive thinking (Selz, 1922). Otto Selz’s student Adriaan de Groot (1965) applied these
principles of productive thinking to chess players, which in turn informed the work
by Herb Simon (1981) and colleagues. This thinking in design developed further into
the problem space search and solution space, means-end analysis, and problem-
solution coevolution (Dorst & Cross, 2001; Maher & Poon, 1996; Simon, 1969).
Such design thinking is predominantly based on computational models. Information-
processing that incorporate specific heuristic strategies (i.e., design methods) are
made transparent, reducing thinking into a systematic methodology, as discussed
above. Another perspective on the thinking of designers is grounded in formal logic
and the philosophy of science.
3.2.2 Abduction as Reasoning in Design
In The Architecture of Form, March (1976) discusses the logic of design. March
(1976) separates the goal of science from the objective of design. In science, the
major goal is to establish a general law or theory, which requires deduction and
inductive reasoning to generalize, as discussed by Popper (1961a, 1961b, 1962). The
objective in design is to realize a particular case or design which requires deduction
and productive inference as to particularize (i.e., a design hypothesis of a particular
instance produced from a general notion and specific data) (March, 1976). The logic
of design relates to the work by Peirce (1871, 1923) abductive reasoning.
March (1976) develops the logic of design in the context of Alexander (1964)
design patterns, trying to develop a logic that resolves the subjective value determi-
nation of patterns. In doing so, March (1976) separates deductive or analytical
reasoning (i.e., prediction of effects; proof that something must be), inductive or
synthetic reasoning (i.e., the discovery of laws; shows that something actually is
operative), and abductive or productive reasoning (i.e., the discovery of causes;
merely suggests that something may be). Productive reasoning is the inference of a
case (i.e., a design) from rule and result, which is the only logic operation that
introduces a new idea or injects new values (March, 1976). These three types of
reasoning provide the iterative design process of production (i.e., create), deduction
(i.e., predict), and induction (i.e., evaluate) (PDI). Each productive inference is
value-laden. A substantial challenge is that designers’ underlying values determine
the new design, requiring ethical considerations (March, 1976; McKim, 1959;
Papanek, 1973). Furthermore, March (1976) outlines that the logic of design in
relation to Bayesian probability and decision theory resolves a whole range of issues
Christopher Alexander has neglected in the value judgment of patterns. March
(1976) concludes that the important aspect of his argument is that there are two
types of synthetic reasoning, inductive, related to evaluation, and productive, related
to analogy. However, March (1976, p. 28) emphasizes that the chapter was written
“in the spirit of opening up discussion rather than laying down a definite statement.
Consequently, there are many ragged ends to the argument.” Nevertheless, the
abductive reasoning argument has been put forward as thinking or reasoning in
design (Dorst, 2011; Roozenburg, 1993).
3.2.3 Design Thinking as Gestalt Creation
A more elaborated perspective from psychology is the thinking of designers as

Gestalt creations. The Gestalt1 perspective influenced many design scholars (Alex-
ander, 1962, 1964; Arnold, 1954, 1959; Goldschmidt, 1991; Krippendorff, 1989;
McKim, 1959, 1972, 1980a, 1980c, circa McKim, 1968; Rittel, 1987; Schön, 1963,
1992; Tversky, 2006; Wilde, 1972). Unlike the information-processing perspective,
the Gestalt perspective emphasizes the direct experience of situational circumstances
in perception, imagination, thinking, and social interactions (Arnheim, 1954, 1965,
1969; Duncker, 1935, 1945; Koffka, 1935; Köhler, 1925, 1929; Lewin, 1936, 1946,
1947, 1951; Maier, 1930; Perls, 1947; Perls et al., 1951; Wertheimer, 1922, 1923,
1945). This perspective influenced the developments in humanistic psychology that
sparked the human potential movement (Hartman, 1959a, 1959b; Maslow, 1943,
1954, 1956, 1959, 1962, 1971; Rogers, 1954). At the center of the human potential
movement was the Esalen Institute, where Gestalt therapy was taught through
experimental exercises (Callahan, 2009; Perls et al., 1951). Bob McKim and other
faculties established the Stanford-Esalen program, bringing these principles into
experiential exercises in design education (McKim et al., 1967). For example,
Doug Wilde and Bernie Roth established the Peopledynamics Lab that taught the
various Gestalt learnings in design education (Wilde, 1972). Similarly, Rittel (1987),
in his outline of the evolution of the problem as a whole through new learnings and
Krippendorff (1989) product semantics, essential in making sense of things, is
grounded in Gestalt considerations (Arnheim, 1967, 1969; Koffka, 1935; Lewin,
1936, 1946; Wertheimer, 1922, 1923, 1945).
A new Gestalt (i.e., schema) is created by separating a Gestalt from its environ-
ment (i.e., figure-ground) and by recognizing the situation as a new whole in seeing,
imagining, and expressing, which is different from the sum of its parts (Alexander,
1962; Koffka, 1912, 1935; Köhler, 1947; McKim, 1972; Wertheimer, 1922, 1923,
1945). Wertheimer (1945) described productive thinking from a Gestalt perspective
as experiencing tension or gap (i.e., need and ambiguous situation), which resolves
with perceiving, imagining, and creating/enacting a harmonious or clear Gestalt.
Such productive thinking incorporates recentering by perceiving the situation as a
new whole. Perceiving the whole situation from various perspectives, such as others
(i.e., empathy2), overcomes stereotype vision (Arnold, 1954; McKim, 1972;
Wertheimer, 1945). However, designers too often have premature closure, seeing
only stereotypes, not seeing the obvious, and not perceiving concepts in new ways
(Arnold, 1959; McKim, 1972; Schön, 1963; Wertheimer, 1945). Such productive
thinking occurs in music compositions, visual art, mathematics, science, conceptual
design in architecture, visual design, product semantics, social interactions,
1
The German term for design is “gestaltung” and for designing is “gestalten.”
2
The psychologist Edward Titchener, who studied in Wilhelm Wundt’s laboratory, introduced the
term “empathy” in 1909 into the English language as the translation of the German term
“einfühlung.”
everyday problem-solving, and sensemaking (Arnheim, 1954, 1965, 1969, 1993;

Bamberger & Schön, 1983; Duncker, 1935, 1945; Goldschmidt, 1991;
Krippendorff, 1989; Köhler, 1925; Lewin, 1946, 1947; Schön, 1992; von Ehrenfels,
1890; Wertheimer, 1945). It is not just in the domain of “the designers” (Rittel,
1987). This embodied thinking in design is not interdependent of direct experience
and situational circumstances. People’s abilities, practices, and circumstances are
essential for design thinking.
3.3 Practice-Based Design Thinking (Embodied Thinking)
Practice-based design thinking is grounded in somatic practice and situational

circumstances (i.e., embodied thinking). Embodied thinking emphasizes that the
psyche is inseparable from acting with a physical body within the total environment
in which that body is immersed (Arnold, 1959; Gibson, 2014; Goldstein, 1934). In
Chap. 1 of Experiences in Visual Thinking, McKim (1972, 1980a) emphasizes that
“[p]sychic (mental) functions cannot be readily separated from somatic (bodily)
ones.” Design thinking (i.e., productive thinking in design) is inseparable from
design practice and vice versa. Thinking, seeing, imagining, and expressing incor-
porate human needs, abilities, values, emotions, communication, and collaboration
which emerge within interactions with the natural (i.e., materials and living organ-
isms) and cultural environment (i.e., people) (Auernhammer & Roth, 2021; Gold-
stein, 1934; Hartman, 1959b; Maslow, 1954, 1962; McKim, 1972). For example,
McKim (1972, p. 63) expressed that seeing depends on the whole being as follows:
Seeing is encountering reality with all of your being. To encounter reality deeply, you cannot
leave part of yourself behind. All of your senses, your emotions, your intellect, your
language-making abilities - each contributes to seeing fully.
Design cannot be simply “used” or “implemented” by following a recipe or

cookbook of various methods. For example, need-sensitivity or empathy, the capa-
bility to “feel into,” is not a design or qualitative research method. It is a human
capability that is dependent on situational circumstances. There are various practice-
based design thinking perspectives that emphasize the importance of experiential
learning, including variation-selection (i.e., technological development), meaning-
making (i.e., making sense through things), and comprehensive design (i.e., many
thinking languages).
3.3.1 Practice-Based Design Thinking as Variation-Selection
The first practice-based design thinking is creating technology that is grounded in

engineering practice (Vincenti, 1990, 1994a). Engineers deal with the physical and
technical world in which practice-based design thinking follows a variation-selection
learning model (Vincenti, 1990). This model is based on the evolutionary
“epistemological ideas of Campbell (1987) and their initial application to technical

design and development by Constant II (1980).” Vincenti (1994b, p. 575) describes
this model as follows:
This model views novelty both in artifacts and in the knowledge underlying them as coming
about through [the] introduction of candidate variants, for which the outcome cannot help
but be unforeseeable to some degree, followed by selective retention of those that work best
in some appropriate sense.
This variation-selection learning model requires testing prototypes through var-

ious strategies, such as in sequence and parallel prototyping within the circum-
stances of operation (Camburn et al., 2017; Vincenti, 1994b). Each variation is
examined against various criteria, such as performance, weight, initial cost, reliabil-
ity, and maintenance, to consider various trade-offs (Vincenti, 1994b). Vincenti
(1994b) explains, in the case of the “Northrop anomaly,” that the performance
advantages of retraction could be learned only through the (direct) experience of
the performance of the prototype in context. Such practice-based design thinking
focuses on technical aspects (e.g., functionality) in context.
3.3.2 Practice-Based Design Thinking as Sensemaking
Another practice-based design thinking is making sense of products by making them

understandable or meaningful to people based on product semantics (Krippendorff,
1989; Rittel, 1987). This perspective is grounded in Gestalt psychology, which is
sharply differentiated from the information-processing perspective. Krippendorff
(1989) expressed this design thinking as follows:
The criteria that govern choices of this kind [i.e., sense making] show little resemblance with
those of problem solving or representational uses. Means and ends are indistinguishable
here, and objects and what they mean become one. The criteria are based more on gestalt
considerations and are concerned chiefly with how users weave their own identity into the
symbolic fabric of society. [emphasis in bold added]
This practice-based design thinking focuses on the symbolic qualities of human-

made artifacts, including shapes and forms, colors, and the organization of inter-
faces, to make sense of artifacts for people in their cognitive, social, and cultural
contexts of use and application (Krippendorff, 1989, 2006; Krippendorff & Butter,
1984). The study of product semantics is the study of the meanings that emerge in
human interactions with objects (Krippendorff, 1989). This practice-based design
thinking requires direct experience with artifacts in context. For example, designers
create the artifact and observe the product semantics of form (i.e., seen as) and
meaning (i.e., sensemaking) by the user in a specific context, which informs the
designer in the creation of the artifact (Krippendorff & Butter, 1984). This practice-
based design thinking emphasizes that designers are making an “argument” (e.g., the
presentation of a specific form) that evolves through the various conversations with
diverse stakeholders (Krippendorff, 2006).
Victor Papanek (1973), a student of John Arnold, expresses a fundamental

challenge of this design thinking in Designing for the Real-World: Designers too
often make sense of things from an egocentric position with auto-therapeutic
(unconscious) intents at the expense of spectators and/or consumers. Similarly,
Buckminster Fuller (1963) criticized the overemphasis on aspects such as forms
and colors in industrial design practices in Ideas and Integrities and emphasized the
need for a comprehensive design practice.
3.3.3 Practice-Based Comprehensive Design Thinking
The last practice-based design thinking is based on the idea that “design is the
response to a human need” (McKim, 1959). Design as a response to a human need is
not focused on technology per se or merely reinterpreting existing artifacts for
different identities and lifestyles. It focuses on resolving the tensions (i.e., needs)
of people and other living organisms that arise from the natural and cultural
environment through designed artifacts, interactions, and environments (Arnold,
1959; Goldstein, 1934; Maslow, 1954; McKim, 1959; Wertheimer, 1945). It follows
Wertheimer’s (1945) productive thinking from tensions to harmony. Importantly, it
is not about harmonizing the ego needs of designers (i.e., self-expression needs or
recognition needs) (McKim, 1959). Therefore, designers are required to develop the
sensibility for human needs and communication and collaboration abilities (McKim,
1972, 1980a, 1980b; Wilde, 1972). They must communicate the artifact (often as a
prototype) in context to people in need to observe if it resolves the tension. This
direct experience is similar to the necessary observations in the variation-selection
and sensemaking practice (Krippendorff, 1989; Vincenti, 1994a). McKim (1959)
outlined three different types of people’s needs for which the designer needs to
design: (1) physical needs, (2) intellectual needs, and (3) emotional (i.e., profound)
needs. While physical needs (i.e., functionality and useability) are satisfied by
engineering and ergonomics, intellectual needs require making (visually) sense of
things (i.e., product semantics for meaning) (McKim, 1959, 1972). Designing for
emotional needs involves inventing new designs (i.e., artifacts) that resolve people’s
profound tension or needs caused by, e.g., new technology or changing social values
(i.e., trends) (McKim, 1980b). Resolving such needs is about making a difference in
the world. For example, the introduction of Apple’s iTunes in 2001 resolved the
tension for artists (i.e., the profound need of financial well-being) and executives of
music production companies (i.e., the profound need of company survival) caused
by the human behavior of downloading illegally songs enabled by the platform
Napster.
Designing for the whole person and various groups (i.e., physical, intellectual,
and emotional needs) requires comprehensive design.3 Comprehensive design brings
3
The term comprehensive design was introduced by Buckminster Fuller and adapted by John
Arnold (1954).
together capabilities from science, engineering, fine arts, psychology, and manage-
ment and therefore abilities in all thinking languages (e.g., visual, mathematical,
emotional, kinesthetic, and verbal languages) (Adams, 1974; McKim, 1972). Other
areas of comprehensive design include values (e.g., need-sensitivity awareness),
attitudes (e.g., questioning and observing), and creative confidence, which is
achieved by overcoming various blocks (e.g., perceptual, emotional, and cultural
blocks) (Adams, 1974; Arnold, 1954, 1959; Auernhammer & Roth, 2021; Kelley &
Kelley, 2013; McKim, 1959, 1972, 1980a, 1980b, 1980c). For example, McKim
(circa 1968, p. 3) discussed the effects of diverse design languages on design
thinking as follows:
Before giving examples of the effect of language specialization upon design thinking, let
me first develop a larger context for the discussion. There are, of course, many languages of
design: Each language has its own informational content. Design languages can be arranged
in a hierarchy, from the abstract to the real, as shown in Figure 2 [see Figure 2 in this article].
Each design language, on the hierarchy from abstract to real, can play a special role in
furthering the design process [i.e., internal process through imagination and rapid visuali-
zation]. The designer[s] who limit [themselves] to the one or two design languages [they] use
for communication, thereby limits [their] thinking to the specialized information contained
in these languages. [emphasis in bold added]
Each language and related abilities provide an essential design or visual thinking
aspect, as illustrated in Fig. 2. For example, abstract visual analogs make abstract
ideas visible, while orthographic projection makes spatial relationships visible and
measurable. The importance of mockups, working prototypes, and appearance
models to design thinking is often underestimated. Quickly executed cardboard
mockups can enormously stimulate the imagination because direct, multisensory
inputs are literally “food for thought” (McKim, circa 1968).
McKim (circa 1968) emphasizes the importance of fluency in different languages
as follows:
[T]he designer who lacks fluency in the most concrete, three-dimensional languages of
design often suffers a kind of imaginative malnutrition which I call ‘abstractionitis’. The
designer's predecessor, the craftsman, fed [her/]his senses in the pursuit of [her/]his craft.
The ‘paper designer’ lacks this essential sustenance, and the quality of [her/]his design
thinking often shows it.
To facilitate the development of students’ ability of imagination (mind’s eye),

Bob McKim, Nelson van Judah, and several students developed the Imaginarium, as
shown in Fig. 3. The Imaginarium is a 16-foot (4.88 m) diameter geodesic dome
“designed to enable you to experience the content and infinite inner space of your
imagination” (McKim).
Inside the Imaginarium, underneath the platform on which people lied down, was
an array of audiovisual equipment: slide projects, a dissolver unit, and a 16 mm
movie projector, which sends imagery to a 45° mirror, reflecting it to the spherical
lens, where it is in turn expanded to the ceiling of the dome (McKim, n.d.). An audio-
recorded narration and other objects (e.g., an apple) facilitated the experience of
imagining.
In addition to training the abstract to concrete thinking languages and related
abilities, Arnold (1959, 1962a), McKim (1959, 1972, 1980a, 1980b, 1980c, circa
Fig. 2 Design languages: abstract to real—adapted from the original by McKim (circa 1968)
Fig. 3 Bob McKim in front

of the Imaginarium—a
geometric dome to
experience and develop the
ability of inner image
(imagination, mind’s eye).
The image was taken by
Jose Mercado
Fig. 4 The many languages

and human qualities of
comprehensive design
thinking
1968), Adams (1974, 2019), Roth (1973, 2015), Wilde (1972), Kahn (2005),
(Molenkamp & Center, 1989), Faste (1987, 1994), (Sheppard et al., 2009), (Dym
et al., 2005; Leifer & Steinert, 2011), (Kelley & Kelley, 2013), and many others
developed and taught various experiential exercises for students to experience
comprehensive design thinking from many diverse perspectives. For example,
encounter groups provide experiential learning of group dynamics, developing
creative collaborative abilities. These experiential practices were led by Bernie
Roth and Doug Wilde in a class called Peopledynamics Lab (Wilde, 1972), which
was heavily influenced by Gestalt therapy by Perls (Perls, 1947; Perls et al., 1951).
Such experimental enabled group dynamics to creatively collaborate with many
diverse people.
These experiential exercises aim to develop the necessary human qualities in
design, such as attitudes, abilities, sensitivities, values, confidence, thinking lan-
guages, practices, and various techniques required for this comprehensive design
(Auernhammer & Roth, 2021). This practice-based comprehensive design thinking
focuses on designers as people and their direct experiences and embodied thinking.
It requires fluency in approach (e.g., different thinking languages, creative collabo-
ration, and diverse perspectives/experiences), diversity in abilities (e.g., seeing,
imagining, and expressing), and human values (e.g., attitudes and sensitivities) to
respond to the specific situational circumstances (Adams, 2019; Arnold, 1959;
Auernhammer & Roth, 2021; McKim, 1959, 1980a, 1980b). Figure 4 illustrates
the many domains, languages, and human qualities of the practice-based compre-
hensive design thinking.
The practice-based comprehensive design thinking aims to resolve the tensions
(i.e., needs) inherent in the natural and sociocultural environment (i.e., performance,
meaning, and profound tensions), which is an ongoing, never-ending activity of
evolving Gestalt (Arnold, 1959; Auernhammer & Roth, 2021; McKim, 1959; Rittel
& Webber, 1973; Wertheimer, 1945).
4 Implication and Contribution
In this chapter, we show that the widely used term “design thinking” is understood
and used from diverse perspectives. Many scholars and practitioners refer to the
umbrella construct “design thinking” without clarifying which perspective of design
thinking they are referring to. This chapter elucidates some of the substantial
differences and nuances of these different perspectives on design thinking. Method-
ology views design thinking as independent of people’s abilities and situational
circumstances. Similarly, perspectives of thinking of designers view design thinking
as mental activities, often independent of embodied activities and practices. Differ-
ent schools of thought provide substantial nuances in the understanding of thinking
in design. These considerable nuances view design thinking as either determining
purpose-means relationships (i.e., information-processor), productive reasoning
(i.e., the logic of design), or creating a harmonious Gestalt (i.e., productive thinking
through recentering) (Peirce, 1923; Selz, 1922; Wertheimer, 1922, 1923, 1945). The
practice-based, embodied thinking in design emphasizes direct experience that is
dependent upon human potentialities (e.g., abilities, attitudes, and values) and
situational circumstances (e.g., performance, meaning, profound needs, and emerg-
ing impact) (Krippendorff, 2006; McKim, 1980a; Vincenti, 1990). Different prac-
tices, such as technical prototyping for physical performance, detailed representation
for social identity and meaning, and comprehensive practices to respond to people’s
profound needs, require different thinking languages. These differences in the
understanding of design thinking have several implications for research, education,
and practice.
4.1 Implication for Research
The schema on the different perspectives on design thinking (Fig. 1) allows scholars
and researchers to refer to specific types of design thinking, going beyond referring
to the all-encompassing umbrella term. Design thinking as a methodology (e.g., a
universal recipe) is a common perspective discussed in nontraditional design fields,
such as management (Elsbach & Stigliani, 2018; Micheli et al., 2019). The
designers’ thinking is in the domain of psychology, which design researchers
embraced and contextualized (Auernhammer & Roth, 2022; Rowe, 1987).
Practice-based design thinking interlinks thinking with design qualities, such as
specific practices and situational circumstances through direct experiences
(Auernhammer & Roth, 2021; Krippendorff, 2006; McKim, 1972, 1980b, circa
1968; Vincenti, 1990). Each perspective incorporates different research questions.
Research on design thinking as methodology examines the “implementation” of a set
of methods, often used in workshop formats, and its potential outcomes (Magistretti
et al., 2020). Research on design thinking as the thinking of designers focuses on the
cognitive activities of designers, which is often examined through experimental
designs in laboratory settings (Bamberger & Schön, 1983; Lawson, 1979). The
results are interpreted through different schools of thought, such as an
information-processing and Gestalt psychology perspective, producing different
theories, which inform different practice. Research in design thinking as a practice
investigates the various human qualities, such as values, attitudes, abilities, and
practices necessary for specific design practices, e.g., variation-selection model,
meaning-making, or comprehensive design. From this perspective, many unan-
swered questions could provide further explanations of the fundamental human
activity of designing inventions that resolve the profound tensions in nature and
society. Research should investigate human aspects, such as the influence of
designers’ values on design outcomes, designers’ sensitivity to needs in relation to
new inventions, and abilities to collaborate and the resolution of need-tensions of
different groups. Such research provides further insights into enabling people’s
experiences related to the human qualities of comprehensive design.
4.2 Implications for Practice and Education
Each of the different perspectives on design thinking emphasizes different practices.

The methodology perspective emphasizes the facilitation and enactment of methods.
The methodological perspective makes the design process transparent for diverse
people to contribute to specific activities. However, such cookbook approaches are
not without substantial limitation and criticism (Alexander, 1971a, 1971b; Jones,
1977, 1991; McKim, 1972, 1980c). A cookbook approach may or may not allow an
adequate response to the situation and may not include adequate abilities and
attitudes. The thinking of designers focuses on developing specific heuristic strate-
gies to make design decisions and solve problems, develop knowledge systems to
judge the value of a design, and develop the seeing, imagining, and expressing
abilities for creating Gestalts (Lawson, 1979; March, 1976; McKim, 1980a). How-
ever, thinking is not independent of human qualities, such as practice and abilities
(Arnold, 1959; Auernhammer & Roth, 2021; McKim, 1980a). The practice-based
design thinking emphasizes the development of these human qualities, such as
prototyping practices to select the superior variation, meaning-making through
visual abilities, different thinking languages, need-sensitivity, and collaborative
abilities to respond to profound tensions in nature and society (Arnold, 1959;
Krippendorff, 2006; McKim, 1959, 1980a, 1980b, circa 1968; Vincenti, 1990). As
John Arnold (1959) and Buckminster Fuller (1969, 1981) highlighted, developing
the human potentialities essential for the practice-based comprehensive design
thinking is imperative for resolving the tension inherent in today’s global challenges.
Acknowledgments In loving memory of Bob McKim, Jim Adams, and Doug Wilde, who
recently passed away.
In memory of some of the most important design practitioners, educators, and researchers
(Table 2) that profoundly influenced our understanding of design and its related thinking.
Table 2 In memory of some of the pioneers in design and its related thinking
Name University
Klaus Krippendorff Mar. Oct, 2022 University of Pennsylvania
21, 1932
John Chris Jones Oct. 7, 1927 Aug. University of Manchester
13, 2022 Open University
Robert H. McKim Sept. Jul. 17, 2022 Stanford University
24, 1926
Christopher Alexander Oct. 4, 1936 Mar. University of California, Berkeley
17, 2022
James L. Adams Mar. 6, 1934 Jan. 15, 2022 Stanford University
Douglas Wilde Aug. 1, 1929 Oct. 28, 2021 Stanford University
Ömer Akin June Mar. Carnegie Mellon University
30, 1946 13, 2020
Walter G. Vincenti April Oct. 11, 2019 Stanford University
20, 1917
Tomás Maldonado April Nov. Politecnico di Milano
25, 1922 26, 2018 Hochschule für Gestaltung Ulm
Princeton’s School of Architecture
Lionel John March Jan. 26, 1934 Feb. University of Cambridge
20, 2018 University of California, Los
Angeles
Sara little Turnbull Sept. Sept. 42,015 Stanford grad. School of Business
21, 1917
Matthew Kahn May June Stanford University
29, 1928 24, 2013
William Moggridge June Sept. 8, 2012 Royal College of Art
25, 1943 Stanford University
Bruce L. Archer Nov. May Royal College of Art
22, 1922 16, 2005
Rolf Faste Sept. 6, 1943 Mar. 6, 2003 Syracuse University
Stanford University
Herbert Simon June Feb. 9, 2001 Carnegie Mellon University
15, 1916
Victor J. Papanek Nov. Jan. 10, 1998 California Institute of the Arts
22, 1923 Kansas City art Institute
University of Kansas
Donald Schön Sept 19, 1930 Sept. Massachusetts Institute of
13, 1997 Technology
Horst Rittel July 14, 1930 July 9, 1990 University of California, Berkeley
Hochschule für Gestaltung Ulm
Richard Buckminster July 12, 1895 July 1, 1983 Harvard University
Fuller
John E. Arnold Mar. Sept. Massachusetts Institute of
14, 1913 28, 1963 Technology
Stanford University
. . . and so many more (as this list only reflects people who published in English)
Additionally, we are grateful for the support by the Hasso Plattner Design Thinking Research
program, in particular Larry Leifer, Christoph Meinel, and Hasso Plattner. We also thank the School
of Engineering for the permission to reprint the picture of Bob McKim in front of the Imaginarium.
We would like to thank the wider design and design research community for the support and many
conversations with countless individuals. For the many insights on the developments of the
comprehensive design education and practices at Stanford University, we want to thank Dave
Beach, David Kelley, Larry Leifer, Sheri Sheppard, Bill Verplank, Jim Fadiman, Bill Scott, Craig
Milroy, Gayle Curtis, Steven McCarthy, Michael Barry, Ade Mabogunje, Carissa Carter, Bill
Burnett, Dennis and Brendan Boyle, Louis Hsiao, Kathy Davies, George Kembel, Perry Klebahn,
Haakon Faste, Mike Nuttall, Jim Yurchenko, Pam Greene, Linda Kuo, Bill Potts, Peter
Dreissigacker, Jerry Manock, and many more. For input on John E. Arnold, we would like to
thank William Clancey and Subarna Basnet. Many thanks go to Jill Grinager and Sharon Nemeth
for their support.
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NeuroDesign: Greater than the Sum of Its
Parts
Jan Auernhammer, Jennifer Bruno, Alexa Booras, Claire McIntyre,

Daniel Hasegan, and Manish Saggar
Abstract This chapter outlines the recent developments, such as neuroscience on

design, design neurocognition, and NeuroDesign, in the intersection of neuroscience
and design. This intersection of diverse disciplines, including psychology, neuro-
physiology, engineering, interaction design, and architecture, provides various
opportunities and challenges to advance areas, such as design thinking,
neurotechnology, embodied artificial intelligence (AI), and human-centered
AI. We outline some of the opportunities and challenges with several examples,
such as methodological and technological developments, necessary to develop this
promising pan-disciplinary field. We emphasize the importance of educating
researchers (i.e., NeuroDesign Researchers) and practitioners (neurodesigner/engi-
neers) to advance this intersection toward a new area that could be greater than the
sum of its parts.
1 Introduction
In recent years, neuroscientists examined brain activity in the context of design, and
at the same time, design researchers employed neuroscience instruments to examine
the thinking of designers (Balters et al., 2023; Ohashi et al., 2022; Pidgeon et al.,
2016). For neuroscientists, design provides an exciting context to examine various
psychological and cognitive phenomena, such as figural or visual creativity. From a
design perspective, neuroscience instruments and methodologies provide new
opportunities to investigate design thinking/cognition. Adapting research
J. Auernhammer (✉)
Center for Design Research, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Stanford University,
Stanford, CA, USA
University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
J. Bruno · A. Booras · C. McIntyre · D. Hasegan · M. Saggar
Center for Interdisciplinary Brain Sciences Research, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral
Sciences, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA
198 J. Auernhammer et al.
methodology from psychology, such as the think-aloud protocol and protocol

analysis, allowed advancing the research on design thinking over the last half-
century (Duncker, 1945; Eastman, 1970; Ericsson & Simon, 1998; Lawson, 1972).
Neuroscientific approaches and instruments provide a similar opportunity to further
advance research and an understanding of design thinking.
However, there are several challenges to bringing these two cultures to meet
productively (Auernhammer et al., 2021). The highly reductionist approach in
neuroscience contrasts with the holistic or situational approach in design.
Researchers need to make tradeoffs in their designs to either increase the spatial
resolution of brain scans or to increase ecological validity, i.e., the natural environ-
ment in which designers design. However, a pan-disciplinary intersection of
NeuroDesign provides the opportunity to go beyond current tradeoffs and
approaches. Designing new technologies, such as nonintrusive near-infrared optical
technology, and developing new analysis techniques provide opportunities to inves-
tigate design thinking and advance neuroscience approaches (Jöbsis, 1977; Maki
et al., 1995; Saggar et al., 2018). Such technological and methodological develop-
ments need both the “neuro” (e.g., neuroscience) and “design” (e.g., engineering
design) perspectives, creating a field that is greater than the sum of its parts.
In this chapter, we outline some developments, challenges, and opportunities at
the intersection of neuroscience and design. We believe that by fostering researchers
that are at the intersection of both neuro (e.g., psychology, cognitive science, and
anthropology) and design (e.g., engineering, product design, and computer science)
disciplines, we can advance and contribute to both fields in new ways. For example,
a better understanding of design thinking through neuroscience on design and design
neurocognition provides the opportunity to advance design education. In this way,
education advances design practices, which, in turn, results in more advanced
products and services. More advanced, designed, and developed neuroscientific
instruments allow new, meaningful investigations of the human brain. Therefore,
this innovative advancement of NeuroDesign is autopoietic (Auernhammer, 2012;
Auernhammer & Hall, 2014). A better understanding of design thinking and its
practice leads to better neurotechnological products, which in turn helps investigate
design thinking.
2 What Is NeuroDesign Research?
NeuroDesign research is the unique combination of neuroscience and design

research and practice. Similar to developments in neuroeconomics (Glimcher &
Rustichini, 2004), NeuroDesign bridges disciplines of “neuro,” such as biology,
neurophysiology, neurology, phenomenology, and psychology, and “design,” such
as engineering, computer science, interaction, product, and visual design, as illus-
trated in Fig. 1.
The intersection between “neuro” and “design” has existed for several decades.
Early research on creativity and design thinking helped translate many psychological
NeuroDesign: Greater than the Sum of Its Parts 199
Fig. 1 NeuroDesign: The

pan-disciplinary intersection
of neuroscience and design
theories and principles into design practices (Arnold, 1959; Harman et al., 1966;
Lawson, 1972; McKim, 1972). Sparked by the work of John Arnold (1954, 1959,
1962a, 1962b), Stanford’s Design Division (today Design Group1) has a long
tradition of integrating psychological insights, principles, and theories into design
education and practices to develop students’ potential (Adams, 2019; Arnold, 1959;
Auernhammer & Roth, 2021; Fadiman, 1986; McKim, 1972; Wilde, 1972). Courses
such as the ME101 Visual Thinking, Peopledynamics Lab, or ME211 Psychology of
Design take an experimental approach to bring neuroscience and psychological
insights into design education and practices (Bulletin, 2022; McKim, 1980; Wilde,
1972).
One of the first scholars who bridged the two disciplines through an engineering
and neurological approach was Larry Leifer at Stanford University in the 1960s. In
his Ph.D. research on the Characterization of single muscle fiber discharge during
voluntary isometric contraction of the biceps brachii muscle in man, supervised by
Leon Cohen (neurology), James Bliss (electrical engineering), and Donald Wilson
(biological sciences), Leifer (1969) investigated neurophysiological questions in the
intersection of “neuro” and “design.” More recent developments in NeuroDesign at
Stanford University have emerged in the Hasso Plattner Design Thinking Research
(HPDTR) program from neuroscientific research on creative thinking in design. The
collaborative efforts at Stanford between Manish Saggar and Alan Reiss from the
neurosciences and Grace Hawthorne from the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design
(dschool) produced work investigating figural creativity and the effects of design
thinking training on creative capacity (Saggar et al., 2016; Saggar et al., 2015).
Over the last two decades, research that utilized neuroscience instruments to
examine various cognitive tasks and activities in design has emerged at various
institutes (Alexiou et al., 2009; Jenkins et al., 2009; Petkar et al., 2009; Steinert &
Jablokow, 2013; Sun et al., 2013). Notably, Steinert and Jablokow (2013) aimed to
understand the relationships between engineering design behavior in situ, problem-
1
About the design group https://me.stanford.edu/groups/about-design-group.
Table 1 Opportunities of the pan-disciplinary intersection of NeuroDesign

Neuroscience NeuroDesign Design
Neuroscience Neuroscience on design and Design thinking research
design neurocognition (Balters
et al., 2023; Gero, 2019)
Neuroscience Creative design education (e.g., Design education
Saggar et al., 2016)
Neuroscience Neurotechnology (e.g., Maki Engineering
et al., 1995; Zhang et al., 2020)
Biology, neurosci- Embodied artificial intelligence Engineering (software, electronic,
ence, (e.g., Pfeifer & Iida, 2004) and mechanical), robotics, biome-
phenomenology chanics, material sciences
Neuroscience, Augmenting human capabilities Human-centered design, product
psychology (e.g., Flesher et al., 2021) design, software engineering
“Neuro”-disciplines Further interesting intersections “Design”-disciplines
solving preference, and real-time physiological data of engineers measured through

electroencephalogram (EEG). The study was executed in the design observatory at
Stanford’s Center for Design Research. The neuroscience research on creativity in
design within the HPDTR program sparked in 2018 the establishment of Stanford’s
NeuroDesign Research.2 NeuroDesign emerged as a global community that
included the Hasso Plattner Institute at the University of Potsdam (Germany),
Tokyo Tech (Japan), Beijing Normal University (China), and several other institu-
tions. The NeuroDesign symposia in Potsdam and California, and online seminars,
advanced the conversations in this intersection further (von Thienen et al., 2021). In
2019, the special issue on design neurocognition, by John Gero, Kosa Goucher-
Lambert, Tripp Shealy, and Yong Zeng, in the Design Science Journal provided
space for stimulating publications (Fu et al., 2019; Hay et al., 2019; Hu et al., 2021;
Shealy et al., 2020; Vieira et al., 2020; Zhao et al., 2020).
Most of the research in this intersection focuses on using neuroscience instru-
ments to examine cognitive tasks associated with the human activity of design
(Balters et al., 2023; Ohashi et al., 2022). This area of the neuroscience on design
and design neurocognition is one of the emerging fruitful spaces within the inter-
section of neuro and design. However, we emphasize that this pan-disciplinary
intersection of NeuroDesign contributes to various other developments.
NeuroDesign provides fruitful areas to advance our understanding of creativity,
design thinking, and creative design education, by developing technologies to
advance research and design products to augment human capabilities, as exemplified
in Table 1.
For the development of this pan-disciplinary intersection, we need to educate
researchers, e.g., through Ph.D. programs, who will develop new research method-
ologies and enable practitioners (e.g., neurodesigners/engineers) to create new
neurotechnologies (e.g., functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) and
2
Stanford’s NeuroDesign Research https://neurodesign.stanford.edu.
hyperscanning) and neuroproducts (e.g., mind-controlled robot arm). However, we

must first tackle several challenges to take advantage of these opportunities. This
means going beyond individual perspectives in the context of the other.
3 Opportunities and Challenges
Developing the intersection of NeuroDesign beyond the application of neuroscience

instruments to the design or the investigation of cognitive phenomena in the design
context provides new opportunities and incorporates several challenges.
3.1 Neuroscience and Design Research on Cognition

in Design
The two paradigms of “neuro” and “design” can be integrated in three

different ways: (1) neuroscientists investigating cognitive tasks in the context of
design (neuroscience of design), (2) design researchers using neuroscience instru-
ments to investigate design thinking/cognition (design neurocognition), and (3) the
development of new techniques and methodologies that advance both fields
(NeuroDesign).
3.1.1 Neuroscience of Design
The neuroscience of design applies a neuroscience approach to the investigation of

cognitive tasks, such as creativity, related to the fundamental human activity of
design. Various neuroscience scholars examined figural creativity, brain synchro-
nicity, and the generation and evaluation of ideas in the context of design (Ellamil
et al., 2012; Jia & Zeng, 2021; Mayseless et al., 2019; Saggar et al., 2015).
Depending on the neuroscientific instrument, these cognitive tasks are investigated
through specific experimental designs. For example, functional magnetic resonance
imaging (fMRI) studies primarily use experimental paradigms of two categories,
namely, (1) block design (BD) or (2) event-related design (Chee et al., 2003).
Figure 2 illustrates the investigation of creativity through a block design experimen-
tal paradigm.
While such block designs allow superior statistical power relative to event-related
designs, they reduce ecological validity. This is especially problematic when study-
ing design thinking, which cannot be broken into discrete cognitive tasks. For
example, sketching ideas and concepts is a fluent task in which one move informs
the next (Bamberger & Schön, 1983; Goldschmidt, 1991, 2014; McKim, 1972;
Schön, 1992). In such cases, event-related paradigms can be useful.
Fig. 2 Prototypical block design
The main idea of an event-related design (e.g., stimuli and response) is the
separation of cognitive processes into discrete points in time (i.e., events), allowing
differentiation of their associated fMRI signals (Huettel, 2012). However, event-
related paradigms also present challenges. Designers often create their own stimuli
that occur naturally rather than act on provided stimuli. These created stimuli (e.g.,
sketches) are seen in new ways as the “situation talks back” (Bamberger & Schön,
1983; Goldschmidt, 1991; Schön, 1992; Wertheimer, 1922, 1923). Thus, the
intended experimental control and statistical power are diminished. NeuroDesign
provides an opportunity for the development of new research paradigms that allow
researchers to observe the neurocognitive activities of designers when they freely
engage in the design task.
3.1.2 Design Neurocognition
In contrast to neuroscience on design, design neurocognition is the application of

neuroscience instruments to investigate questions related to thinking/cognition asso-
ciated with design activities. Design neurocognition emerged from earlier develop-
ments in research on creativity and design cognition (Gero, 2019; von Thienen et al.,
2021). Design researchers examined neurocognitive activities in design through
instruments such as EEG, fMRI, and fNIRS (Alexiou et al., 2009; Balters et al.,
2023; Goucher-Lambert et al., 2018; Hay et al., 2019; Shealy et al., 2020; Vieira
et al., 2020). For example, Goucher-Lambert et al. (2018, 2019) used an fMRI block
design to investigate neural activity during successful and unsuccessful design
solution generation. Other researchers studied brain activation in the prefrontal
cortex of engineering students, while they utilized different design concept genera-
tion techniques such as TRIZ, brainstorming, and morphological analysis (Shealy
et al., 2020).
Many of the studies by design researchers utilized generalized linear modeling in
fMRI and fNIRS studies to identify brain activation within specific regions and
networks (Balters et al., 2023). However, such data analysis techniques model small
portions of an expected hemodynamic response. Integrating more advanced
techniques from neuroscience would advance research in design neurocognition

networks (Balters et al., 2023). /.
3.1.3 Pan-Disciplinary NeuroDesign
Our novel approach is the development of new research techniques and methods by
integrating perspectives and approaches from “neuro” and “design.” NeuroDesign
takes a pan-disciplinary standpoint to overcome some challenges inherent in
approaching the question from a neuroscience or design research perspective. We
are exemplifying this third perspective based on our current study.
We approached the investigation of creative and design thinking through an fMRI
study in free flow, overcoming the limitations of the block design and event-related
design paradigms to yield higher ecological validity. We also utilized the opportu-
nity to investigate brain activation underlying conceptual design activities (i.e.,
concept sketching) in free flow with high spatial and temporal resolution through a
multiband, multi-echo fMRI sequence. To study designers in a naturalistic setting
(i.e., free flow) a major challenge is the collection and analysis of the data. We
combined the perspectives, research methods, and analysis techniques from both
neuroscience and design fields, and specifically measured brain activity during a
free-flow design activities using sketching and screen capture video recording. Next,
we applied a post-scan Think Aloud Protocol and video analysis of the sketching
activities commonly employed in design thinking research (Eastman, 1970;
Goldschmidt, 1991, 2014; Lawson, 1972, 1979; Lloyd et al., 1995). Then, we
matched the fMRI-based brain activation time course with the time course of design
activities. Finally, we used a recently developed data-driven method the topological
data analysis to examine (1) the underlying manifold (or shape) of brain’s dynamical
organization and (2) the transitions between states over time at the level of individual
samples (or time frames) (Saggar et al., 2022; Saggar et al., 2018). We briefly present
our approach in Fig. 3 and preliminary results from one participant in Fig. 4.
Figure 4 shows how we can project the Mapper-generated manifold back to the
time domain, to extract and match moment-to-moment transitions in design activity
as well as activation in brain networks. This analysis could allow us to identify
which brain networks are associated with specific heuristic design activities, such as
a moment of insight or change in problem perspective.
Overall, using this fMRI study design, we aim to investigate transition states
between specific events that occurred naturally in the free flow, making it a novel
approach in both fields. This pan-disciplinary development of new research designs,
through such integrated data collection and analysis methods from diverse disci-
plines, is greater than the sum of its parts.
a Preprocessed fMRI data Data matrix Projection/Filtering Binning/Partial clustering Graph construction
Features (ROIs/voxels)
Time frames (TRs)

3D
bra
ov in vo
er
tim lume
e s
Cluster represents three

similar time frames
b Mapper graph for one Mapper graph annotated by Mapper graph annotated by
participant design thinking activity brain network activations
Idea creation
Idea sketching
Inspiration
Situation
perspective
Situation
outline
Selection of
perspective
Visual
Ventral attention
Somatomotor
Salience network
Retrospenial
Frontopariental
Dorsal attention
Default mode
CinguloOperuclar
Auditory
Fig. 3 (a) Topological data analysis (TDA)-based approach, Mapper, which allows extracting the
underlying low-dimensional manifold from spatiotemporally rich high-dimensional fMRI data at
the single participant level, without averaging or collapsing data at the outset (Saggar et al., 2022;
Saggar et al., 2018). (b) Mapper-generated manifold graph from one participant while engaged in
the free-flow design task. We also present annotations of the manifold graph based on the design
thinking activity and brain network activations
3.2 NeuroDesign to Advance Neurotechnology
Another fruitful area of NeuroDesign is the integration of neuroscience and product

design/engineering. The technological development of noninvasive infrared and
near-infrared topography allows researchers to examine changes in tissue blood
volume and the average hemoglobin-oxyhemoglobin equilibrium (Jöbsis, 1977;
Maki et al., 1995). For example, recording brain activity using near-infrared light
to measure and visualize the pattern of hemodynamic changes in the cerebral cortex
at the brain surface allowed neuroscientific research on infants in situ (Taga et al.,
2003). Designers and engineers need to design from a neuroscience perspective to
develop neurotechnologies and products (Maki, 2021). Designing from a neurosci-
ence perspective is greater than the sum of bringing an engineering perspective to
neuroscience and vice versa.
These technological advancements allowed various neuroscientists and design
researchers to investigate creative collaboration and sketching in design. For exam-
ple, the fNIRS allowed Kato et al. (2018) to examine blood oxygenation level
Fig. 4 Projecting annotated Mapper-generated graphs back to the time domain could allow us to
identify which brain networks are associated with different design activity states
dependent (BOLD) in the prefrontal cortex during different sketching tasks. Others
investigated the differences in prefrontal cortex activation in situ (Shealy et al., 2020;
Shealy & Gero, 2019). These technological advancements sparked new research
areas, such as interaction neuroscience, the neuroscience that investigates collabo-
ration (Baker et al., 2016; Cui et al., 2012; Liu et al., 2016; Mayseless et al., 2019;
Miller et al., 2019; Xie et al., 2020). For example, Mayseless et al. (2019) observed
neural synchronicity in creative design tasks using fNIRS and hyperscanning. This
pan-disciplinary approach to neuroproduct design and neurotechnology develop-
ment is a great opportunity to advance neuroscience research and product design.
NeuroDesign is greater than the sum of its parts.
3.3 Further Opportunities for NeuroDesign
The pan-disciplinary integration of the “neuro” and “design” disciplines incorpo-

rates several other productive areas, such as embodied and human-centered AI and
augmenting human capabilities through neurotechnology.
Artificial Intelligence NeuroDesign provides new opportunities in embodied AI,
such as visual and haptic perception (Ullman, 1986, 2019). For example,
neuromorphic engineering and resulting technologies represent a promising
approach for the creation of robots that can seamlessly integrate into society
(Bartolozzi et al., 2022). NeuroDesign research also adds an additional productive

perspective to other human-centered AI research approaches (Auernhammer, 2020).
Intelligent systems have the potential to profoundly impact people and society. For
example, a neurophysiological investigation through eye-tracking identified that
individuals’ selective information search rather than algorithmic curation of search
results might result in filter bubbles (Ekström et al., 2022). NeuroDesign research
has the potential to evaluate various aspects of impact on the human psyche,
behavior, and well-being, advancing practices in human-centered AI.
Augmentation of Human Capabilities Developing new neurotechnology through
a human-centered design approach provides opportunities to augment human capa-
bilities (Engelbart, 1962). For example, brain-computer interfaces allow voluntary
motor output from brain activity and the mimicry of sensory input from the skin of a
hand (Flesher et al., 2021; Gerven et al., 2009; Green & Kalaska, 2011). Such
NeuroDesign/engineering augments human capabilities, particularly for people
with physical disabilities and injuries. In doing so, the pan-disciplinary intersection
advances the field of design, such as the augmentation of human capabilities through
robotics (Burgar et al., 2000; Engelbart, 1962). The pan-disciplinary intersection of
NeuroDesign provides opportunities to integrate the cognitive disciplines of “neuro”
and engineering and making disciplines of “design” to develop intelligent systems
and advance human capabilities.
4 Developing the Pan-Disciplinary Field of NeuroDesign
In this chapter, we illustrated that neurodisciplines and design-disciplines together

form a prolific pan-disciplinary field that is greater than the sum of its parts.
Developing this pan-disciplinary field of NeuroDesign provides many opportunities
to advance design thinking, creativity, design education and practice, neuroscience
research, artificially intelligent systems, and technologies to augment human capa-
bilities. For such progress to happen, one of the main challenges is funding. For
sustainable development and advancement of NeuroDesign research, education, and
practice, large-scale funding (that spans several typical NSF/NIH grants) is required.
Philanthropic and foundation grants and the national institutes need to come together
to provide such critical funding.
4.1 NeuroDesign Research
To expand and develop NeuroDesign research, we envision pan-disciplinary

research centers incorporating Ph.D. research programs. These programs would
integrate classes from the neuro- and design-disciplines to develop the next gener-
ation of NeuroDesign researchers and engineers. Such efforts would incorporate
various creative design and research practices, inspiring the development of new
techniques, methodologies, and technologies. Bringing together practices and indi-
viduals in this way creates a pan-disciplinary research intersection greater than the
sum of its parts.
4.2 NeuroDesign Education and Practice
The NeuroDesign centers and programs bring together individuals from the human-
ities, sciences, and the arts to develop design practices for the next century. Over the
last century, psychology theories and principles advanced the ways we design today
(Adams, 2019; Auernhammer & Roth, 2021, 2022; Card et al., 1983; Chapanis et al.,
1949; Lawson, 2006; Norman, 1988). Similarly, advancements in NeuroDesign
provide new educational principles, allowing the development of new creative
design practices. Classes taught in collaborative teaching teams made up of neuro-
scientists, computer scientists, engineers, and creative designers allow for the devel-
opment of experts across different fields. Individuals such as Larry Leifer
(engineering design and neurology) from the late 1960s and young rising stars that
combine multiple fields bridge the domains of “neuro” and “design” in new and
meaningful ways. Training NeuroDesign researchers, designers, and engineers, who
creatively approach methodological and technological challenges, is an essential part
of advancing the pan-disciplinary intersection of NeuroDesign, creating a field that is
something other than the sum of its parts.
Acknowledgments We would like to thank the wider design and neuroscience community at
Stanford University, in particular Professor Emeritus Larry Leifer and Professor Allan Reiss for
their pioneering efforts in neurophysiology, neuroscience, engineering, and design.
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A Neuroscience Approach to Women
Entrepreneurs’ Pitch Performance: Impact
of Inter-Brain Synchrony on Investment
Decisions
Stephanie Balters, Sohvi Heaton, and Allan L. Reiss
Abstract Making a successful pitch to investors is vital to the success of startups.

Improving pitch performance in women entrepreneurs might be an effective mech-
anism to close gender disparity in entrepreneurship. Drawing on social neuroscience
studies, we present our scientific approach to shedding light on the role of “inter-
brain synchrony” between women entrepreneurs and investors in pitch performance.
Using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) hyperscanning, we will scan
40 entrepreneur-investor dyads who engage in naturalistic pitch events. We will
elucidate patterns of inter-brain synchrony that are associated with pitch perfor-
mance. Additionally, we will assess whether the sex composition of an entrepreneur-
investor dyad affects these associations. A better understanding of the inter-brain
signatures underlying successful (and unsuccessful) pitches will generate insights
into the design of novel and effective interventions that can help catalyze the success
of women entrepreneurs.
Potential Managerial Implications Elucidating the underlying inter-brain mecha-

nisms associated with strong pitch performance will generate practical implications
for women entrepreneurs. Our empirical findings will help craft more effective
behavioral interventions (e.g., belonging [Walton et al., 2020] and interpersonal
trust interventions [Balters et al., 2022, 2023]) and pitch training (e.g., Clingingsmith
et al., 2022) tailored to improve pitch performance of women entrepreneurs. The
results of this study can also inform the development of fNIRS neurofeedback
S. Balters (✉)
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
S. Heaton
Santa Clara University, Leavey School of Business, Santa Clara, CA, USA
A. L. Reiss
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
Department of Pediatrics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
Department of Radiology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
214 S. Balters et al.
paradigms (e.g., Liu et al., 2016a, b) that can provide entrepreneurs and investors
with vital information to voluntarily regulate their behavior in real time. Lastly, our
neuroscience-based approach may offer a new, powerful way to better match
startups with investors, thereby enhancing the efficiency of the matching process.
1 Introduction
Making a successful pitch to investors is vital for entrepreneurs across all business
stages (Chen et al., 2009; Drover et al., 2017). However, only a small number of
business ventures successfully compete for investor funding. These difficulties are
magnified for women-led startups (Balachandra et al., 2021; McSweeney et al.,
2022; Sanchez-Ruiz et al., 2021). Only 2.3% of venture capital investment went to
women founders in 2020 (Cruncchbase, 2020), although companies founded by
women deliver higher returns on investment—more than twice as much per dollar
invested as those by men (Boston Consulting Group, 2018). Besides the missed
opportunity of improving global gross domestic product by 2–3% of global GDP or
$2 trillion (Miao, 2022), we are wasting half our genetic pool of innovative intelli-
gence. Catalyzing pitch performance is thus a vital mechanism in fostering the
success of women entrepreneurs.
Prior research on pitch performance has put forward various factors that may
influence pitch performance, including individual attributes (e.g., founders’ passion
[Shane et al., 2020] and confidence [Sanchez-Ruiz et al., 2021]) and team charac-
teristics (e.g., team diversity [Foo et al., 2005]). Several studies investigated
entrepreneur-investor dyads and examined whether specific traits in entrepreneurs
(e.g., personality, experience, social capital) influence investor decision-making
(Murnieks et al., 2011; Franke et al., 2008). Sociopsychological phenomena such
as similarity effect (Murnieks et al., 2011) and opinion conformity (Sanchez-Ruiz
et al., 2021) have been argued to influence pitch performance. A growing number of
empirical studies have further investigated the effects of gender on pitch perfor-
mance and demonstrated mixed findings. Some studies found gendered differences
in the level of assertiveness (McSweeney et al., 2022) and self-promotion (Sanchez-
Ruiz et al., 2021), as well as rhetorical strategies (Balachandra et al., 2021) that
worked against the pitch performance of women. On the contrary, other researchers
showed no gender difference in pitch performance (Balachandra et al., 2019; Hohl
et al., 2021).
The existing studies highlight the social complexity of pitches that involve many
conscious and subconscious social variables. While emerging studies have utilized
behavioral assessments to evaluate gendered pitch performance, little is known
about the inter-brain mechanisms underlying entrepreneur-investor pitches. The
current study fills this research gap. Specifically, we leverage the emerging technol-
ogy of fNIRS hyperscanning (Fig. 1) to measure the inter-brain dynamics of an
entrepreneur-investor dyad during a naturalistic pitch. Our aims are (1) to elucidate
inter-brain mechanisms that are associated with high (or low) levels of pitch
A Neuroscience Approach to Women Entrepreneurs’ Pitch Performance:. . . 215
Fig. 1 Experimental setup of the fNIRS hyperscanning study. Entrepreneur-investor dyads engage
in a naturalistic pitch event
performance and (2) to assess whether the sex composition of an entrepreneur-

investor dyad impacts these inter-brain mechanisms.
2 fNIRS Hyperscanning to Understand Inter-Brain

Mechanisms during Entrepreneur-Investor Pitches
Functional NIRS is an optical brain imaging technology that measures changes in

cortical oxygenation as a proxy for neural activation (Cui et al., 2010; Strangman
et al., 2002). In recent years, fNIRS systems have become increasingly portable and
affordable, allowing researchers to investigate neurocognitive behavior in real-world
settings (e.g., Bruno et al., 2018). In contrast to electroencephalography (EEG),
another portable brain imaging technology, fNIRS is relatively robust to motion
artifacts and has a relatively high spatial resolution (~1 cm; Cui et al., 2010).
Researchers have extended fNIRS measurements from single-brain to inter-brain
applications (i.e., “fNIRS hyperscanning”) to investigate shared brain functions
underlying social interactions (Cui et al., 2012; Funane et al., 2011). A common
approach has been to study when and how neural processes become synchronized
and how inter-brain synchrony (“IBS,” i.e., correlation of cortical activity between
brains) relates to behavioral measures of interaction (Babiloni & Astolfi, 2014;
Balters et al., 2020).
Numerous studies have shown the role of IBS in various behavioral and perfor-
mance outcomes. Studies have found that increased IBS is associated with synchro-
nously executed activities such as joint limb movement (Holper et al., 2012; Niu
et al., 2019; Nozawa et al., 2019), coordinated button presses (Cheng et al., 2015;
Cui et al., 2012; Funane et al., 2011), singing (Osaka et al., 2014, 2015), drumming
(Duan et al., 2015), and marching (Ikeda et al., 2017). Beyond the mere engagement
in the same activity, it appears that shared attention is essential for the occurrence of
IBS. Studies have found increased IBS when pairs completed a task together as
opposed to completing the identical task individually in parallel (Feng et al., 2020;
Fishburn et al., 2018; Hu et al., 2017; Liu et al., 2016b; Zhou et al., 2022). In
addition to joint attention, research shows that joint goal-directed intention is related
to IBS (Kruse et al., 2021), and dyads demonstrate more IBS when cooperating than
when competing with one another (Cui et al., 2012; T. Liu et al., 2017; Lu et al.,
2019). Increased IBS has also been observed in other prosocial interaction contexts,
such as in-group bonding (Yang et al., 2020), dyadic empathy (Bembich et al.,
2022), and after gift exchanges (Balconi et al., 2019).
The literature on IBS also provides clues as to whether the sex composition of the
interacting entrepreneur-investor dyad could influence pitch performance. For exam-
ple, Baker et al. (2016) and Cheng et al. (2015) conducted wavelet synchrony
analyses on fNIRS hyperscanning data for dyadic cooperation tasks and found that
inter-brain synchrony is highly dependent on the sex composition of the dyad.
Differences in fNIRS neural signatures in association with the sex composition of
a dyad also emerged during spontaneous face-to-face deception (Zhang et al.,
2017b), risky decision-making during gambling games (Zhang et al., 2017a, b),
and group creative idea generation (Lu et al., 2020). Given the combined findings,
we expect that IBS is associated with pitch performance or its correlates (e.g.,
cooperative behavior) and might alter depending on the sex composition of an
entrepreneur-investor dyad.
3 Dynamic Inter-Brain Biomarkers of Pitch Performance
A pitch is a highly dynamic social interaction and likely requires a dynamic analysis
approach to uncover associations between IBS and pitch performance. Researchers
have traditionally utilized task-averaging approaches to assess mean levels of IBS
(e.g., “over a task duration of 10 minutes”; Balters et al., 2020). A limitation of these
approaches is that they do not capture the dynamic nature of social interaction. Our
research group therefore developed a novel “dynamic IBS” approach (Li et al.,
2021). This approach allows the study of inter-brain synchrony patterns (i.e.,
“inter-brain states”) with higher temporal resolution. Inter-brain synchrony can
simultaneously occur between and across functional regions at any given time, and
the dynamic IBS approach accounts for this complexity. It derives inter-brain states
characterized by a “heatmap” of IBS values for all possible region of interest (ROI)
pair combinations. In our recent work (Balters et al., 2022, 2023), we linked these
inter-brain states for the first time to behavioral measures of cooperation (e.g.,
conversational turn-taking behavior). As shown in Fig. 2, we achieved the identifi-
cation of inter-brain states that were significantly associated with adverse behavioral
Inter-brain state 1
Inter-brain synchrony
1.51
Occurrence rate
1
In-person group
0 Virtual group
-1.51 Time (8 min)
Inter-brain state 2
Inter-brain synchrony
1.51
Occurrence rate
1 In-person group
Virtual group
0
-1.51 Time (8 min)
Fig. 2 Using fNIRS hyperscanning, we studied the differences in IBS states between in-person and
virtual interaction during a problem-solving task (Balters et al., 2022, 2023). Dyads interacted either
in person or over Zoom® video conferencing. Results showed that the occurrence rate of inter-brain
state 1 was associated with a reduction in behavioral cooperation (r = -0.52). In contrast, the
occurrence rate of inter-brain state 2 was associated with an increase in behavioral cooperation
(r = 0.37). Due to the dynamic character of the analytical approach, we can observe the occurrence
of each inter-brain state over time and identify temporal differences between groups (left)
cooperation (i.e., inter-brain state 1) and positive behavioral cooperation (i.e., inter-
brain state 2). Notably, the dynamic IBS analytical approach allows researchers to
observe the dynamics within and between brain states over time. It is thus possible to
study the functional characteristics of each brain state and identify “critical events”
that can be linked to changes in behavior through video coding, for example. Due to
dynamic characteristics, we could elucidate differences in the occurrence of inter-
brain states between dyads that interacted in person and over Zoom® during a
problem-solving task (Fig. 2; Balters et al., 2022, 2023). We leverage this cutting-
edge analytical approach in the present study to understand the impact of inter-brain
states on investment decisions.
4 Methodology
4.1 Participants
A total of N = 40 female entrepreneurs and N = 40 investors (N = 20 females,

N = 20 males) will participate in the study. All participants will be right-handed and
healthy, with normal or corrected to normal hearing and vision. The age range will
be limited to 18–50 years to avoid aging-related chronic diseases. We will recruit
participants through our collaborating entrepreneurship centers and VC organiza-
tions at Stanford and the broader Silicon Valley. For this first proof-of-concept
study, we will focus on informal investors and student entrepreneurs due to the
cost and challenges of obtaining experts. It is common for exploratory studies to
utilize naive subjects (Shane et al., 2020; Chen et al., 2009; Hsu et al., 2017). We will
Table 1 Study design will Female investor Male investor

follow a between-subject
Female entrepreneur Group 1 (20) Group 2 (20)
design with 20 dyads per
group
randomly match female entrepreneurs with either a female investor (group 1) or a

male investor (group 2). Each group includes 20 dyads (Table 1). Age and race/
ethnicity will not be matched across participants. We will therefore utilize both
variables as covariates in statistical analyses. Participants of the same dyad will be
previously unacquainted. We will recruit participants through email lists and social
media and obtain written consent before the study. Stanford’s Institutional Review
Board has approved the experimental methodology (IRB #18160).
4.2 Experimental Procedure
The dyad partners will interact face-to-face in a presentation setting (Fig. 1). We will
attach fNIRS caps while participants are in the same room and instruct participants
not to talk to one another during that time. Before starting the experiment, partici-
pants will have 3 min to introduce themselves. During the pitch, participants will be
alone in the room and receive task instructions via audio prompts. We will collect
audio and video recordings of the participants, with four portable video cameras
capturing front and side views of both participants. After the experiment, each
participant will complete a post-experimental survey in a separate room to assess
investment interest, pitch performance, subjective experiences during the pitch, and
demographical information.
4.3 Experimental Tasks
Each entrepreneur will have 45 minutes to prepare for their pitch immediately prior
to the study. Entrepreneurs will make a 10-min pitch based on their pitch script
followed by a 5-min Q&A session. The pitch will be entirely oral, with no presen-
tation tools allowed. Entrepreneurs and investors will receive the same task
instruction.
4.4 Functional NIRS Hyperscanning Data Acquisition

and Processing
Data Acquisition We will record the cortical hemodynamic activity of each par-
ticipant using a continuous wave fNIRS system (NIRSport2 System, NIRX,
Germany) with two wavelengths (760 and 850 mm) and a sampling frequency of
10.2 Hz. We will divide a total of 128 optodes (64 sources x 64 detectors) between
the 2 participants resulting in 100 measurement channels per participant. Optodes
will spread over the entire cortex according to the international 10–20 EEG place-
ment system. Additionally, we will place 16 short channels per participant across the
cortex to capture and correct background physiological noise (e.g., cardiac, respira-
tory, and blood pressure fluctuations). We will utilize plastic connectors between
each source/detector channel pair to maintain an estimated 3 cm distance.
Data Preprocessing We will analyze the raw fNIRS data using the NIRS Brain
AnalyzIR Toolbox (Santosa et al., 2018) in Matlab version R2021a (MathWorks,
Inc.). We will assess data quality via the scalp coupling index or “SCI” (Pollonini
et al., 2016) and exclude the channels with excessive noise (i.e., SCI ≤ 0.8) from
subsequent analyses to ensure good data quality. We will convert the remaining raw
data to optical density data and apply motion artifacts correction using a wavelet
motion correction procedure (Molavi & Dumont, 2012). Subsequently, we will
transform data into concentration changes of oxygenated hemoglobin (HbO) and
deoxygenated hemoglobin (HbR) according to the modified Beer-Lambert law
(Wyatt et al., 1986). Since HbO and HbR data are relative values, we will convert
resulting data to z-scores. We will create 32 ROIs via source localization (Huppert
et al., 2017) by averaging all channels that shared a common fNIRS source (Balters
et al., 2022). We will project all ROIs onto the cortical surface using an automatic
anatomical labeling method (Lancaster et al., 2000; Singh et al., 2005). Because
HbO measures are known to be more robust and sensitive to task-associated changes
compared to HbR measures (Ferrari & Quaresima, 2012; Plichta et al., 2006), we
will only use HbO data for further analyses as common in fNIRS hyperscanning
research (Balters et al., 2020).
Dynamic Inter-Brain State Analyses We will use wavelet transform synchrony or
“WTC” (Cui et al., 2012) analysis to assess averaged inter-brain synchrony (IBS),
i.e., the similarity between NIRS signals of dyad partners. For a more in-depth
explanation of WTC, please see (Grinsted et al., 2004). Specifically, we will
calculate IBS between each ROI and the rest of the ROIs on the converted HbO
time series (a total of 1024 combinations: 32 ROIs x 32 ROIs). We will then average
the IBS between the same ROI pairings resulting in 528 ROI pairings. We will
calculate the average synchrony value between 0.15 and 0.02 Hz. This frequency
band will allow us to exclude noise associated with cardiac pulsation (about 1 Hz)
and respiration (0.2–0.3 Hz [Molavi & Dumont, 2012]). Finally, we will apply the
dynamic IBS approach (Li et al., 2021) following the procedures described in Balters
et al. (2022, 2023).
4.5 Additional Assessments during the Experiment
Investment Interest Following Shane et al. (2020, p.8), we will measure invest-
ment interest as pitch performance. Investors rate five sub-scores on a seven-point
Likert scale: (1) “I would be interested in seeing more information about this
venture,” ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree”; (2) “Based on the
information at hand, I would be interested in investing in this company,” ranging
from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree”; (3) “This company represents a good
investment opportunity for me,” ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly
agree”; (4) “I would expect higher financial returns from investing in this company
than in other startup companies,” ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly
agree”; and (5) “The content of this elevator pitch was,” ranging from “very poor” to
“excellent.” We will calculate the final score by averaging the five sub-scores.
Pitch Performance Entrepreneurs and investors will rate their subjective experi-
ence of pitch performance on a nine-point Likert scale ranging from “extremely
poor” to “extremely good.”
Level of Cooperation Participants will rate the overall cooperation of the dyad on a
nine-point Likert scale ranging from “not at all cooperative” to “extremely
cooperative.”
Affective Responses Participants will complete the Affect Grid Survey (Russell,
1980) to inquire about their level of arousal and level of valence on a nine-point
Likert scale ranging from “sleepy” to “energized” and “unpleasant” to “pleasant,”
respectively. We will also obtain self-reported levels of stress via the Perceived
Stress Scale (Cohen et al., 1994), using a nine-point Likert scale ranging from “low”
to “high.”
Interpersonal Closeness Index Participants will rate their subjective sense of
closeness toward their dyad partner (i.e., “Interpersonal Closeness”) on five seven-
point Likert subscales, including questions about connectedness and trust
(Wiltermuth & Heath, 2009), an adapted version of the inclusion of other in self-
scale (Aron et al., 1992), likeability (Hove & Risen, 2009), and similarity in
personality (Valdesolo & DeSteno, 2011). We will calculate the final score by
averaging the sub-scores.
Coded Behavioral Metrics We will capture videos of the dyadic interaction to
derive additional behavioral metrics, including the number of conversational turn-
taking and conversational dominance. At a sampling frequency of roughly 1 Hz, we
will code who is talking at a given moment. We will count the number of turn-taking
between two dyad partners and calculate conversational dominance as the ratio of
the total talk duration of the less dominant partner and the total talk duration of the
more dominant partner. Thus, a talk duration of one will indicate that both partners
had an equal share of talking.
4.6 Post-Experimental Assessments
Personality Traits Participants will complete the NEO-FFI-3 survey (McCrae &
Costa Jr., 2007), the Adult Attachment Scale Survey (Collins & Read, 1990), and
Wong and Law’s Emotional Intelligence Survey (Wong & Law, 2002) to capture
personality traits. For the NEO-FFI-3 survey, we will calculate T-scores for all five
subscales, including Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness, Agreeableness, and Con-
scientiousness. For the Adult Attachment Scale, we will calculate the Avoidant and
Anxious subscales. For the Emotional Intelligence score, we will calculate the
average of the four sub-scores: self-emotional appraisal, other’s emotional appraisal,
use of emotion, and emotion regulation. We will utilize the personality trait scores as
potential covariates in statistical analyses.
Level of Professional Experience We will measure professional experience as the
number of years of work experience reported by participants.
Level of Self-Efficacy As a measure of self-efficacy, both entrepreneurs and
investors will rate their degree of certainty in performing the role from “completely
unsure” to “completely sure” (Chen et al., 1998).
5 Analytical Methods and Planned Research
We are currently establishing data collection and present preliminary results at the
conference. For data analysis, we will characterize the properties of inter-brain states
by the occurrence rate of each inter-brain state following our previous work (Balters
et al., 2022, 2023; Li et al., 2021). The occurrence rate of a state is defined as the
percentage of total duration an inter-brain state occurs within the entire task period
(Allen et al., 2014). We will utilize independent t-tests to assess whether there are
differences in the occurrence rate between the two groups (same sex versus opposite
sex dyads). We will calculate Pearson’s correlation between occurrence rate and
pitch performance metrics. As an additional exploratory analysis, we will assess
whether the dynamics of inter-brain states over time differ between the groups. We
will also explore if we can identify other moderating factors that impact pitch
performance in women entrepreneurs (e.g., personality traits, experience, self-
efficacy).
Building on the current study, we plan to extend the methods and measures
presented in this paper to real-life pitch events. In this context, we aim to utilize
fNIRS hyperscanning to develop interventions and training that can effectively
improve the pitch performance of women entrepreneurs. We will also explore the
opportunity of using real-time feedback to help women entrepreneurs modify IBS
more successfully during the dyadic interaction. Lastly, we propose to extend
two-person hyperscanning to hyperscanning of three persons simultaneously. Such
a design will allow us to investigate the effects of inter-brain synchrony in a more
realistic pitch setting that usually involves multiple actors. Related findings might
allow us to derive and understand inter-brain patterns that are associated with the
efficiency of the entrepreneur-investor matching process. We hope this work will
provide novel and valuable insights into key factors of successful pitches and foster
the success of women entrepreneurs.
Funding This work is supported by a Hasso Plattner Design Thinking Research Program grant.
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Priming Activity to Increase Interpersonal
Closeness, Inter-Brain Coherence,
and Team Creativity Outcome
Stephanie Balters, Grace Hawthorne, and Allan L. Reiss
Abstract Organizational research demonstrates that team interpersonal closeness

enhances team performance and creativity. Design thinking practitioners and edu-
cators have adopted the concepts of interpersonal closeness and developed priming
activities to propel subsequent creative-innovation tasks. In recent years, it has
become paramount that these activities are effective in in-person and virtual
(Zoom®) interaction settings. In this chapter, we present a design thinking
(DT) activity to increase interpersonal closeness in in-person and virtual teams.
We derived the DT activity from a Nonviolent Communication exercise frequently
used to increase interpersonal closeness between individuals. In an empirical study
(N = 72 participants, N = 36 dyads), we assessed whether the DT activity increased
interpersonal closeness compared to two control tasks (i.e., a problem-solving and a
creative-innovation task). Dyad partners engaged in either an in-person or virtual
interaction group throughout the experiment (between-subject design). We also
captured inter-brain signatures between dyad partners with portable functional
near-infrared spectroscopy neuroimaging during the entire study. Results show
that the DT activity increased interpersonal closeness in the in-person and virtual
groups compared to the control tasks. We identified a distinct inter-brain signature in
the right frontocortical region linked to the DT activity. Notably, this inter-brain
signature differed between in-person and virtual groups. This finding suggests that
conducting the DT activity in person may be more conducive to this prosocial inter-
brain coherence pattern than the virtual interaction setting. Finally, preliminary
results (N = 12 dyads) suggest that the DT activity increased performance in a
subsequent creative-innovation task. Future research needs to confirm this
hypothesis.
S. Balters (✉) · A. L. Reiss

Center for Interdisciplinary Brain Sciences Research, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral
Sciences, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA
G. Hawthorne
Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (d.school), Stanford, CA, USA
1 Introduction
Design thinking practice has adopted the concept of interpersonal closeness to

improve team collaboration and creative-innovation (Druskat & Wolff, 2001;
Uebernickel & Thong, 2021). Research shows that design thinking training can
increase team collaboration and creative confidence (Jobst et al., 2012; Kelley &
Kelley, 2013; Rauth et al., 2010; Royalty et al., 2012, 2014) through practicing
empathy and social interaction skills in a design thinking team setting (Noweski
et al., 2012; Plank et al., 2021; Traifeh et al., 2020; von Thienen et al., 2017).
Practitioners are using many design thinking activities—explicitly or implicitly—to
help increase interpersonal closeness and thereby enhance team collaboration and
creative-innovation (Kerguenne, 2021; Koch, 2021; Ney & Meinel, 2019). For
example, team “check-ins” and “checkouts” before and after each workday to
share momentary personal sensitivities, opinions, and feelings with the team can
improve team collaboration (Ney & Meinel, 2019). If a team or interpersonal conflict
needs to be resolved, design thinking encourages the use of structured formats for
communicating and receiving feedback (Ney & Meinel, 2019). Other activities serve
as primers for specific collaborative work modes (e.g., creative-innovation sessions)
and are typically applied when initiating a new design thinking work phase. Such
design thinking (DT) activities usually involve stepping out of one’s comfort zone
and often result in some form of playful body movement or verbal interaction
(Rothouse, 2020; West et al., 2017). As a result, these DT activities contribute to
establishing a work culture of psychological trust (Auernhammer & Roth, 2021;
Edmondson, 1999; Liedtka, 2017), in which one is permitted to make mistakes and
show vulnerabilities in front of colleagues without fearing rejection (West et al.,
2017).
In the last year’s edition of Design Thinking Research, we introduced a DT
activity designed to enhance interpersonal closeness and team creative-innovation in
in-person and virtual (Zoom®) team interactions (Balters et al., 2022). We derived
the DT activity from Nonviolent Communication practices, a communication
method to increase interpersonal closeness and trust between individuals (Rosenberg
& Chopra, 2015). Here, we provide empirical validation of the effectiveness of this
DT activity in both in-person and virtual (Zoom®) interaction settings. We invited a
total of N = 72 participants who interacted with their dyad partner either in person or
virtually during the duration of the study. Dyads collaborated during the DT activity
and two control tasks (i.e., a problem-solving and a creative-innovation task). After
each of the three tasks, participants rated measures of interpersonal closeness (i.e.,
connectedness, trust, likability, other-in-self, and similarity). We also captured inter-
brain signatures between dyad partners using functional near-infrared spectroscopy
neuroimaging during the entire study. Our analyses focused on (1) elucidating the
behavioral and inter-brain correlates of the DT activity and (2) assessing whether the
effectiveness of the interaction differed between in-person and virtual interactions.
Priming Activity to Increase Interpersonal Closeness, Inter-Brain. . . 229
2 DT Activity to Increase Interpersonal Closeness between

Dyad Partners
During the DT activity, participants engage in a modified version of a Nonviolent

Communication exercise used to increase interpersonal closeness and trust between
individuals (Rosenberg & Chopra, 2015). Participants are provided with a list of
“Needs We All Have” (Fig. 1). Participants are asked to collaborate and identify four
needs from the list that are most meaningful to them. To emphasize the importance
of each need, they are asked to describe a situation from their life when this need was
not met and how it made them feel. The partner is instructed to actively listen,
acknowledge the feelings of the one who shared, and describe why the need is also
meaningful to them. The design thinking facilitator keeps a time of 8 min.
3 Study Methodology to Assess the Efficacy of Need

Sharing Activity
The study methodology was approved by the Stanford University Institutional

Review Board (IRB #18160) and followed COVID-19 regulations for human
experimentation as defined by the Stanford University School of Medicine. Written
Needs we all have
acceptance intimacy
affection love
appreciation mutuality
belonging nurturing
cooperation respect/self-respect
communication safety
closeness security
community stability
companionship support
compassion to know and to be known
consideration to see and be seen
consistency to understand and be understood
empathy trust
inclusion warmth
Introduction: For the next eight minutes collaborate with your partner. Together, identify four
needs from the list above that are most meaningful to both of you. To emphasize the
importance of each need, describe a situation from your own life when that need was not met
and how it made you feel. As a partner, listen actively, acknowledge the feelings of the one
who shared, and describe why the need is also meaningful to you.
Fig. 1 Instructions for the DT activity. The figure is derived from (Balters et al., 2022)
consent was obtained from all participants. The study methodology has been previ-
ously presented in (Balters et al., 2023a). Below, we summarize the study method-
ology and refer the reader to the original paper for detailed information.
3.1 Participants
A total of 72 adults participated in the study (36 females, 36 males, mean age:
27.11 years, SD = 7.57 years). The racial and ethnic composition of the sample was
3% African American/Black, 23% Asian/Pacific Islander, 6% biracial/multiracial,
15% Hispanic/Latinx, 6% Middle Eastern, 22% South Asian, and 25% Caucasian/
White. All participants were right-handed and healthy, with normal or corrected to
normal hearing and vision. The study followed a between-subject design, and
participants interacted with their dyad partner either in person or virtually throughout
the experiment. The previously unacquainted dyad partners were randomly assigned
to either interaction condition. Groups were matched based on age, sex, and race/
ethnicity. Both interaction conditions contained six female-female, six female-male,
and six male-male dyads. The experimental procedure lasted for approximately
3 hours, and participants were compensated with an Amazon gift card ($25 USD
per hour).
3.2 Experimental Procedure
In the in-person group, dyads sat face-to-face at a square table 9 feet away, following
COVID-19 guidelines (Fig. 2). To decrease obstruction of faces, participants wore
transparent, antifog facemasks (ClearMask™). Dyads of the virtual group sat at
desks in two separate rooms and interacted over Zoom® video conferencing. The
Zoom® window was maximized, and no self-view window was displayed. We used
two identical laptops for video conferencing (Lenovo Yoga 730-15IKB, 15.6″) and
Fig. 2 Between-subject study setup. Thirty-six dyads interacted either in person (a) or virtually (b)
during the study
placed the laptops to approximate the facial proportions of the in-person group.
Participants of the virtual group also wore a facemask to prevent bias between the
conditions. Before the experiment, participants had 3 min to introduce themselves to
one another. During the experiment, participants were alone in the room(s), and we
provided instructions through audio prompts. After the experiment, participants
filled out post-experimental questionnaires in two separate rooms.
3.3 Experimental Tasks
In addition to the 8-min-long DT activity described in Sect. 2, participants engaged

in two other collaborative tasks (i.e., a problem-solving and a creative-innovation
task). Both tasks serve as control tasks in data analyses that test the effectiveness of
the DT activity. In the problem-solving task, dyads were instructed to collaborate
and identify four traffic rules that significantly impact safety on US highways. To
emphasize the importance of each rule, participants had to describe how a chosen
rule enhances safety on US highways and why the rule was more important than
other traffic rules. In the creative-innovation task, dyads were instructed to collab-
orate and to design a solution to increase water conservation in California house-
holds. The solution could take any form (i.e., product, process, campaign, etc.).
Dyads were instructed to write down their solution after completion of the task.
Dyads collaborated on each task (i.e., DT activity, problem-solving task, and
creative-innovation task) for 8 min without interruptions. The task order was ran-
domized across dyads, and we separated tasks by a 2-min calming video of a beach
to minimize carryover effects across tasks.
3.4 Neuroimaging with Functional Near-Infrared

Spectroscopy (fNIRS)
Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) is a portable neuroimaging technol-

ogy that has become popular in the field of design (thinking) research (Balters et al.,
2022, 2023b). Compared to portable electroencephalography (EEG) neuroimaging,
fNIRS has a higher spatial resolution (~1 cm) and higher robustness to motion
artifacts (Li et al., 2017). These advantages make fNIRS an ideal tool for assessing
cortical brain function in applied design (thinking) contexts (Balters et al., 2022,
2023b). For example, design (thinking) researchers have utilized fNIRS to investi-
gate the neural signatures associated with unstructured idea generation (i.e., brain-
storming, Hu et al., 2021) and structured idea generation via design science tools
such as Theory of Inventive Problem-solving “TRIZ” (Hu et al., 2018; Shealy et al.,
2018) or sketching (Kato et al., 2017, 2018). About a decade ago, researchers
extended single-brain assessments to hyperscanning modes in which two or more
brains are scanned simultaneously. Researchers have focused on assessing when and
Fig. 3 Functional NIRS regions of interest. We measured concentration changes of oxygenated

hemoglobin (HbO) in 32 regions of interest across the cortex
how neural processes become synchronized and how this inter-brain coherence
(IBC; correlation of cortical activity between brains) relates to behavioral measures
(Babiloni & Astolfi, 2014; Balters et al., 2020; Czeszumski et al., 2020). Results
from fNIRS hyperscanning studies have shown increased IBC during enhanced
levels of dyadic interaction, such as during cooperative games (Baker et al., 2016;
Cui et al., 2012; Kruse et al., 2021), in therapy sessions (Zhang et al., 2018), in
mother-child bonding (Bembich et al., 2022), and after gift exchanges (Balconi et al.,
2019; Balconi & Fronda, 2020). For a more comprehensive introduction to fNIRS
hyperscanning, we refer the reader to Balters et al. (2020).
We utilized fNIRS hyperscanning in this study to elucidate the inter-brain
correlates of the DT activity and to assess whether the effectiveness of the interaction
differed between in-person and virtual interactions. Specifically, we recorded the
cortical hemodynamic activity of each participant using a continuous wave fNIRS
system (NIRSport2 System, NIRX, Germany). We utilized two wavelengths
(760 and 850 mm) and a sampling frequency of 10.2 Hz. The system high density
contains 64 sources and 64 detectors, which we divided between the 2 participants to
generate 100 measurement channels per person. According to the international
10–20 EEG placement system, we placed the channels over the entire cortex. For
data processing, we followed rigorous scientific procedures (see Balters et al., 2023a
for detailed processing steps) to derive concentration changes of oxygenated hemo-
globin (HbO) for a total of 32 regions of interest (ROIs, Fig. 3). We then applied
Wavelet Transform Coherence analysis (Cui et al., 2012) to assess averaged IBC
values across each 8-minute task. (Note: Inter-brain coherence is a measure of
similarity between NIRS signals of dyad partners across a specific time duration.)
For each task (i.e., DT activity, problem-solving task, and creative-innovation task),
we calculated IBC values for each possible ROI pair between participants. We
utilized these IBC values in statistical analyses.
3.5 Interpersonal Closeness Measures
Participants rated the subjective sense of closeness toward their dyad partner (i.e.,
“interpersonal closeness” [Tarr et al., 2015]) on five seven-point Likert subscales.
This included questions about connectedness and trust (Wiltermuth & Heath, 2009),
likeability (Hove & Risen, 2009), similarity in personality (Valdesolo & DeSteno,
2011), and an adapted version of the inclusion of other-in-self scale (i.e., “people’s
sense of being interconnected with another”; Aron et al., 1992). We used the five
interpersonal closeness measures to test if the DT activity, in contrast to the two
control tasks, was effective in increasing interpersonal closeness in the in-person and
virtual dyads.
3.6 Post-Experimental Assessments
After the experiment, participants filled out personality trait surveys (i.e., NEO-FFI-
3 survey [McCrae & Costa Jr., 2007], Adult Attachment Scale Survey [Collins &
Read, 1990], and Wong and Law’s Emotional Intelligence Survey [Wong & Law,
2002]) to capture personality traits. They also executed the Alternate Uses Task
(AUT) to assess individual levels of divergent thinking and creativity (Guilford,
1967). Lastly, participants rated their prior experience and proficiency with Zoom®
video conferencing. We used these measures to assess whether the two groups
(in-person, virtual) matched on various individual difference variables or whether
certain covariates would need to be considered in statistical analyses.
4 Study Results and Discussion
4.1 Conditions Were Matched on Individual Difference

Variables
In the original paper (Balters et al., 2023a), we demonstrated that the two groups
(in-person, virtual) matched on various individual difference variables. Specifically,
subjects participating in the two groups were matched on age, inter-dyad age
differences, personality traits (i.e., NEO-FFI-3 T scores, adult attachment style,
emotional intelligence), creative ability (i.e., Alternate Uses Task (AUT) fluency,
AUT originality), and familiarity with Zoom® video conferencing (i.e., experience
and proficiency). These findings allowed us to execute the primary research analyses
without controlling specific covariates.
4.2 Activity Increases Interpersonal Closeness
While we utilized the average score of all five interpersonal closeness measures in
the original paper (Balters et al., 2023a), we present a novel measure-specific in this
chapter. For each of the five interpersonal closeness measures (i.e., connectedness,
trust, likability, other-in-self, and similarity), we ran a two-way analysis of variance
Fig. 4 Results of the interpersonal closeness measures. Four of the five interpersonal closeness
measures (i.e., connectedness, trust, likability, and other-in-self) showed higher values in the DT
activity as compared to the two control tasks (i.e., problem-solving and creative-innovation tasks).
We did not find main or interaction effects of group on the measures. These findings suggest that the
DT activity was effective in increasing measures of interpersonal closeness in both in-person and
virtual teams. Statistically significant differences at FDR-corrected p < 0.05 are indicated by
*. Variance is illustrated as the standard error of the means
(ANOVA) with task (problem-solving, creative-innovation, DT activity) as within-

subject factor and group (in-person, virtual) as between-subject factor. These ana-
lyses tested for potential main effects of task, main effects of group, and interaction
effects of task and group on the five measures. We applied false discovery rate
(FDR) correction for multiple testing on the resulting p values (i.e., five testings).
The results showed significant main effects of task on connectedness (F
[2140] = 9.458, p < 0.001, partial η2 = 0.119), trust (F[2140] = 8.556,
p < 0.001, partial η2 = 0.109), likability (F[2140] = 10.590, p < 0.001, partial
η2 = 0.131), and other-in-self (F[2140] = 9.458, p = 0.013, partial η2 = 0.064), but
not on similarity ( p = 0.068). We conducted subsequent post hoc pairwise compar-
ison analyses with FDR correction for multiple comparisons (i.e., three comparisons
per measure). The results for all four measures showed increased values for the DT
activity compared to the problem-solving and creative-innovation task (Fig. 4). We
summarize the statistics in Table 1. There were no significant differences between
the problem-solving and the creative-innovation tasks. The results indicate that the
DT activity effectively increased connectedness, trust, likability, and other-in-self
measures in contrast to both control tasks. Notably, we did not find the main effects
Table 1 Overview of the pairwise comparison statistics

Interpersonal closeness measures Mean difference between task with adjusted p values
Connectedness
DT activity > problem-solving task 0.389 [95% CI, 0.181 to 0.596, p < 0.001]
DT activity > creative-innovation task 0.458 [95% CI, 0.214 to 0.702, p < 0.001]
Trust
DT activity > problem-solving task 0.208 [95% CI, 0.040 to 0.377, p = 0.024]
Likability
Other-in-self
DT activity > creative-innovation task 0.319 [95% CI, 0.072 to 0.567, p = 0.036]
CI confidence interval
of group or interaction effects of task and group on any of the five measures
( p > 0.155). These results suggest that the DT activity effectively increased inter-
personal closeness measures independent of the interaction settings.
For the four interpersonal closeness measures that showed significant univariate
effects, we conducted subsequent correlation analyses with each of the other three
measures. These analyses focused on data from the DT activity only. We used FDR
correction to adjust for multiple testing (i.e., six correlation analyses). Results
showed statistically significant positive correlations for all six analyses
(0.40 < r < 0.84, p < 0.001; Fig. 5). These findings validate that connectedness,
trust, likability, and other-in-self are all measures of the same interpersonal closeness
construct.
4.3 Inter-Brain Coherence
In the original paper (Balters et al., 2023a), we executed statistical analyses to assess
whether there were main effects of task (problem-solving task, creative-innovation
task, DT activity), main effects of group (in-person, virtual), or interaction effects of
task and group on inter-brain coherence values. The results showed a statistically
significant interaction effect of task and group for an ROI pair spanning the right
dorsal frontopolar area (dFPA) across dyad partners (Fig. 6a). In other words,
specifically for the DT activity (and not the other two tasks), IBC significantly
differed between in-person and virtual dyads. As demonstrated in Fig. 6b, IBC
was higher in the in-person group than in the virtual group (mean difference = 0.084
[95% CI, 0.045 to 0.123, p < 0.001]). Prior research has consistently found
increased IBC, particularly in right prefrontal ROI pairs, to be positively associated
with prosocial behavior (Cui et al., 2012; Dai et al., 2018; Liu et al., 2016; Lu et al.,
Fig. 5 Results of the correlation analyses across interpersonal closeness measures. Results showed
statistically significant correlations between all four interpersonal closeness measures that demon-
strated significant differences in the primary analyses. The moderate to strong associations are
positive. These findings validate that connectedness, trust, likability, and other-in-self are all
measures of the same interpersonal closeness construct
Fig. 6 Results of the inter-brain coherence analyses. Results showed a statistically significant
interaction effect between task and group for the ROI pair spanning the right dorsal frontopolar area
(dFPA) across dyad partners (a). In other words, specifically for the DT activity (and not the other
two tasks), IBC significantly differed between in-person and virtual dyads (b). Statistically signif-
icant differences at FDR-corrected p < 0.05 are indicated by *. Variance is illustrated as the
standard error of the means
2019; Miller et al., 2019; Pan et al., 2017; Xue et al., 2018). Therefore, our findings
suggest that conducting the DT activity in person elicits IBC, which may be more
conducive to prosocial interaction (Balters et al., 2023a).
4.4 Preliminary Performance Analysis in Subsequent

Creative-Innovation Task
Lastly, we were interested in getting a first glimpse of whether the DT activity

effectively increased performance in a subsequent creative-innovation session. We
conducted a preliminary analysis of parts of the existing data. Specifically, we
utilized data from task order 1 and task order 6 that resulted from this study’s
randomized task order methodology (with N = 6 dyads per order across both groups;
Fig. 7a). Dyads with task order 1 experienced the DT activity before the creative-
innovation task. In contrast, dyads with task order 6 experienced the problem-
solving task before the creative-innovation task. This preliminary analysis used the
latter task order as a control condition. We define task order 1 as the “priming
condition” and task order 6 as the “control condition.”
Two researchers rated the level of creative-innovation for all dyads to generate
performance measures of the creative-innovation task. Both raters had expertise in
assessing creative-innovation according to the Stanford Design School principles
(authors S.B. and G.H.). Specifically, the raters assessed the creative-innovation
rating based on four subscales, including fluency (i.e., the total number of elements
in a design solution), originality (i.e., the statistical rarity of the response across
answers in this study), elaboration (i.e., the level of imagination and exposition of
detail), and accountability (i.e., the effectiveness of water conservation) as derived
from (Torrance, 1974). We obtained the ratings on a five-point scale ranging from
1 (“very low”) to 5 (“very high”) and averaged the scores from these four subscales
to get the final creative-innovation performance score. Inter-rater reliability index
was good (ICC = 0.855). We extracted the scores from dyads belonging to the
priming condition and the control condition. We removed outliers with more than
two standard deviations from the mean, which resulted in data for N = 5 dyads in the
priming condition and N = 6 in the control condition. Due to the low statistical
power, we refrained from executing formal statistical analyses and inspected
descriptive statistics, including effect sizes. As depicted in Fig. 7b, the average
Fig. 7 Descriptive results of the preliminary analysis of performance in subsequent creative-

innovation task. (a) Our study methodology comprised six different task orders across dyads due
to the randomization of the three experimental tasks. (b) Descriptive findings indicate that the DT
activity (here labeled priming condition) could effectively increase performance in a subsequent
creative-innovation task compared to the control condition. Horizontal lines represent the median
values, and “x” represents the mean values
task performance in the creative-innovation task was higher for the priming condi-
tion than the control condition, with a moderate effect size of Cohen’s d = 0.500.
These descriptive results could suggest that the DT activity was effective in increas-
ing performance in the subsequent creative-innovation task, compared to a preceding
problem-solving task. Subsequent correlation analyses between the performance
score and each creative ability score (i.e., AUT fluency and AUT originality from
Sect. 4.1) across all N = 11 dyads were not significant ( p > 0.223). This additional
preliminary finding suggests that the observed descriptive difference in performance
score could be attributed to the DT activity rather than differences in creative ability
traits between dyads in the two conditions. Future research needs to formally test the
hypothesis that the DT activity, compared to a control task (e.g., problem-solving
task), increases performance in a subsequent creative-innovation task.
5 Conclusion
This chapter presented a DT activity to increase interpersonal closeness and creative-

innovation in in-person and virtual design thinking teams. We derived the DT
activity from a Nonviolent Communication exercise frequently used to increase
interpersonal closeness between individuals. We tested the effectiveness of the DT
activity through an empirical study that considered both in-person (N = 18 dyads)
and virtual interaction settings (N = 18 dyads). The study results provide evidence
that the DT activity, in contrast to two other collaborative control tasks (i.e.,
problem-solving and creative-innovation tasks), effectively increased measures of
interpersonal closeness (i.e., connectedness, trust, likability, and other-in-self) in
both in-person and virtual interaction settings. Functional NIRS neuroimaging
results demonstrated that the DT activity elicited inter-brain coherence in regions
associated with prosocial behavior. However, our findings also indicate that
conducting the DT activity in person could be more conducive to this prosocial
inter-brain coherence pattern than the virtual interaction setting. Finally, preliminary
results indicated that the DT activity could effectively increase team performance in
a subsequent creative-innovation task. Future research needs to validate these
preliminary findings. We hope this chapter provides practitioners and educators
alike with a novel DT activity to increase interpersonal closeness in in-person and
virtual design thinking teams.
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Design the Future with Emotion: Crucial
Cultural Perspectives
Chunchen Xu, Xiao Ge, Nanami Furue, Daigo Misaki, Hazel Markus,
and Jeanne Tsai
Abstract No one universal affective route leads to creative ideas. Rather, the
designers’ affective experience is influenced by the cultural contexts they are
in. However, scant research has examined how culture shapes designers’ emotion
in creative problem-solving activities. We present two survey studies that explore the
interplay between affect, culture, and idea generation. The findings suggest that
people tend to associate low-arousal, positive emotion with idea generation in
Japanese contexts, compared with high-arousal, positive emotion in American
contexts. We also found that Japanese participants expressed more socially engaging
emotions, had higher levels of emotional fluctuation, and reported lower levels of
emotional expressiveness than their American counterparts. This research contrib-
utes to the emerging field of emotion research in design by examining the cultural
shaping of affect in idea generation. We call for more cultural research to enable
designers to provide insights into the profound roles of affective experience and
expression in creative processes and how it may vary across cultures. In doing so, we
hope to offer new vistas for enhancing creative performance and enabling cross-
cultural collaboration in creative work.
C. Xu (✉)
Stanford Psychology Department, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
X. Ge
Center for Design Research, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
N. Furue
School of Management, Tokyo University of Science, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, Japan
D. Misaki
School of Engineering, Department of Mechanical Systems Engineering, Kogakuin University,
Shinjukuku, Tokyo, Japan
H. Markus · J. Tsai
Stanford Psychology Department, Stanford, CA, USA
244 C. Xu et al.
1 Introduction
The way that designers think, feel, and act is constantly influenced by their cultural
contexts. For example, while the Chinese saying “急中生智” depicts a calm thinker
who comes up with ingenious solutions amid crisis, such as in the famous Chinese
folktale about Sima Guang and the Water Tank, the American mantra “unleash your
creative potential” advocates excited self-expression as a way to elicit a generative
state of mind. Nonetheless, most current theories and practices aimed at enhancing
creativity in the USA have been chiefly based on cultural norms, values, and beliefs
that are prevalent in European American, middle-class contexts. As a result, these
theories and practices are less likely to resonate with or empower people from other
cultural backgrounds. As our globalized society continues to evolve, it is of vital
importance to uncover cultural groundings of theories and practices in regards to
creativity.
One crucial step toward this goal is to understand how people in different cultures
feel when they engage in creative problem-solving. We use the term “designer” to
refer to anyone who engages in creative processes. As a rich, dynamic, yet ubiqui-
tous aspect of human experience, emotion can powerfully drive or derail a genera-
tion of novel ideas. A competent designer needs to understand their own and others’
emotions, as they embark on a journey to bring new ideas and products to the world.
However, we currently know little about how emotion impacts creative performance
across the globe. The lack of rigorous research on emotion impedes developments of
sound practices to guide designers’ learning and growth and to facilitate cross-
cultural collaboration.
We seek to advance the emerging research field centered on affect in design and
contribute to design thinking research by illuminating cultural variations in
designers’ affective processes in creative problem-solving. In the following sections,
we first review how emotion is currently understood in design research and practices.
We then introduce our theoretical perspective on the cultural shaping of emotion.
After that, we report two empirical studies, which suggest that culturally normative
emotions are linked to self-reported creative outcomes such as the novelty of ideas.
The studies also explore cultural variations in a few other emotional tendencies in
creative contexts. Finally, we discuss implications of this work and describe future
directions.
2 Theoretical Background
Scientific theories of emotion have evolved greatly over the past century. Through-
out this article, we use the term “emotion” and “affect” to refer to people’s subjective
feeling states. Classical views of emotion assume categories (e.g., anger, joy) that are
distinguishable as fingerprints at surface levels (e.g., facial behavior) and/or at
neurological levels (e.g., patterns of autonomic nervous system). These basic
Design the Future with Emotion: Crucial Cultural Perspectives 245
views of emotion (also known as classical, essentialist views), though intuitive for
people from certain cultures, are repeatedly found problematic in light of recent
research findings (Barrett, 2017).
Alternative views of emotion have flourished. Appraisal views, for instance,
generally expect variability in emotional responses and are agnostic to mechanistic
causes of emotion. One of the most adopted views is core affect. In the core affect
model, two subjective feelings are used to characterize all sorts of emotion concepts
across cultures; they are considered orthogonal to each other—valence (pleasure-
displeasure) and arousal (sleepy-activated). The core affect view provides a poten-
tially more culturally responsive language to talk about emotion. Russell and Barrett
(Russell, 2003; Russell & Barrett, 1999) who developed the core affect concept are
ambiguous about the causes or the biological mechanisms of basic feelings. Barrett,
in her and her colleagues’ recent work on the biological and neurological basis of
emotion, explicitly took a complexity-embracing approach and argued that emotion
is constructed in situ. This constructed view of emotion proposes that emotion
emerges in a brain as it “continually makes meaning of sense data from its body
and the world by categorizing those data with situation-specific concepts, thereby
constructing experience and guiding action” (Barrett, 2012, 2013).
In this paper, we adopt the core affect view to explore self-reported affective
states in idea generation. In addition, we use the affect valuation theory to examine
people’s ideal and actual affective states based on a broad set of emotion words that
are considered common across cultures (Tsai et al., 2006a, b).
2.1 Emotion and Design Research
Emotion is central to discovery and invention, yet its role is often invisible. As a
methodology to make explicit implicit principles of creative acts, design thinking
has put an emphasis on “thinking,” not “feeling” (Camacho, 2016). This is partly due
to a long-standing stigma about emotion at work, especially in male-dominant
engineering professions (Picard, 1997; Adams et al., 2011). Worse than being a
subordinate to design cognition, emotion is sometimes viewed with disdain
(Whitfield, 2007). For decades, research on the design process has focused on
deriving the rational and analytical basis. For instance, efforts to improve engineer-
ing design largely cast skepticism on intuitive design practices that rely on feelings
(Ranscombe et al., 2017). By contrast, an affective basis, and its roles in design, is
less acknowledged and studied (Ge et al., 2021). In emotion research within design
science, researchers have primarily looked at emotion as induced through designed
products (e.g., user emotion), popularized through Don Norman’s work (Norman,
2004), or as a way to understand students’ educational experiences (e.g., academic
experience) (Lönngren et al., 2020).
Nevertheless, there has been a burgeoning interest in studying emotion in design
due to a confluence of several forces. These factors include the recent technological
growth of computational emotion sensing tools and models, the rise of
246 C. Xu et al.
Table 1 Emerging research about affect and emotion in design process and behavior
Theoretical
perspective Focus Examples in design research
Basic views Mapping physio-/psychological status Studies on designers’ comfort using
(e.g., facial expression) to “internal” engineering equipment (Bezawada
emotional states based on fixed et al., 2017), emotional experience in
categories engineering design classrooms
(Villanueva et al., 2018) during CAD
design (Zhou et al., 2021)
Neuroscience Studying affect and emotion based on “[Emotion is the] highest form of
views its relationship with cognition thought” (Olson, 2001). “Affective
reasoning is the basis of rationality”
(Dong et al., 2009). “Design physiol-
ogy” as part of the cognitive process
of design (Gero & Milovanovic, 2020)
Core affect Investigating arousal and valence of Group emotional valence across
views feelings design stages (Ewald et al., 2019)
Constructed Studying physio-/psychological activi- Situated emotion of experienced
views ties as constructed by situations designers in codesign process
(Ge et al., 2021)
Mixed views Taking mixed perspectives based on Studies on team affective behavior to
theoretical considerations or, in the predict team performance (Jung &
cases of some papers, as a result of Leifer, 2011), software engineers’
empirical choices rather than adequate emotion in remote collaboration
theoretical conceptions (Vrzakova et al., 2020)
human-centered design (e.g., empathy development for designers), as well as new

research evidence in various domains showing how emotion is intertwined with
cognition, creativity, learning, and performance (e.g., Psychology: Csikszentmihalyi,
2013; Davis, 2009; Gino & Ariely, 2012, Management Science: Barsade, 2002;
Learning Sciences: Pekrun et al., 2014).
Researchers have studied designers’ emotion from various perspectives—as a
function of context, expertise, and design phase or as internal experiences, a joint
social process, or a form of thought (see Ge et al., 2021 for a review of studies). A
variety of approaches have also been taken across multiple research contexts to
examine different kinds of design activities. We summarize these different
approaches in Table 1.
2.2 Culture and Emotion in Design
Despite a growing research interest in emotion in the creative process, little research
has investigated the crucial role of culture. Current creative practices in the USA
have prioritized emotion-related cultural values that are prevalent in European
American contexts, while cultural values of many other groups have not received
as much attention in theory and practice. As a result, certain design practices
surrounding emotion developed in European American contexts may not be appli-

cable to other cultural contexts. For instance, in their qualitative study about creative
design thinking practices at IDEO, Sutton and Hargadon (1996) wrote, “Clients, like
others at IDEO brainstorms, are taught to praise ideas, build on suggested ideas, be
playful, wait their turn before talking, and not be critical. The justification for such
guidelines is that they facilitate the flow of ideas. A side-effect is that participants are
encouraged (nearly required) to express only positive feelings. If designers or
clients are negative, or just look grumpy, they are gently reminded to be more
upbeat.” Here, the ideation practices at IDEO prioritized the experience and expres-
sion of high-arousal, positive emotions, which tend to be the normative, desirable
affective states in European American contexts. Nonetheless, people in other cultural
contexts such as East Asian societies tend to value low-arousal, positive emotions or
are more likely to acknowledge the coexistence of both negative and positive
emotions. Hence, it is important to understand cultural variations in affective
norms and values as they apply to the creative process.
Emotions are “socially shared, collective scripts” (Kitayama & Masuda, 1995).
People’s experience and expression of their emotions are expected to vary system-
atically as a function of construals of the self (i.e., cultural schemas that people apply
to defining who they are) (Markus & Kitayama, 1991). In societies where the self is
typically thought of as being independent from other people and from contextual
factors (i.e., independent self-construal), emotion is usually thought of as “internal”
and defined as generated from individuals (Barrett, 2017; Mesquita & Markus,
2004). In cultural contexts where people perceive the self as overlapping with others
(i.e., interdependent self-construal), emotion tends to be associated with other people
and situational factors (Masuda et al., 2008). Tsai and her colleagues also studied
how emotions that people generally value and ideally want to experience (i.e., ideal
affect) may vary across cultures. They suggest that ideal affect allows people to
effectively socialize with others and maintain a sense of self that is generally
concordant with their respective contexts (Tsai et al., 2006a, b). In particular, their
work showed that high-arousal, positive affect (e.g., excitement) is generally valued
in American contexts, whereas low-arousal, positive affect (e.g., calmness) is valued
in East Asian contexts.
3 Research Question and Hypothesis
Drawing on prior work, we ask the following research questions: (1) What affect do
people in different cultural contexts actually and ideally want to experience during
idea generation processes? (2) How do these different affective states relate to
creative outcomes? As a starting point, we focused on comparing American and
Japanese cultural contexts.
We hypothesized that people overall tend to align their emotion in the creative
process with “ideal affect”—feeling states that are valued by their cultures. Mesquita
and Boiger (2014) argued that to the extent that certain emotions produce better
248 C. Xu et al.
outcomes within a sociocultural context, these emotions tend to be experienced more

frequently. It is plausible that aligning affective experience with cultural values is
associated with better performance in idea generation. For instance, whereas
designers in East Asia prefer to engage in silent and reflective “brainwriting”
(Ge & Maisch, 2016), designers in the USA enjoy riding on high energy to hunt
for novel ideas. This difference in desirable emotion is also readily reflected by
different ambiences across cultures. While the Nintendo headquarters in Japan are
characterized by calmness and simplicity, Google’s workplace is full of colorful
facilities for exciting, free exchange of ideas. We propose that when designers’
actual emotions are consistent with what is valued in their cultures, they are more
likely to excel in creative problem-solving.
Hypothesis 1a People in American contexts are more likely to experience and
ideally want high-arousal, positive emotions (HAP) in idea generation processes
than people in Japanese contexts.
Hypothesis 1b People in American contexts are less likely to experience or ideally
want low-arousal, positive emotions (LAP) in idea generation processes than people
in Japanese contexts.
Hypothesis 2a Experiencing high-arousal, positive emotions (HAP) in idea gener-
ation processes is more likely to predict novelty of ideas among people in American
contexts than people in Japanese contexts.
Hypothesis 2b Experiencing low-arousal, positive emotions (LAP) in idea gener-
ation processes is more likely to predict novelty of ideas among people in Japanese
contexts than people in American contexts.
In addition to exploring how culture may shape preferred levels of arousal and
valence during ideation, we also investigated other dimensions of affect in creative
processes, including the extent to which people experience socially engaging (versus
disengaging) emotions. While socially engaging emotions (e.g., guilt and friendly
feelings) reflect a desire to build, maintain, and repair one’s connection with others
and with their surrounding social and physical environments broadly construed,
socially disengaging emotions (e.g., anger, pride) are associated with the opposite
desire (Kitayama et al., 2006). Cultural contexts consist of an unevenly distributed
set of symbolic resources shared by a group of people—for example, narratives,
images, and schemas related to seeking harmony can be more easily found in East
Asia than in the USA. Consequently, culture holds the potential to foster different
appraisals of lived experiences and produce different emotions.
Hypothesis 3 During creative problem-solving processes, people in Japanese con-
texts are more likely to experience socially engaging emotions and less likely to
experience socially disengaging emotions than those in American contexts.
For exploratory purposes, we also examined a few other emotional tendencies at
different stages of creative problem-solving, including cultural variations in emotion
expressiveness (how easy or difficult it is for people to express emotion), emotion
fluctuation (how much people’s emotions fluctuate over the course of time), emotion
attentiveness (the degree to which people pay attention to their emotions), and
emotion ambivalence (a tendency to experience a mix of negative and positive
emotions).
In the following sections, we presented two empirical survey studies testing the
hypotheses. We first conducted a pilot study to simply examine potential differences
in actual and ideal affect among American participants and found evidence in
support of our theorizing. We then recruited a sample of American and Japanese
participants and compared their affective experience and tendencies during creative
problem-solving.
4 Pilot Study
4.1 Method
4.1.1 Participants
We analyzed responses from 106 American adult participants (Mage (SD) = 32.56
(11.36); 45 men, 59 women, 2 other; 69 White, 11 Black, 6 Latinx, 19 Asian,
2 other). Participants were recruited from Prolific.
4.1.2 Procedure
Participants were asked to briefly write down a recent time that they came up with
ideas to solve a particular problem or to create a product. They were instructed to
focus on their feelings and emotions when describing their experience and were
required to spend at least 1 min on this task with 30–200 words. After that,
participants reported their ideal and actual affect during idea generation. The order
of the questions about ideal and actual affect was randomized. Participants then
evaluated their own ideas in terms how useful and novel the ideas were. In the end,
they completed demographic questions including age, gender, race and ethnicity,
and annual household income. They also completed a short reading comprehension
question as an attention check.
4.1.3 Measures
Ideal and Actual Affect We adopted six items from Affect Valuation Index (AVI)
(Tsai et al., 2006a, b). We focused on items examining ideal and actual high-arousal
positive states (HAP; elated, excited, enthusiastic) and low-arousal positive states
(LAP; calm, peaceful, serene). Participants answered the questions on a five-pt. scale
(1 = “Not at all” to 5 = “Extremely”).
250 C. Xu et al.
Self-Appraisal of Ideas We used two items to measure self-reported qualities of

ideas (Hennessey & Amabile, 2010): (1) How novel was your idea? (2) How useful
was your idea? Participants answered the questions on a five-pt. scale (1 = “Not at
all” to 5 = “Extremely”).
4.2 Results
We summarized descriptive statistics and correlations among variables in Table 2.
4.2.1 Differences in Actual and Ideal Affect
We conducted paired t-tests and found significant differences between ideal and
actual HAP and LAP in participants’ creative problem-solving processes. As shown
in Fig. 1, American participants generally wanted to have both more HAP and LAP
than they actually had (HAP: t(105) = 7.68, p < 0.001; LAP: t(105) = 9.70,
p < 0.001) during the process of creative problem-solving. In addition to experienc-
ing more HAP than LAP (t(105) = 3.23, p = 0.002), American participants also
desired more HAP than LAP (t(105) = 2.00, p = 0.05).
4.2.2 Affect and Self-Reported Novelty and Usefulness of Ideas
We constructed two regression models to predict self-reported novelty and useful-

ness of ideas with affect (actual and ideal HAP and LAP) while including common
demographic variables as covariates including gender (“male” was coded as “0” and
“female” and “other” as “1”), age, and annual household income (before tax;
measured on a 1–11 scale with each scale representing a range based on a reasonable
income distribution in the USA). We found that participants’ actual HAP, but not
others (i.e., ideal HAP, ideal and actual LAP), predicted self-appraisals of idea
novelty and usefulness. Table 3 presents these results.
4.3 Discussion
In pilot study, we found that American participants expressed high-arousal, positive

emotions (i.e., HAP) that were generally consistent with what is considered valued in
their cultural context. In addition, experiencing culturally normative emotions (i.e.,
HAP) predicted creative outcomes such as self-reported novelty and usefulness of
ideas.
Table 2 Descriptive statistics and correlations among relevant variables in pilot study
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 M SD
1. Self-reported novelty of ideas – 2.58 1.19
2. Self-reported usefulness of ideas 0.42*** – 3.59 1.07
3. Ideal HAP 0.12 0.24* – 3.58 1.07
4. Actual HAP 0.52*** 0.41*** 0.39*** – 2.60 1.28
5. Ideal LAP 0.07 0.09 0.41*** 0.14 – 3.36 0.97
6. Actual LAP 0.40*** 0.33*** 0.18 0.57*** 0.28** – 2.26 0.99
7. Age -0.01 0.06 -0.12 0.09 -0.05 0.08 – 32.56 11.36
8. Gender -0.35*** -0.15 -0.17 -0.29** 0.03 -0.12 0.07 – 0.58 0.50
Design the Future with Emotion: Crucial Cultural Perspectives
9. Annual household income 0.17 0.28** 0.04 0.18 0.05 0.28** -0.01 -0.17 6.37 3.52
Note: Gender was coded as male = 0, female and other = 1
*p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001
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252 C. Xu et al.
Affect in Idea Generation in Pilot Study

5
Experience of Affect (1 = Not at all

4
and 5 = Extremely)
Types of Affect
3 HAP
LAP
1
Actual Affect Ideal Affect
Fig. 1 Ideal and actual affect during idea generation among American participants in pilot study.
Error bars represented standard errors
Table 3 Regression results predicting novelty and usefulness of ideas in pilot study
Dependent variable
Self-reported novelty of ideas Self-reported usefulness of ideas
(1) (2)
Ideal HAP -0.127 (-0.343, 0.089) 0.127 (-0.082, 0.336)
Actual HAP 0.371*** (0.165, 0.576) 0.212* (0.013, 0.411)
Ideal LAP 0.020 (-0.208, 0.248) -0.038 (-0.258, 0.183)
Actual LAP 0.199 (-0.055, 0.454) 0.120 (-0.126, 0.367)
Gender -0.554** (-0.966, -0.142) -0.016 (-0.415, 0.383)
Age -0.005 (-0.023, 0.012) 0.004 (-0.012, 0.021)
Anual Household Income 0.007 (-0.051, 0.064) 0.062* (0.006, 0.117)
Constant 2.005*** (0.890, 3.120) 1.913*** (0.833, 2.993)
Observations 106 106
R2 0.344 0.229
Adjusted R2 0.297 0.174
Note: Gender was coded as male = 0, female and other = 1. Unstandardized coefficients are
presented; 95% confidence intervals are in parentheses
*p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001
5 Main Study
5.1 Methods
5.1.1 Participants
We analyzed responses from 127 American participants (Mage (SD) = 39.2 (10.5);
59 women, 68 men; 110 White, 13 Black, 6 Latinx, 4 Asian, 1 other) and
155 Japanese participants (Mage (SD) = 41.7 (9.38); 59 women, 96 men). Partici-
pants were recruited from MTurk (US) and Lancers (Japan), respectively.
5.1.2 Procedure
Participants were first asked to write down a recent time that they came up with ideas
to solve a problem or improve a situation. After that, participants were instructed to
specifically describe and elaborate on their feelings as they came up with ideas,
including what the feelings were like and how the feelings changed during the
process. To capture a broader range of people’s affective experiences, we instructed
participants to describe their subjective feeling states even when they did not readily
have words for these feelings. Participants were required to spend at least 1 min on
this task with 30–200 words. Next, participants reported their feelings during idea
generation in a different way. They were asked to list up to five feelings that they
experienced, if any, during the process of problem-solving that they provided. For
each listed feeling, they were asked to rate its intensity as well as its timing relative to
the whole process (i.e., early, middle, and/or end). In addition, the participants
reflected on how difficult it was to describe their feelings and how much fluctuation,
awareness, and ambivalence of feelings they experienced.
Next, participants reported their ideal and actual affect during their processes of
idea generation. The order of the questions was randomized. Following that, partic-
ipants evaluated their own problem-solving outcomes. Finally, they completed
demographic questions including age, gender, race and ethnicity, and annual house-
hold income. They also completed a short reading comprehension question as an
attention check. American participants completed the survey in English, and Japa-
nese participants completed the same survey in Japanese.
5.1.3 Measures
Ideal and Actual Affect We used the same measure as in pilot study, focusing on
examining ideal and actual high-arousal, positive states (HAP) and low-arousal,
positive states (LAP). We adopted the translation from prior work (De Almeida &
Uchida, 2021) for the Japanese version.
Self-Described Emotion during Idea Generation Participants listed up to five
different feeling states in their own words (self-listed feelings). Participants also
described their emotional experience in written forms ( free-form responses of
feelings), which we subsequently coded for their levels of social engagement.
Emotional Tendencies We used a few items to identify participants’ emotional
tendencies including emotion expressiveness (“How easy or difficult was it for you
to describe your feelings?”; 1 = “Extremely easy,” 5 = “Extremely difficult”)
(reverse-recoded for subsequent analyses), emotion fluctuation (“To what extent
did your feelings fluctuate as you came up with the idea?”; 1 = “None at all,”
254 C. Xu et al.
5 = “A great deal”), emotion attentiveness (To what extent did you pay attention to
your feelings while you were coming up with the idea?”; 1 = “Never,”
5 = “Always”), and emotion ambivalence (“To what extent did you simultaneously
experience different feelings in the process of coming up with the idea you
described?”; 1 = “Never,” 5 = “Always”).
Self-Appraisal of Ideas We used the same item to measure novelty of ideas as in
pilot study. We also asked participants to answer the question “How good was
the idea?” on a five-pt. scale (1 = “Not at all,” 5 = “Extremely”). We added this item
as a more general way to gauge the quality of ideas as novelty may be valued more in
American contexts than in Japanese contexts (Ge et al., 2022). For exploratory
purposes, we also measured the extent to which participants believed that their
ideas solved the problems they described on a five-pt. scale (1 = “Not at all,”
5 = “Extremely”).
5.2 Results
We summarized descriptive statistics and correlations among variables in Table 4.
5.2.1 Actual and Ideal Affect in Idea Generation
We conducted one-way ANOVA tests to examine group differences in actual and

ideal affect. Here, we used ipsatized score to control for potential response style
differences in all subsequent analyses (Tsai et al., 2006a, b). In terms of ideal affect,
American participants ideally wanted to experience more HAP and more LAP than
Japanese participants, Fs(1, 280) = 30.2 and 5.25, p < 0.001 and p = 0.02,
respectively. In terms of actual affect, American participants reported higher actual
HAP than Japanese participants, F(1, 280) = 3.23, p = 0.07. Japanese participants
reported actually experiencing more LAP than American participants,
F(1, 280) = 5.13, p = 0.02 (Fig. 2).
To examine whether participants’ ideal and actual HAP and LAP would predict
self-appraisals of idea outcomes, in particular, how novel the idea is and how good
the idea is, we initially constructed linear regression models controlling for the same
demographic variables as in pilot study. Due to lack of model fit, backward stepwise
regression was performed separately for American and Japanese participants to
include other relevant variables. Results for both groups showed that, in addition
to some of the ideal and actual affect variables, the problem-solved variable (i.e.,
how much the problem was solved) emerged as a significant predictor. Therefore, we
constructed linear regression models based on demographic variables and the
problem-solved variable.
As shown in Table 5, we found that for American participants, actual HAP, but
not other factors (i.e., ideal HAP, ideal and actual LAP), predicted how good the idea
Table 4 Descriptive statistics and correlations among relevant variables in main study
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 M SD
1. Idea novelty - 2.60 1.12
2. How good ideas are 0.39*** - 3.81 0.91
3. Ideal HAP 0.15* 0.18** - 0.46 0.58
4. Actual HAP 0.23*** 0.22*** 0.53*** - 0.44 0.66
5. Ideal LAP -0.13* 0.07 -0.17** -0.14* - 0.62 0.59
6. Actual LAP -0.09 -0.05 -0.21*** -0.11 0.39*** - 0.30 0.62
7. Age 0.02 0.05 0.07 0.15** 0.05 0.06 - 40.54 9.95
8. Gender -0.08 0.04 -0.08 0.04 0.13* -0.07 -0.04 - 0.42 0.49
9. Annual household income 0.12* 0.16** 0.29*** 0.15* -0.02 -0.15** 0.04 0.19** 5.49 3.02
Note: Gender was coded as male = 0, female and other = 1
*p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001
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256 C. Xu et al.
a Ideal Affect in Idea Generation in Main Study

1.00
Ipsatized score of affect
0.75
Group
0.50 American
Japanese
0.25
0.00
HAP LAP
Types of affect
b Actual Affect in Idea Generation in Main Study

1.00
Ipsatized score of affect
0.75
Group
0.50 American
Japanese
0.25
0.00
HAP LAP
Types of affect
Fig. 2 (a, b) Ideal and actual affect in idea generation across American and Japanese participants in
main study. Error bars represented standard errors
is perceived to be (β = 0.29, t(118) = 3.12, p = 0.008) and how novel the idea is
perceived to be (β = 0.30, t(118) = 2.94, p = 0.004). Due to lack of model fit in
Model 1-American, we included other ideal and actual affect variables—P (positive),
N (negative), HA (high arousal), and LA (low arousal)—as additional predictors,
which improved the model (adjusted R2 from 0.07 to 0.12). We found that American
participants’ actual HAP (β = 0.35, t(112) = 2.87, p = 0.005), but not other affect
variables, predicted self-appraisals of ideal novelty. For Japanese participants, affect
related variables did not predict idea novelty; actual LAP, but not other affect
variables, marginally predicted self-appraisals of how good the idea is (β = 0.12,
t(146) =1.72, p = 0.09).
Table 5 Regression results predicting idea novelty and how good ideas are in main study
Dependent variable
How novel ideas are (1) How good ideas are (2)
Japanese American Japanese American
Ideal HAP -0.117 (-0.445, -0.403 (-0.865, 0.054 (-0.189, -0.239 (-
0.211) 0.059) 0.297) 0.525, 0.047)
Ideal LAP -0.202 (-0.465, -0.466 (-0.906, -0.075 (- 0.198 (-0.075,
0.062) -0.025) 0.269, 0.120) 0.470)
Actual HAP 0.216 (-0.065, 0.520 (0.174, 0.036 (-0.173, 0.341 (0.127,
0.497) 0.866) 0.244) 0.555)
Actual LAP -0.070 (-0.348, 0.116 (-0.227, 0.180 (-0.026, -0.171 (-
0.209) 0.460) 0.386) 0.383, 0.042)
Problem-solved 0.340 (0.185, -0.004 (-0.280, 0.608 (0.494, 0.399
0.494) 0.272) 0.723) (0.229, 0.570)
Gender -0.385 (-0.697, -0.078 (-0.509, -0.065 (- 0.143 (-0.124,
-0.072) 0.354) 0.297, 0.166) 0.410)
Age 0.008 (-0.008, -0.003 (-0.022, 0.004 (-0.008, 0.001 (-0.011,
0.024) 0.017) 0.015) 0.013)
Annual house- -0.026 (-0.081, 0.043 (-0.029, 0.006 (-0.034, -0.003 (-
hold income 0.029) 0.115) 0.047) 0.047, 0.042)
Constant 1.170 (0.311, 3.120 (1.690, 1.200 (0.561, 2.220
2.030) 4.570) 1.830) (1.330, 3.110)
Observations 155 127 155 127
R2 0.195 0.127 0.443 0.267
Adjusted R2 0.151 0.068 0.413 0.217
Note: Gender was coded as male = 0, female and other = 1. Unstandardized coefficients are
presented; 95% confidence intervals are in parentheses
*p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001
5.2.2 Self-Listed Feeling States during Idea Generation
We conducted sentiment analysis using feelings that participants described in their

own words (i.e., self-listed feelings). Valence and arousal scores of self-listed
feelings ranging from 0 (lowest) to 1 (highest) were derived based on National
Research Council Canada (NRC) sentiment and emotion lexicons (Version 0.92,
Mohammad & Turney, 2013). The Japanese responses were first translated using AI
translator Deeply.com and then double-checked by one of our Japanese collabora-
tors. We conducted one-way ANOVA tests and found that Japanese participants
generally expressed emotions with lower valence (M = 0.35, SD = 0.17) than the
American participants (M = 0.45, SD = 0.22), F(1,280) = 17.07, p < 0.001.
Similarly, Japanese participants expressed emotions with lower arousal (M = 0.36,
SD = 0.13) than American participants (M = 0.42, SD = 0.12), F(1,280) = 19.24,
p < 0.001. Figure 3 shows the results.
258 C. Xu et al.
Arousal and valence based on sentiment analysis of self-listed feelings

Level of affect (0-1) 1.00
0.75
Group
0.50 American
Japanese
0.25
0.00
Arousal Valence
Types of affect
Fig. 3 Cultural differences in levels of arousal and valence as indicated by self-listed feelings
5.2.3 Change in Affect across Different Stages of Idea Generation
Using the wordcloud package in R, we conducted a preliminary text data analysis to

examine participants’ emotions at different stages of ideation. We removed common
words (e.g., the, and, for, in, to, etc.) and starter words (e.g., “I feel,” “I had the
feeling of”) and extracted word stems for frequency analysis. American participants’
average word frequency in describing feelings is higher than Japanese (t(281) = 6,
p < 0.001). This result suggests that American participants are more likely to have a
shared model about emotion than Japanese participants. In the American context,
through socialization, people may have incorporated a set of common emotion
concepts (e.g., frustration, happiness, anger) to explain their experiences and behav-
iors related to creative problem-solving. By comparison, Japanese may have a more
diverse understanding about what emotions they associate with idea generation, and
their emotional expressions tend to be less institutionalized with weaker cultural
scripts to base their expression on.
Figure 4 visualized frequency of word usage at early, middle, and ending stages
of idea generation for the two samples, respectively. Across the board, words
(including their various forms) such as frustration, happiness, proudness, worry,
and relief are among the most common (i.e., highly frequent) descriptions of
feelings. In the early stage, “worried” was frequently mentioned among Japanese
participants, whereas “frustration” was more frequently expressed by American
participants. While worry and frustration could both be categorized as low-arousal,
negative emotions, they differ in terms of social engagement (i.e., whether emotions
tend to connect or disconnect people with others and their surrounding environ-
ments). We interpreted this pattern as indicating that Japanese participants experi-
enced more socially engaged emotions that connected them to other people and their
Fig. 4 Word clouds of listed feelings across different stages of idea generation for Japanese and
American samples. Larger fonts indicate higher frequency
contexts. At the ending stage, Americans also reported a greater feeling of pride than
Japanese. This pattern is consistent with prior research suggesting that Americans
tend to express emotions that attribute more agency to the independent self (e.g.,
pride) than Japanese (Imada & Ellsworth, 2011).
5.2.4 Cultural Variations in Socially Engaging Emotion during Ideation
Two of the authors coded participants’ free-form responses of feelings based on their
expressed levels of social engagement (Markus & Kitayama, 1991). Responses
expressing one’s inner feelings independent from others were coded as “1,” and
responses expressing feelings related to social engagement in reference to others
were coded as “0.” We found 41 socially engaging feelings out of 155 responses
(25.8%) in the Japanese sample, compared with 13 out of 127 responses (10.2%) in
the American sample. A chi-squared test of independence was performed to examine
the relation between cultural group and levels of social engagement versus disen-
gagement regarding emotion. Overall, Japanese participants were more likely to
construct their emotions in reference to other people than were American partici-
pants, χ2 (1, N = 282) = 10, p = 0.001.
Examples of interdependent feelings from the Japanese sample included the
following: “I wonder how my friends are feeling” and “. . .I was so angry. . .[but] I
managed to adjust it because of the other people involved in the project.” Examples
of interdependent feelings from the American sample include the following: “I felt
really happy with myself when I came up with this idea. I thought others would be
proud of me and that I could help others at work with my idea,” and “I felt pretty
260 C. Xu et al.
great contributing to the whole team and providing them with ideas that made the
supervisor very happy.”
5.2.5 Other Dimensions of Affective Tendencies during Idea Generation
To examine differences in emotional tendencies, we conducted a one-way multivar-

iate analysis of variance (MANOVA) combining all four DVs (emotion expressive-
ness, emotion fluctuation, emotion attentiveness, emotion ambivalence) as
dependent variables and found a significant multivariate effect of participants’
cultural backgrounds, Pillai’s trace = 0.15, F(4, 276) = 12, p < 0.001, partial
η2 = 0.15. Taken separately, this was only significant for emotion expressiveness,
F(1, 279) = 45.7, p < 0.001, and emotion fluctuation, F(1, 279) = 4.28, p = 0.039.
This means that Japanese participants found it more difficult to express emotion and
experienced a higher level of fluctuation in their emotional states than did their
American counterparts.
We examined how participants’ emotional tendencies may predict outcomes
including how novel and how good they perceived their ideas to be. First, we
conducted an exploratory correlation analysis as shown in Table 6. The correlation
analyses show that emotional tendency variables differentially predicted idea gen-
eration outcomes for these two samples. For instance, emotion fluctuation was
positively associated with qualities of ideas and learning among Japanese partici-
pants, whereas it only predicted learning for Americans. Furthermore, we again
constructed regression models to predict the three outcome variables (e.g., novelty of
ideas, how good the ideas were, and levels of learning) using these four emotion
tendency variables while controlling for common demographic characteristics
including age, gender, and annual household income and how much their problem
was solved. Overall, we found that only emotion fluctuation and emotion attentive-
ness predicted Japanese participants’ self-appraisal of idea novelty ( ps = 0.08 and
0.03, respectively). By comparison, none of these emotional tendencies predicted
outcome variables for American participants.
5.3 Discussion
In this study, we found evidence supporting H2a that experiencing HAP during idea
generation is more likely to predict novelty of ideas for people in American contexts
than those in Japanese contexts, despite no significant difference in actual HAP was
found across the two groups. This finding suggests that Americans may use their
own emotion to judge ideas whereas Japanese may take into considerations multiple
factors (e.g., others’ opinions) and rely less on their own emotions to evaluate ideas.
We did not find evidence supporting H2b. Yet we found that for Japanese,
experiencing LAP during idea generation tended to predict how good the idea
was. It is important to note that these two cultures may place relatively different
Table 6 Correlations between emotional tendencies and various dependent variables in main study
Emotion fluctuation Emotion attentiveness Emotion ambivalence Emotion expressiveness
American Japanese American Japanese American Japanese American Japanese
How novel was my idea? 0.02 0.27*** 0.13 0.24** 0.05 0.25** -0.02 -0.10
How good was my idea? 0.00 0.17* 0.20* 0.14 0.02 0.19* 0.23** 0.07
How much did I learn during this process? 0.19* 0.31*** 0.14 0.31*** 0.15 0.32*** 0.05 0.00
Note: *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001
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262 C. Xu et al.
emphases on how important it is for an idea to be novel. Hence, a question such as

“how good is this idea?” may prove to be a general way to gauge the quality of ideas
as valued by people in different cultural contexts.
Results of exploratory text and sentiment analyses were generally consistent with
respective cultural models of emotion in these two contexts. We found people in
Japanese contexts were more likely to experience socially engaging emotions and
less likely to experience socially disengaging emotions than those in American
contexts. In addition, a series of emotional tendencies (e.g., ambivalence, fluctua-
tions) showed different associations with the self-appraised creative outcomes for
these two samples.
6 General Discussion
Overall, emotion-shaping through culture has been under-recognized in creative

research and practices. Popular practices tend to prescribe a particular emotional
route to ideation in the USA—high-arousal, positive emotions (e.g., excitement).
However, we argue that people’s experiences and expressions of emotion in creative
problem-solving are influenced by historically derived cultural norms and values.
While an excitement-oriented affective route is consistent with cultural norms
regarding emotion in the European American contexts, people in many
interdependent contexts ideally want to experience low-arousal, positive emotions,
and they normatively acknowledge mix-valuenced emotions. Furthermore, people in
these contexts often construct their emotion in reference to other people or to their
socio-physical surroundings. Hence, they are more likely to experience socially
engaging emotions that motivate building and maintaining social connection.
As shown by our empirical data, compared with American participants, Japanese
participants reported more frequent experiences of low-arousal, positive emotion
(e.g., calmness) as well as more socially engaging emotions in an idea generation
task. Our findings serve to remind designers of the critical role emotion plays in
provoking a generative mind state. We also encourage future researchers to further
explore how culture underpins expressions of emotion and why and in what ways
emotion can be leveraged to make creative practices culturally responsive.
6.1 Limitations
We acknowledge some important limitations of the current work. First, our study
designs were correlational in nature and we used self-reported creative outcomes,
which are the participants’ own subjective evaluations of their ideas. However, given
that emotion casts an influence on people’s cognitive processes, it is plausible that
experiencing positive emotion can lead people to appraise their ideas more positively
(these associations, however, are likely to be culturally variable as well). In the
meanwhile, having positive idea generation outcomes may produce positive emo-
tion. Although participants were asked to report their emotion during idea genera-
tion, they may not have perfectly separated emotion at different stages. Hence, it
would be important to design studies to determine the causal mechanism and to use
other ratings for qualities of ideas.
Second, in this study, we did not address the within-culture diversity in American
society.
The foregoing theorizing regarding high-arousal, positive emotion as the ideal
affect mainly applies to middle-class, European American contexts. Different socio-
cultural groups in the USA likely have different norms and values regarding
emotional experience and expression. It would be critical to replicate our findings
with more diverse samples to include clear comparisons between European Amer-
ican participants (as opposed to Americans in general) and participants in different
East Asian societies (e.g., Korean, Chinese).
Third, there is immense heterogeneity in how creativity manifests in different
domains.
For example, artistic creativity may involve different affective experience from
pragmatic problem-solving creativity. Our study design used a recall paradigm to
ask participants to describe any recent creative problem-solving experience. Thus, it
is possible that our American and Japanese samples may have provided ideas for
solving different problems, which may in turn account for different affect being
reported. Fourth, we used a one-time, self-reported measure of emotion in our
studies. However, given that emotion is fleeting and dynamic, it would be important
to collect data at various points using designs such as repeated measure studies with
experience sampling methods and adopt multiple diverse measures of emotion (e.g.,
physiological measures).
6.2 Implications
Emotion profoundly influences people’s cognitive processes, including idea gener-

ation, judgment, and decision-making (Lerner et al., 2015). Hence, attending to how
emotion affects creative outcomes pinpoints a promising new route to encourage
people to come up with better ideas to solve problems in their respective contexts.
Research on affect in design can shed light on how to foster an environment
conducive to idea generation in a culturally resonant way. For instance, should a
particular social and physical environment for idea generation be designed to evoke
high-arousal, positive (versus low-arousal, positive) emotion? Should educators
highlight and encourage emotion ambivalence or fluctuation? How does expressing
one’s or acknowledging others’ emotions affect the quality of ideas generated?
Insights into managing the affective dimension of creative problem-solving could
bolster creative performance.
Highlighting emotion as a cultural product can also guide people to incorporate
diverse cultural values in designing products with a direct link to emotion. At a
264 C. Xu et al.
fundamental level, the very concept of emotion is culturally variable. But such
variability in emotional experience has not been well reflected in design practices.
For instance, there has been a lot of enthusiasm about building artificially intelligent
models that detect and perform emotion. Current conceptual models of emotion that
guide the algorithmic developments are likely to be based on theories of emotion
connected with cultural assumptions in European American contexts (White &
Katsuno, 2022). Popular theories about emotion (e.g., basic emotion) adopted in
affective AI products tend to encode a universalistic fallacy that people around the
globe experience a set of similar, “basic” feelings. Nonetheless, such AI products
may be less effective or biased when used in diverse cultural contexts. A cultural
consideration of affective AI products is important to ensure equitable design that
benefits a broader range of the population across the globe.
Finally, emotion is an intuitive way for people to empathize with and relate to
others. It is thus a key factor to fostering effective cross-cultural collaboration. For
example, in multicultural teams, people from different cultural backgrounds are
likely to experience and exhibit different emotional patterns when interacting with
each other. A lack of cultural perspective and knowledge about emotion can cause
confusion and conflict to the detriment of team cohesion and performance. On the
other hand, adequately understanding of cultural underpinnings of affect would
encourage team members to better negotiate communication norms. Such a scenario
would encourage people from minoritized backgrounds to voice their viewpoints.
6.3 Future Direction
It would be interesting to examine whether experiencing culturally counter-

normative emotions may yield better creative performance under certain circum-
stances as well. This is because emotions that do not conform to cultural norms may
be less frequently experienced and hence may elicit more novelty in thoughts. Future
research could examine this possibility by treating creative processes as a continuous
experience and taking a longer horizon in study designs.
Another fruitful direction is to examine cultural norms regarding the expression
of emotion. Culture can be viewed as a toolkit and instruments (e.g., languages) for
people to encode and express their emotion. However, languages are powerful tools
for activating existing cultural values and may constrain the experience and expres-
sion of emotion. Many fleeting emotions may not be readily recorded and thereby
may go unnoticed, as participants do not have the tools to capture their own
subjective experience or to share it with others. These subjective experiences,
however, may present a window to capturing novelty. For instance, Isbister et al.
(2006) explored a body-based, nonverbal means for evaluating a system’s affective
impact on users. The authors created a set of sensual evaluation instrument objects as
a way to measure affect. Their approach presents a way to record affect by bypassing
languages as a constraint.
Future research can investigate if providing participants with the means to record
their emotion may lead participants to generate more ideas that are novel. For
example, can integrating visual means (e.g., drawing and sketching) or movements
(e.g., dancing) based on people’s emotion boost performance in creative
problem-solving? Likewise, it is worthwhile to explore if creating novel symbols
for recording emotion can serve as vehicles to enhance awareness of one’s subjective
experience and help facilitate the expression of novel ideas.
7 Conclusion
Emotion is a ubiquitous part of the creative process in different societies. The ways
that people experience and express emotion are profoundly shaped by the particular
cultural contexts they are in. We seek to advance nascent field of scientific research
on the cultural shaping of emotion in creative activities. Our exploratory work has
shown that Japanese and American participants report distinct emotional patterns,
which then differentially predict self-appraised creative outcomes. We call for future
work to build upon our findings and further investigate how understanding emotion
can pinpoint new ways to encourage creative problem-solving in different cultures.
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Part 4
Design Thinking Best Practices
and Strategy
Opportunities and Limitations of Design
Thinking as Strategic Approach
for Navigating Digital Transformation
in Organizations
Annie Kerguenne, Mara Meisel, and Christoph Meinel
Abstract Digital transformation is fueled by the growing offer of digital technol-

ogy, promising new business models, and growing revenues. The inevitable sys-
temic change needed for digital transformation accompanied by the dynamic
conditions for such is what contributes to the growing complexity of transformation
projects in organizations, bringing new opportunities and hurdles for the people
affected. This complexity results in most digital transformation activities falling
short of their goal and leaders not being able to create the desired impact. There is
evidence that design thinking has the potential to significantly contribute to the field
of digital transformation. This research project aims at getting a better understanding
of how design thinking as strategic approach can contribute to the success of digital
transformation activities and, if so, to what extent. With a mixed-method approach,
including a literature review and qualitative research, we conducted three case
studies. Our learnings show that digital transformation is very individual to the
respective organization regarding scope, motivations, goals, and starting points.
Therefore, there is no general or linear approach to digital transformation processes.
Our findings show that it can start anywhere and includes forward as well as
backward steps. The individual transformation needs of organizations are also
based on the high complexity of transformation processes and activities. Orchestrat-
ing complex transformation projects requires a systematic, clearly structured, and
integrated process. This process needs both diverging and converging activities in
the areas of analysis, vision, learning, and diffusion. These activities enable ambi-
dextrous navigation through all transformation areas. To overcome transformation
hurdles, the constant integration of human, technology, and system perspective is
crucial to mirror the interrelation of all three systems. We found that the organiza-
tional culture plays a significant role in successful transformation projects. On a
A. Kerguenne (✉) · C. Meinel

Hasso-Plattner-Institut, Prof.-Dr.-Helmert-Straße 2-3, Potsdam, Germany
e-mail: [email protected]; offi[email protected]
M. Meisel
Hasso-Plattner-Institut, Prof.-Dr.-Helmert-Straße 2-3, Potsdam, Germany
272 A. Kerguenne et al.
strategic level, the cultural digital transformation maturity can serve as decision
reference to define starting point, metrics, and individual identification. On a sys-
temic level, we learned that methods are less likely to be transferred into the
organizational value creation practice than concepts/principles (as individual lessons
learned). Our cases show the vulnerability and fragility of transformation processes:
On an operational level, transformation gets blocked by daily business or urgent
matters leading to teams hitting the breaks in transformation activities. To make our
research actionable, we developed an integrated and clearly structured digital trans-
formation process and transferred the findings of this project for creating an adaptive
digital transformation strategy kit, that aims at closing the research-practice gap and
offers practitioners a scientifically substantiated strategic decision support on how to
navigate their own digital transformation endeavors.
1 Introduction
Today, the opportunities for creating new business value are within easy reach for
most organizations. At the same time, these opportunities have proven rather elusive.
Digital technology offers speed and scalability that drives successful innovation and
adaptivity. This continues to create major disruptions in how businesses work in
terms of new offerings, customer and partner relations, infrastructure, and organiza-
tional structure. Accordingly, today’s leaders are charged with navigating the
dynamic complexity that emerges from the nexus of digitalization, organizational
change, as well as turbulence in wider business environments. So, more than ever,
leadership requires a holistic multi-perspective approach rather than a single-
perspective one. There is evidence that design thinking can support the navigation
in dynamic complexity. Since the Harvard Business Review identified design
thinking as an “approach to devise strategy and to manage change” (Kolko, 2015),
the thought school has made considerable inroads into the service portfolios of the
top global consultancies (Pello, 2018). Advances have also been made into the list of
digital technologies, tools, and methods currently used by organizations with suc-
cessful transformations (de la Boutetière et al., 2018). Yet, there is evidence that the
challenge of “How to bring it home?” remains unsolved. The dilemma Larry Leifer
perceived regarding design thinking in 2012 implies a tension between disruptive
solutions and the organizational challenges of integrating these new, disruptive
solutions at both organizational (i.e., structure and procedural) and individual levels
(Design Thinking DTINGRE, 2012). We call the result (or, indeed, the lack of
results) of this tension as “disruption paralysis.” Disruption paralysis can be mea-
sured: “70% of Digital Transformations fall short of their objectives. . .[because]
delivering such fundamental change at scale in large, complex organizations is
challenging, especially with short-term pressures”(Forth et al., 2020). This translates
into approximately 900 billion annual budget resources wasted in 2020 in the USA
(Tabrizi et al., 2019). We therefore hypothesize that the main challenge in value
creation in the digital era is balancing the capabilities of generating high-value
Opportunities and Limitations of Design Thinking as Strategic Approach. . . 273
disruptive innovations with the ability to “bring them home” by embedding them in
an existing organizational structure. Our goal is to explore the opportunities and
limitations of design thinking for navigating digital transformation and examine
how these could be grounded by what we know about how design thinking works and
why.
Linking Research to Practical Transformation Activities Matters The initial
motivation for the HPDTRP is clearly stated by Hasso Plattner: “We must strive to
improve our understanding of innovation processes in order to bring better solutions
to society more quickly.” The better we understand the things we do, the less (time,
money, energy) waste we produce in achieving good results. Creating successful
innovations is already a difficult task embedded in multiple layers of uncertainty
(Jalonen, 2011). If we consider digital transformation as a system of nested innova-
tions, this challenge grows in complexity and volume. “Digital is not just a thing that
you can buy and plug into the organization. It is multi-faceted and diffuse and
doesn’t just involve technology. Digital Transformation is an ongoing process of
changing the way you do business. It requires mixing people, machines, and
business processes, with all the messiness that it entails. It also requires continuous
monitoring and intervention, from the top, to ensure that both digital leaders and
non-digital leaders are making good decisions about their transformation efforts”
(Davenport & Westerman, 2018). Digital transformation recalls the David against
Goliath story with its corresponding message. The bigger and more uncontrollable
the challenge, the more precise one should be able to act on the leverage points for
the desired impact. We assume that research could have an important impact on
equipping actors in digital transformation with well-founded instruments and strat-
egies to identify the areas of action for their specific digital transformation journey
and to decide for actions that work. Research insights translated into concrete action
guidelines for digital transformation become like David’s knowledge about Goli-
ath’s most sensitive impact point. In this sense, our project intends to continue
closing the research-practice gap. Furthermore, researchers say that “the develop-
ment and application of new DT methods, tools, and frameworks often lack the
foundation of rigorous research, and research insights seldom get implemented to
inform practice”(J. A. Edelman et al., 2021). Looking back at the history of design
thinking, this research-practice gap seems less like a conscience decision of keeping
these two areas of knowledge and action apart, but more like a logical result of the
methodological diffusion process. Julia von Thienen states in her work about the
design thinking foundations that “Design Thinking (. . .) was primarily an export of
practices. The available theories were maintained only inhouse (. . .) yet these
theories are invaluable in helping Design Thinking practices become fully under-
standable and applicable with greatest mindfulness and intentionality” (J. P. A. von
Thienen et al., 2021, p. 10).
2 Research Question and Research Design
The proposed project aims to answer one overarching research question:

What are the lessons learned for the potential and limitations of design thinking methods
and concepts as a strategy for (planning, developing, navigating, integrating) successful
digital transformation activities and programs in organizations?
An effective answer to this question will lead to less waste of human, technological,
and financial resources and support practitioners as well as coaches in digital
transformation processes. Concrete we want to contribute to solving this challenge:
How might we help leaders and their teams of teams overcome the “disruption
paralysis” and support them in planning, developing, navigating, and integrating
successful digital transformation activities and programs in their organizations?
2.1 Research Design: Method Mix for a Practice-Oriented

Action Research
Our concept is informed by an initial literature review and empirical data (inter-
views). Those built the basis for determining suitable conceptual frameworks and a
practice-oriented starting point for defining the main terms and concepts of digital
transformation, design thinking (as strategic approach), and transformation pro-
cesses. To build a first concept for a practice-oriented transformation framework,
we explored the challenges of digital transformation from a practitioner’s perspec-
tive in an expert workshop with innovation and transformation specialists (strategic
design, engineering, IT and media, organizational development, AI research) and by
analyzing 180 practitioner challenges brought into design thinking executive edu-
cation programs from 2014 to 2022. By screening selected business magazines and
consultancy publications, we identified the main digital transformation hurdles and
failure reasons. In a second step, we reviewed existing design thinking methods and,
based on their application potential, assigned them to the different phases of the
transformation framework draft. For that purpose, we connected the challenges and
hurdles with relevant lessons learned from research results of the HPDTRP reports of
2012–2021. With a focus on HPDTRP research, we aim not only to make design
thinking research accessible but also to create a meaningful structure for this
knowledge pool after 13 years of the program running. This literature based on the
impact of design thinking in different contexts was extended to research project
findings from the wider HPI design thinking researcher community as well as
standard references in the respective areas of transformation. To close gaps and to
create tangible prototypes for comprehensive transformative actions in all areas, we
extended the method pool. We adapted actions from related fields, such as manage-
ment, organizational sociology, future studies, and sustainability. The research
findings were transferred into the design of a complete digital transformation
strategy kit with phase explanations cards, action step-by-step cards, and inspira-
tional impulse cards. In parallel, we started our case study research (Yin, 2017)
gathering and analyzing the data (interviews, research workshops, and company
publications) in the three organizations. In our concept testing phase, we focused on
the design of tailor-made transformation action sets for distinct transformation tasks
of our research case partners. We gained a deeper understanding of our initial
research findings and hypothesis in real-world application. As a final step, we
submitted the completed digital transformation strategy framework and kit to the
digital transformation experts (whose input helped set the starting point of the
research phase) to get their evaluation regarding the remaining gaps, further devel-
opment potential, and usability of key activity modules. By embedding these
findings in structured sets of transformational actions, they can be used in organiza-
tional development curricula, either taught in education institutions or run by
respective stakeholder (e.g., leading human resources or IT departments) inside of
organizations (Fig. 1).
3 Design Thinking for Digital Transformation Today
3.1 Our Perspective on Design Thinking
During an interview at the d.confestival in 2012, Hasso Plattner demonstrates his

pragmatic yet deep understanding of the design thinking capacity in his words, “The
method is based on common sense” (Potsdam Eins, 2012). This describes the
potential of design thinking that made it one of the most popular methods to create
innovations and finally led to the holistic application as an approach “to devise
strategy and manage change” (Kolko, 2015). Applying the core principles of design,
such as user-need focus, multi-perspectivity, or fine-tuning concepts by controlled
experiments for business solutions, inspired Hasso Plattner, who became for design
thinking what the de Medici had for the Renaissance: namely, an enabler, multiplier,
and legitimation agent. From an entrepreneurial perspective, what could make more
sense than capitalizing on IT concepts by using them for different user needs. Maybe
this was one of the motivations for Plattner to fund the pioneering education
institutions at Stanford University in 2005 and, later, 2008 in Potsdam at the HPI.
From this practical and application-oriented point of view, design thinking encom-
passes not just the methods but also the specific attitude toward solution finding (the
mindset) and the different concepts or strategic principles that practitioners derive
from the lessons of distinct applications. The complete design thinking repertoire is
an interplay of methods, mindset, and principles. In applying the methods, users
grow a design thinker mindset, which sets the frame for developing individual
principles for application in further contexts (Fig. 2).
In fact, the historical evolution of design thinking from a method to a mindset and
strategic principles appears to be the logical result of an ongoing learning process
276
Fig. 1 Method mix for a practice-oriented action research

A. Kerguenne et al.
Fig. 2 Experience-based
learning according to
D. Kolb and Fry (1974)
based on experiences. Kolb’s experience-based learning cycle represents the theo-

retical concept supporting this assumption (D. A. Kolb, 1984; D. Kolb & Fry, 1974).
The experience: Transformation pioneers experience the value of a method, e.g.,
user interviews, by asking open question, inquiring about good and bad experiences,
exploring the underlying reasons for positive or negative emotions, and, perhaps,
making a discovery, for instance, finding out that a young person does not enjoy
doing schoolwork when it is parent-monitored because this gives them the feeling of
defeat at not being taken seriously. This surprised the researchers who had assumed
students would more likely view such monitoring to the establish orientation and
structure. The reflection: When compared to the usual batteries of closed questions
used in classic market research, the empathic technique of placing oneself in the
user’s shoes through open questions and follow-ups allows a deeper dive into
unknown motifs—as well to track them. These new findings offer good starting
points for innovative, user-centered solutions. The concept formation: A principle or
concept is derived from the reflection that serves as a concrete guideline in other
situations. Whenever it is a matter of exploring the deeper reasons for a certain
behavior to find new solutions to problems (whether with colleagues, family mem-
bers, or criminal offenders), the principle of empathy offers a successful formula.
Experimentation: Other related questions are now dealt with and problems solved
with this principle. These mark the beginning of the learning cycle as concrete
experience. In this way, strategic principles for acting in new contexts are gradually
developed over time.
The direct experience as a basis for learning and the active role of the learner are
two principles that are deeply anchored in the design thinking approach. The
innovators themselves go into the field to research the needs of the users. They
analyze what they have found in a team and develop solution hypotheses, which they
test as quickly as possible with the users as rough prototypes. From the users’
reactions, they learn how the solution should be further developed to finally give a
valid answer to a real user after several iteration loops.
Design thinking can thus also be described as an experience-based learning process,

applying methods to synthesizing concepts or principles that are then transferred to new
contexts when working on complex challenges.
3.2 Our Perspective on Digital Transformation
When we talk about digital transformation, we refer to a practitioner’s perspective,

which is characterized by an integrative and process-related view on the technology
aspects of digitization, digitalization, and digital transformation. In practice, these
processes are considered interconnected stages that occur seamlessly within organi-
zational transformation. Verhoef et al. (2021) define digitization, digitalization, and
digital transformation as follows: Digitization is the translation of analog informa-
tion into digital information. While mainly aimed at changing an organization’s
documentation process, it does not influence the value creation. Digitalization uses
digital technology to support and optimize an organization’s business process.
Digital transformation describes change across the whole organization, affecting
all areas of business, ultimately resulting in new business models (Verhoef et al.,
2021). Therefore, digital transformation builds on the effects of digitization and
digitalization and their distinct impact on the organization. In the digital transfor-
mation process, a highly complex network involving different stakeholders, pro-
cesses, products, and business models (Schallmo et al., 2017, p. 5), the main driver is
not the technology, but the integration of social, technological, and business-related
goals and actions into a strategy (Kane et al., 2015).
Unruh and Kiron (2017) describe the mechanism of getting from digitization to
digitalization and to digital transformation in practice as an iterative and
interconnected evolution process. Digitization triggers digitalization which inspires
digital transformation. The process then results in impulses for further changes. This
cycle mirrors the experiences of practitioners in daily business: You digitize a paper
process like the circular folder in administration. Other areas, from further sectors in
administrative work through human resources management, can then be digitalized.
The former HR “black box” transforms into a transparent and comprehensible
system that motivates new governance processes on system level, for instance, the
formal establishment of diverse career pathways and transparent compensation
concepts that follow a binding development logic. Hence, the technology-driven
transformation becomes the driver of transformation in the connected human (social)
and organizational strategy systems (Kane et al., 2015), which unleashes dynamics
on a larger system level that lead to increasing “wickedness” (Rittel & Webber,
1973) of digital transformation processes. When practitioners position digital trans-
formation projects into strategic planning typologies, such as the Cynefin framework
(Snowden, 2000) or the Stacey matrix (Stacey, 2007), they are usually classified into
the “complex” domains of the frameworks. These are connected to strategies based
on learning by experimenting forward (Cynefin) or design thinking (Stacey).
As an approach to grasp the essence of complex concepts and abstract concepts

like innovation and transformation, a legitimate starting point is the etymological
roots: Etymology dictionaries inform us that in the middle of the fifteenth century,
the word innovacion meant “restoration, renewal” and that the Late Latin
innovationem (nominative innovatio) was a noun of action from the past-participle
stem of innovare meaning “to change; to renew.” This word came from in- or
“into” + novus or “new,” meaning “a novel change, experimental variation, new
thing introduced in an established arrangement.” The interesting aspect here is that
the integration aspect—often neglected when we use the word innovation—is
already anchored in the word roots (Innovation | Etymology Dictionary, n.d.).
Let’s have a look at the historical provenience of transformation: It relates to the
Old French transformation and directly from Church Latin transformationem (nom-
inative transformation), meaning “change of shape.” It is a noun of action from the
past-participle stem of transformare or “change in shape, metamorphose” (Trans-
formation | Etymology Dictionary, n.d.).
Building on these definitions, transformation can be described as a metamorphose of an
established system due to the introduction of experimental variations (=innovations).
This is a description that reflects the characteristics of other transformation processes

in nature, psychology, or biological evolution. The pattern of transformation seems
to follow the integration of new elements in an established system. This is where we
get first hints about the hurdles of digital transformation processes. For the success-
ful integration of new elements, there must be a connection point between the system
and the new element.
In addition, when compared to isolated innovation, these processes take time. As
stated in 2017 in an article by Forbes Magazine, transformation describes the
ongoing processes that happen “after innovation has entered the scene.” Transfor-
mation processes take time and require establishing new organizational processes
and structures and strategic planning as a result of moving from one state to another.
Where innovation means challenging the norm, transformation means the drive
toward establishing new norms (Newman, 2017). Reflecting on research work that
takes a meta-perspective on transformation with sustainability-based concepts, a
successful transformation process requires an interplay of technology/innovation,
economy, culture, and institutions. This implies that navigating a transformation
process requires a specific set of capabilities, knowledge, and mindset—it thus
requires a certain transformative literacy (Schneidewind, 2018). Accordingly, we
describe digital transformation from an application perspective as a cultural trans-
formation task and ongoing learning process (Tabrizi et al., 2019).
This work focuses on a specific perspective: Digital transformation is a transformative
learning process located in a complex and dynamic system of interrelated social (human),
technological, and organizational value creation systems.
Precisely, this systemic complexity is why we assume design thinking, with its
human-centered and system-related approach, may have an untapped positive
impact worth being excavated and specified. We ask the following specified research
question:
How do we use design thinking methods and concepts in a workable, learning-based
transformation process that maps both parts of the metamorphose, the experimental vari-
ations (=innovations), and their integration in an existing system?
4 A Theoretical Framework for Digital Transformation
Our chosen perspective considers each digital transformation process as a learning

process that involves both the creation of the experimental variation and the inte-
gration in an existing system. Transformation models focus on either the digital
perspective or the social perspective (Haas et al., 2022; Nagel & Wimmer, 2014;
Schneidewind, 2018; Wade et al., 2020; Westerman et al., 2011). Schneidewind’s
model has been built with reference to Kolb’s experienced-based learning cycle and
thus has the capacity to represent the main stages of a learning flow: (1) understand-
ing of present system, (2) envisioning of desirable transformed future, (3) creation
and testing of experimental variations, and (4) integration of system changes.
Created as a structured approach to overall societal change toward a sustainable
economy, the framework emphasizes the present necessity of change to achieve a
sustainability-centered future. Schneidewind emphasizes the capabilities of politics,
civil society, business, science, and pioneers of change to address necessary trans-
formation processes from a vision and mindset of sustainability. He states that
transformation processes need to integrate different types of knowledge, that is,
knowledge about the current system, goal/desired state (a vision), and further
possible futures, as well that about the transformation itself. This includes knowl-
edge created through experiments. On an individual level, a mixture of knowledge,
mindset, and capabilities is needed for a successful learning process. This concept
refers to the multilevel perspective needed to understand the complexity of trans-
formation processes, which can be transferred to organizations. The landscape level
describes overarching structures and developments, the regime level describes
institutional structures, and the niche level describes the specific “place” where
innovation and change takes place. Schneidewind takes a systems thinking approach
on change levers (meadow) in the sense of that many distinct changes on the small
scale (niche) might add up to transform regimes (structures) and landscape (the
whole); vice versa, changes on the small scale are strongly supported by a fitting
support on the other levels. The drivers of change in Schneidewind’s model are
experiments: They allow us to learn and acquire the necessary transformational
knowledge in the down part of the cycle and represent real interventions as “real-
world laboratories” (Schäpke et al., 2018; Schneidewind, 2018). Transferred to the
context of digital transformation in organizations, these real-world laboratories can
take over the function of creating transformation knowledge in the interrelated
human (social), technological, and organizational system perspectives. Unlike the
standard design thinking process that represents a structured way to find innovative
solutions starting with understanding a specific problem in a system to experiment

forward a human-centered solution, the transformation framework offered by
Schneidewind structures the complete transformation cycle taking a systems per-
spective. We took this process concept as a reference and starting point for further
research in HPDTRP literature, practice-focused publications, and case research. It is
a transformation process with four stages, each representing one action area: anal-
ysis, vision, learn, and diffusion. To integrate the different social, technology,
organizational, and context systems that are involved in digital transformation, we
decided to build on the well-known innovation diagram that represents the three
factors of successful innovation. These are desirability, feasibility, and viability,
introduced by Brown and Katz (2011), and we talk about the human, the technology,
and the organizational system perspective, completed by the context perspective that
represents the larger meta-systems (ecological, political, economic). In this early
research step, one preliminary assumption was made that was based on the theoret-
ical reflection above, on the result of the first expert workshop with innovation and
transformation specialists (strategic design, engineering, IT and media, organiza-
tional development, AI research), as well as on our practical experience in the
coaching of transformation projects. This assumption was that the classical design
thinking innovation process works well for running the transformational experi-
ments in the real-world laboratories located in the learn stage (Fig. 3).
4.1 The Process Framework: An Integrative Modular System

for Ambidextrous Navigation
For specific questions, a digital transformation strategy kit shall be able to provide
answers, and we analyzed 186 practitioner challenges brought into design thinking
executive education programs from 2014 to 2022.
Learning 1: Digital transformation is diverse—scope, motivations, goals, and starting
points vary from organization to organization.
Digital transformation in organizations manifests itself in new ways of value crea-

tion. It can be defined as new ways of value creation in the organizational ecosystem
with new services/products, new internal infrastructure, and new relationships to
partners and clients (Foley et al., 2017; Weinreich, 2016). Completing the analysis
of the practitioners’ challenges, we considered the data of the interviews we
conducted with leaders in digital transformation (research case interviews and leader
interviews in further companies) and saw that the entry points and motivations for
digital transformation activities could come from different value creation perspec-
tives. This means focusing on the human value perspective when transformation
activities were driven, for instance, by the human resources department with a
transformation goal in the area of new internal processes and infrastructure. The
system value perspective, combined with a strong technology value perspective, is
the driver for the leaders of corporate incubators or innovation labs aiming to
282
Fig. 3 Innovation vs. transformation process (own representation, based on HPI D-School and Schneidewind, 2018)
A. Kerguenne et al.
Fig. 4 Diversity of entry points and motivations of digital transformation activities
develop new products, services, or business models. The system value perspective is
often the initial motivation behind creating new relationships to customers and
partners. It then evolves and links with both other perspectives during the transfor-
mation process (Fig. 4).
The practitioner challenges could be clustered in all four action areas of our
chosen process framework, with stronger concentration in the analysis area. A
double-review process ensured minimization of bias during the clustering process.
Going deeper into the different challenge essences, we identified two overarching
questions per phase that served as a subcluster for specifying assigned actions:
Analysis How can we understand ourselves as a team and our specific system?
How can we capture our driving and challenging dynamics?
Vision How can we see our (digitally enhanced) futures?
How can we plan our exploration journeys?
Learn How can we explore to learn what works for us?
How can we unleash our change dynamics?
Diffusion How can we cultivate our adaptive culture?
How can we establish our flexible organizational and operational structure?
The following Table 1 shows exemplary challenges in each area:

Learning 2: Digital transformation does not follow a linear step-by-step process—in real
life, it can start anywhere and includes forward as well as backward steps.
The distribution of the project challenges as well as the “forward-and-backward”

movement of the transformation projects over the entire process mirrored a real-life
experience in transformation project coaching as well as in our three research cases.
Organizations are very often already in the middle of transformation processes when
they start to look for strategic support—they don’t start necessarily in the analysis
stage. In some cases, we observed that several projects with transformational impact
had been run during the several years, leading to the need of a strategy based on
Table 1 Exemplary practitioners’ challenges defined in transformation projects

Number
of Practitioners’ transformation
Phase challenges challenges—examples Industry Overarching question
Analysis 59 Having common understand- European How can we under-
ing of the problem space as a food stand ourselves as a
team. Defining the status quo company team and our specific
of our international collabo- system?
ration. Understanding our
stakeholders their challenges
I see the biggest barrier in Global How can we capture
overcoming established robotics our driving and chal-
behavioral patterns that do not company lenging dynamics?
support the company’s
culture. . . the biggest oppor-
tunity is bringing people
together despite cultural dif-
ferences and regional
distances
Vision 45 The future consulting European How can we see our
approach means understand- consultancy (digitally enhanced)
ing the expected change, find futures?
out the key levers to attract the
target group, find out which
expectations and needs might
occur, match those with our
opportunities
Setting up a research plan for Global bev- How can we plan our
functional prototypes (feasi- erage exploration journeys?
bility). Evaluation of business company
model/consumer profile/expe-
rience briefing on the
opportunity
Learn 43 Potential improvements for the Global How can we explore to
innovation process, desirabil- automotive learn what works
ity of the product program, company for us?
safeguarding turnover
Implementation of an innova- German How can we unleash
tion process—Shape the way financial our change dynamics?
forward; create ideas to make services
it successful; point out the real company
success factors
Diffusion 39 Get a better understanding for German How can we cultivate
the needs of our subscribers publishing our adaptive culture?
and develop a club/member- company
ship scheme for the multipli-
cation of our subscribers
To implement the change as European How can we establish
smooth as possible; common consultancy our flexible organiza-
design and commitment of a tional and operational
set of rules for cooperation structure?
(continued)
Table 1 (continued)
Number
of Practitioners’ transformation
Phase challenges challenges—examples Industry Overarching question
und communication together
with the staff, coordinated
resource allocation and
aligned monitoring criteria
and processes
Sum 186
synthesis and respective rollout plans for scaling and anchoring. In another case,
organizational leaders would start with the redesign of their governance concept to
set the basis to better respond to their original purpose and vision and realize that
they would have to go back and understand the team dynamics in the leadership
team. Managers might also have been assigned to build up a corporate innovation lab
to structure the innovation and transformation projects for institutionalizing the
company’s innovation capacity and culture. Although being in a learn action area,
they would realize that essential business model-related factors and cultural charac-
teristics had to be analyzed before being able to move on with implementation
activities.
Learning 3: Digital transformation needs ambidextrous navigation. The processes require
both diverging and converging activities to move forward while overcoming transformation
hurdles.
Strategy consultancies represent a valid content source for practice-related data

about digital transformation hurdles, as their business models are built on producing
answers and services for the needs of organizations in value creation processes. By
screening selected business magazines and consultancy publications, we identified
main hurdles of digital transformation failure that we could allocate to the different
phases (Table 2).
Taking a closer look through the design thinking lens at the required thinking and
working modes for answering the overarching questions and overcoming the hur-
dles, we identified the same “rhythm” that drives the classical design thinking
process. Consequently, we propose a transformation process with four action areas
and eight phases—two per action area—that capture the exploration (divergence)
and synthesis (convergence) needed within each action area. The phases capture the
two crucial ways of dealing with knowledge and processing it, namely, a diverging
phase of creating multiple insights, exploring, etc. and a converging phase to close,
condense, synthesis, enable planning, strategy, and decision-making. This way, each
action area offers room to explore and create knowledge as well as to enable
decision-making and moving on in the process. The phases are informed by the
practitioner’s transformation project challenges, the hurdles from a business maga-
zine and consultancy perspective, and insights from qualitative interviews. The
phases can be explained as follows:
Table 2 Overview of important hurdles in digital transformation processes as stated by consul-

tancies and business magazines
Hurdles—the business and
Phase consultancy’s perspective Source
Kickoff Poor diversity of leadership teams Lorenzo, R., Voigt, N., Tsusaka, M.,
leads to less innovation and less Krentz, M. & Abouzahr, K. (2018,
investment in digital technology for January 23). How Diverse Leader-
digital transformation that generates ship Teams Boost Innovation. The
revenue Boston Consulting Group
If middle managers are not on the Werner, R., Streubel, H., Lovich,
same page with each other and with D. & Halverson, J. (2021, December
senior leaders from the start, digital 07). When Leaders Say They Are
transformation is 77% less likely to be Aligned—But aren’t. The Boston
successful than those instances in Consulting Group
which leaders had cohesion
Status quo When digital technology is not inte- Tabrizi, B., Lam, E., Girard, K., &
grated into culture, transformation is Irvin, V. (2019, march 13). Digital
more likely to fail Transformation Is Not About Tech-
If organizational status quo of nology. Harvard Business Review
mindset, structures, and processes Digital Article
isn’t identified before starting digital Hemerling, J., Kilmann, J.,
transformation, flaws can be Danoesastro, M., Stutts, L., & Ahern,
enhanced by digitalization C. (2018, November). It’s Not a
Digital Transformation Without a
Digital Culture. The Boston Consult-
ing Group
Envision Disagreement of management on Sutcliff, M., Narsalay, R., & Sen,
goal is one of the main failure fac- A. (2019, October 18). The Two Big
tors in digital transformation. Reasons That Digital Transforma-
Define opportunities and problem you tions Fail. Harvard Business Review
want to solve and how the company de la Boutetière, H., Montagner, A.,
will build the organization around the & Reich, A. (2019, October 19).
desired outcome before investing in Unlocking success in Digital Trans-
implementation formations. McKinsey.
Organizations where management
did not establish a clear change
story for transformation are more
than three times less successful than
those that did. If a change story does
not communicate clear targets for
KPIs and the transformation’s time-
line, it misses the most supporting
factors
Plan Wrong KPIs doom digital transfor- Tabrizi, B., Lam, E., Girard, K., &
mation: KPIs related to technological Irvin, V. (2019, march 13). Digital
capabilities just lead into digitization Transformation Is Not About Tech-
of the same business model, but not to nology. Harvard Business Review
digital transformation of culture Digital Article
One-size-fits-all solutions in the Forth, P., Reichert, T., de Laubier, R.,
name of “best practices” brought & Chakraborty, S. (2020, October
from the outside do not answer spe- 29). Flipping the Odds of Digital
cific challenges of organizations; and Transformation Success. The Boston
(continued)
Table 2 (continued)
Hurdles—the business and
Phase consultancy’s perspective Source
isolated transformation strategies are Consulting Group
among the main failure factors in dig- Schrage, M., Muttreja, V., & Kwan,
ital transformation A. (2022, March 8). How the Wrong
KPIs Doom Digital Transformation.
MITSloan Management Review
Experiment Transformation is less successful, if Rethinking digital Transformation—
groups are not enabled to apply the New Data Examines the Culture and
scientific method, using observation, Process Change Imperative in 2020.
hypothesis, and experimentation and (2020). Harvard Business Review
speed and effectiveness are blocked Analytic Services
Without feedback to guide change,
data-driven decision-making during
transformation projects is blocked.
Implementation Promising proofs of concepts don’t Rethinking Digital Transformation—
gain traction in implementation New Data Examines the Culture and
because of the “transformation Process Change Imperative in 2020.
chasm”—Due to underestimation of (2020). Harvard Business Review
transformation flaws in the interrelated Analytic Services
areas of strategy, operating model, Long, G. (2021, October 13). The
innovation agility, technology capa- answer is scale. . .what’s the ques-
bility, and most importantly people tion? The industry X Magazine
and culture (Accenture).
Technology is important, but the Forth, P., Reichert, T., de Laubier, R.,
people dimension (organization, & Chakraborty, S. (2020, October
operating model, processes, and 29). Flipping the Odds of Digital
culture) is the determining factor. Transformation Success. The Boston
Organizational inertia from deeply Consulting Group
rooted behaviors is a major
impediment.
Cultivate Organizations that did not support de la Boutetière, H., Montagner, A.,
transparency by implementing digi- & Reich, A. (2019, October 19).
tal tools for more accessible informa- Unlocking success in Digital Trans-
tion were only half as successful than formations. McKinsey
those who did this Blount, S., & Carroll, S. (2017, May
Organizations that did not support 16). Leading Teams Overcome
participation by establishing digital Resistance to Change with Two
self-service technologies for Conversations. Harvard Business
employees and partners’ use were Review
only half as successful as those who Digital Transformation Refocused:
did New Goals Require New Strategies.
(2022, May 12). Harvard Business
Review Analytic Services
Governance The 70% of businesses that do not Schrage, M., Muttreja, V., & Kwan,
transform successfully do not lever- A. (2022, March 8). How the Wrong
age fast—And simplified—Deci- KPIs Doom Digital Transformation.
sion-making. They use the wrong MITSloan Management Review
KPIs to monitor progress toward
outcomes
Analysis Action Area

• Diverging phase: kickoff to set off the transformation team; analyze infrastruc-
tures, stakeholders, and value creation processes in the organization; explore
organizational purpose and values; as well as assess the digital diffusion.
• Converging phase: status quo to consolidate the transformation journey, define
internal and external drivers and blockers for digital transformation and evolu-
tion, and evaluate cultural maturity.
Vision Action Area

• Diverging phase: Envision to explore desirable futures, craft compelling goals
and visionary stories for the transformation process, understand potential impacts
and interrelations to define the transformation vision, and elaborate strategic
spaces of opportunities.
• Converging phase: Plan to prioritize what to learn and how, define a clear process
and conditions for transformation experiments, and agree on desired outcomes
and measurements for success.
Learn Action Area

• Diverging phase: experiment by finding relevant human-centered sources of
inspirations, ideate, and prototype for testing and learn from feedback.
• Converging phase: implement by conceiving a strategy that evaluates desirability,
technological feasibility, organizational viability, and overarching opportunity of
your experiments and plan your pilot projects, metrics, and capability develop-
ment for implementation.
Diffusion Action Area

• Diverging phase: Cultivate to grow a self-energizing, participatory culture; set up
a feedback system for scaling decisions and run and pivot transformational pilot
projects.
• Converging phase: Governance to build a transparent organizational structure
that supports ongoing learning; defines clear processes, functions, and roles with
vertical and horizontal connections; establishes a control, measurement, and
reward system that supports driving cultural transformation factors and fuels an
adaptive common behavior and culture (Fig. 5).
The final process framework now integrates divergent and convergent phases in a structured
yet flexible pathway that enables ambidextrous navigation in digital transformation. It is
designed in a circular shape so that the ongoing nature of digital transformation is
supported.
To further define actions that would use the impact of design thinking to energize
the digital transformation process, we recurred to the HPDTRP knowledge pool. We
identified 85 articles within the HPDTRP reports from 2011 to 2021 with potential
contributions to answering the overarching questions and overcoming the hurdles.
Fig. 5 The process framework for flexible ambidextrous navigation of digital transformation
During an expert workshop at the HPDTRP community building, we extended the

literature base with more recent suggestions from HPDTRP researchers. We identi-
fied design thinking drivers for digital transformation actions for each of the eight
phases. In the area of analysis, we mostly found relevant resources regarding setting
up teams (e.g., Balters et al., 2021; de Paula et al., 2022a; Dow et al., 2012; Noweski
et al., 2012; von Thienen et al., 2012). Overall, less literature provided answers on
how to analyze and understand the status quo (e.g., Elsbach & Stigliani, 2018; Ney
& Meinel, 2019). In the action area of vision, the biggest gap could be identified in
the phase of Envision with the lowest amount of relevant literature (e.g., Gabrysiak
et al., 2011). In the phase of Plan, more resources could be identified on planning and
measuring design thinking experiments (e.g., de Paula et al., 2022b; Guentert et al.,
2014; Haskamp, 2021; Sheppard et al., 2021). In the learn action area, the highest
number of relevant literature was found, especially in experimentation (e.g., Björk
et al., 2010; Dow et al., 2010; Hölzle & Rhinow, 2019; Jobst & Meinel, 2014;
Royalty et al., 2021; Traifeh et al., 2019). This phase relates the most closely to
design thinking practices. Successful implementation has grown in importance to
design thinking in the recent years, shown by the growing number of relevant
research in the field of experimentation (e.g., Haskamp, 2021; Haskamp et al.,
2021; Lorson et al., 2022; Marx et al., 2022; Mayer et al., 2021; Royalty et al., 2021;
Royalty & Roth, 2016). In the action area of diffusion, the amount of relevant
literature has also grown in recent years. Relevant sources have grown, particularly
in the phase of Cultivate with a focus on scaling (e.g., Haskamp, 2021; Haskamp
et al., 2021; Marx et al., 2022; Mayer et al., 2021; J. P. A. von Thienen et al., 2021).
Aspects of the Governance phase remain gaps in the literature landscape of design
thinking research, as only few articles related to the questions of this phase (e.g.,
Beyhl et al., 2014; Santuber, 2019; von Thienen et al., 2021) exist.
5 Design Thinking Opportunities and Implications

for a Modular Digital Transformation Strategy Kit
Before building the comprehensive strategy kit, we analyzed the in-depth qualitative
semi-structured interviews conducted with leaders from case partner organizations
and other organizations. Those leaders had attended one of the design thinking
transformation and leadership programs in the last 8 years.
Learning 4: Methods are less likely to be transferred into the organizational culture and
value creation processes than design thinking mindset elements and concepts/principles
(as individual lessons learned) unless they are used for institutionalizing innovation
processes.
One year after attending the design thinking training, the alumni would most likely
remember methods with catchy names like the “Drama-Hero-Curve” (a storytelling
method) or the “Oops-a-Daisy-Framework” (a method for structuring interview
data). Most interviewed leaders referred to design thinking principles like “story-
telling to involve the collective mind,” “empathy to step in the shoes of a user for
inspiration,” or “prototyping to accelerate decisions.” Exception: Leaders who were
in immediate need of a structure for innovation as part of the corporate transforma-
tion strategy directly implemented the design thinking process with its methods
along with other agile approaches, like Lean and Scrum (Rhinow, 2018). Based on
this learning, we connected research-based leverage points to define the transforma-
tive actions. The leverage points were derived from existing literature of the
HPDTRP research base and evidence from adjacent research fields. The following
figure shows how the elements of the strategy kit are connected: Starting with the
process phase and respective tasks, we defined the challenges and hurdles, as well as
leverages and optional actions. On a more in-depth action level, we provide the
concrete description of the levers linked to a relevant research insight followed by a
step-by-step process to execute the action (Fig. 6).
Fig. 6 The adaptive digital transformation strategy kit: anatomy of a research-practice bridge
(example for Implementation phase)
6 Toward an Adaptive Digital Transformation Process

Framework for Navigating Digital Transformation
in Organizations
In our concept testing phase, we focused on the design of tailor-made transformation

action sets for distinct transformation tasks of our research case partners, which we
used in digital transformation research workshops. Beforehand, we had defined the
specific position of the teams within the digital transformation process framework
and had developed the agendas according to the respective phases, defined case
partner challenges, and goals while considering the matching research-practice
bridges (Table 3).
Our analysis of three cases looked at the factors we believe to be constitutional for
identifying the opportunities and limitations of design thinking in navigating digital
transformation. On a more informed stage of the research endeavor, we wanted to
understand the blockers and drivers of digital transformation in contexts of different
organizational cultures to test design thinking concepts/principles and respective
action set. We assumed these to have a positive impact on overcoming the lockers
and magnifying whether the drivers of digital transformation would work or not
work. To create a starting point for defining the organizational status quo, we used
the adaptive cultural maturity model (ACM) for navigating digital transformation in
organizations proposed by Ney et al. (2022). The framework is based on a synthesis
of the maturity factors in current digital maturity models (Buvat et al., 2017; Hölzle
& Rhinow, 2019) which are combined with the anthropologist perspective of
organizational cultures (Douglas, 1986).
Five “generic factors” were presented for self-assessment of the leaders in our
interviews:
1. Human centricity, manifested by how important user/customer/employee per-
spectives are for the running of the organization and how user/customer/
employee needs impact the organization (product and services, administration,
informally, etc.)
2. Collaboration, manifested by how important collaboration is for the organization,
what collaboration means for the organization, how collaboration has changed in
the organization over the past 5 years, and what factors ensure successful
collaboration.
Table 3 Sources of evidence used in case research

Documents Internal and external communication and publications (press releases, intranet,
social media posts, website)
Interviews Interviews with leaders
Research Spoken and written manifestations of members of case organizations in form
workshops of workshop documentations
3. Iteration-driven, manifested by the importance of experiments and feedback in

the product/service life cycle and how the leaders know when they have solved a
problem or responded to a challenge.
4. Digital responsiveness, manifested by the importance of technology to the mis-
sion of the organization, the most relevant technological developments, the
responsibility regarding the social impact of IT implementation, and how the
role of technology in the organization has changed over the past 5 years.
5. System minded, manifested by the relevance of wider economic, societal, or
environmental considerations to the organization and importance and relevant
awareness of activities in other parts of the organization for the work and how the
leader’s work impacts the overall organizational value creation.
Furthermore, the leaders were asked about company beliefs and cultural values
that were implicitly or explicitly referred to by decision takers and top management
to legitimize rules, structures, roles, and processes of decisions and resources
attribution. In the interpretation of the interview data by researchers, the cultural
theory categories (“archetypes”) were taken as reference to deepen the understand-
ing of the organization specificity and to give orientation in the strategic design of
transformational action sets in the testing workshops. According to Ney et al. (2022),
“Cultural Theory locates four viable organizational archetypes along the grid and
group dimension. Each of these four ways of organizing consists of mutually
reinforcing social relations, beliefs, and practices. Hierarchies feature highly strat-
ified social structures supported by elaborate rules-systems as well as measures to
sanction transgression and reward obedience. These organizational cultures help
bring about ‘reliability.’ Markets or individualism provides individuals with the
liberty to determine and negotiate transactions with others based on mutual self-
interest. Individualist organizational cultures are geared toward bringing about
‘validity.’ Sects or egalitarianism offers individuals closed communities based on
values of equality and justice. Isolation or fatalism is a way of organizing in which
trust in others is rare; therefore, interaction is likely to be short-lived and strictly
opportunistic. In this sense, organizations are not merely patterns of transactions or
resource networks but also ways of perceiving and acting upon the world.” (Fig. 7).
Our research data shows that the cultural factor was mentioned repeatedly as one
of the main digital transformation hurdles stated by business consultancies and
business magazines. Such is reflected in a Capgemini survey from 2019: “62 percent
of respondents consider culture as the number one hurdle to Digital Transformation”
(Bohn et al., 2018). We had explored this field as a connected research project during
the period October 2021–June 2022 (Table 4).
In addition to the cultural maturity scan, the following criteria were considered
constitutional for the dynamics of digital transformation for each case:
1. The area in which digital transformation in the company system first surfaced
(department, line, function) and initial growth objective regarding the three
basic perspectives we chose to consider in digital transformation processes:
human value, technology value, economic value.
Fig. 7 Cultural Map:

cultural theory categories
according to Douglas (1986)
2. Transformation challenge.
3. The self-assessment of cultural identity and maturity for digital transformation
according to the ACM model with generic maturity factors as well as individual
cultural core factors (Ney et al., 2022).
4. The interpreted cultural worldview (interpretation by researcher based on Doug-
las, 1986).
5. The stated transformation vision.
6. The transformation process phases.
7. Main transformation results on human (social/cultural) level.
8. Main transformation results on technology level.
9. Main transformation results on organizational system level.
10. Perceived hurdles and drivers of taken transformation process.
11. Applied design thinking principles/concepts and perceived impact.
12. Design thinking limitations/completing thought schools, disciplines, and
methods (Fig. 8).
The case partners and their respective transformation challenges are described as
follows (Fig. 8).
1. National for-profit organization insurance services NF/IS >14.000

2. National publicly owned organization energy NPO/EN >400
3. European for-profit organization safety and hygiene EF/SandH >11.000
Opportunities and Limitations of Design Thinking as Strategic Approach. . .
Fig. 8 Overview cases regarding initial overarching question and main phases of adaptive digital transformation framework
295
The following Table 4 shows the three companies’ transformation cases in

comparison.
Table 4 Overview of case studies in comparison
National publicly European for-profit National for-profit
owned organization organization safety and organization
energy hygiene EF/SandH insurance services
Case/criteria NPO/EN > 400 >11.000 NF/IS >14.000
Area of entry/initial • Planning and consul- • IT department. • Corporate innova-
goal for digital tancy department. • Internal processes tion and transforma-
transformation • Internal processes and infrastructure. tion lab.
and infrastructure. • System value: Digi- • Internal processes
• Intersection of human talization to secure and and infrastructure
value and system grow business today connected to services
value: Unleashing the and tomorrow. and product portfolio.
self-motivation and • Intersection of
intrapreneurial mindset human value and sys-
of teams for avoiding tem value: Transfor-
resource waste in pro- mation of business
ject management. model to secure sur-
vival of company in
digitally driven highly
competitive market
dynamics.
Challenge How can we under- How can we establish How can we explore/
stand ourselves as a an agile governance learn what works for
team and our specific concept (while running establishing a corpo-
system to enable col- daily business rate incubator and lab
laborative and result- projects)? to create future value
focused adaptivity and for the company?
efficient project run in
extreme organizational
growth (rapidly
increasing number of
employees and size of
projects with high
level of complexity)?
Main cultural iden- Generic factors Generic factors Generic factors
tity factors • Human centered: • Human centered: • Human centered:
35% (externally and 35% (internally). 80% (internally).
internally). • Customer centered: • Customer cenetered:
• Collaborative: 40%. 25% (externally). 25% (externally).
• Iteration-driven: • Collaborative: 50%. • Collaborative: 60%
25%. • Iteration-driven: (internally), 40%
• Technology respon- 25%. (externally).
sive: 75%. • Technology respon- • Iteration-driven:
• System minded: 80% sive: 30%. 50%.
(world), 20% (inter- • System minded: 60% • Technology respon-
nally). (world), 30% (com- sive: 80% (security
Company-specific fac- pany). of data).
tors Company-specific fac- • System minded:
• Performance driven: tors 80%.
70%. • Cost efficiency: Company-specific
100% stability—20%. factors
(continued)
Table 4 (continued)
• Best quality: 80%. • Security: 90%.
• Team spirit: 80%. • Continuity/reliabil-
ity: 80%.
• Community spirit:
90%.
Cultural worldview Individualism with Individualism, Egalitarian, hierarchi-
and resulting strate- egalitarian characteris- strongly hierarchy- and cal orientation
gic need tics, market-driven market-driven Strategic need for
Strategic need for con- Strategic need for par- repeatable work pro-
trollable collaborative ticipative transforma- cesses that enable
work processes and tion actions, user-need both self-direction of
team structures understanding and lab teams and focus
teambuilding routines on measurable experi-
mentation results
Transformation “Effective climate pro- “Recognized leader in “We want to be the
purpose/vision tection is a matter of sustainable, innova- voice of social cohe-
bundling forces effi- tive, and digital solu- sion and mutual
ciently” (organization) tions for all customers” responsibility because
“We believe that cli- (organization) confraternity achieves
mate protection needs “Carrying EF/SandH more
easy-to-apply pro- safely to a data-driven No defined digital
cesses and a good future purpose/vision on
functional team play” “(IT department) organizational level
(strategy department) “Challenging the sta-
tus quo (of classical
automotive insurance
category) and evolv-
ing from an insurance
company to a solver
of daily problems for
our clients” (lab)
Transformation • Kickoff and Envision: • Kickoff: • Envision: Definition
process phases Teambuilding work- Teambuilding work- of department’s mis-
shop, definition of shop, definition of IT sion, values, vision.
team’s transformation team’s mission and • Experiment: Run-
mission, vision, and “hot topics” of trans- ning several innova-
“hot topics” of transformation. tion projects, one for
formation. • Status quo: Cultural 5 years.
• Plan: Upskilling self-assessment work- • Implement:
training leadership shop based on maturity Co-creation workshop
team and team mem- model. to learn from experi-
bers in strategic design • Envision: Vision ments, spot process
thinking and agile pro- workshop to design the gaps, and plan opti-
ject management ideal future IT struc- mized lab process for
methods (OKR). ture and processes. ongoing and future
• Experiment: Selec- • Plan: Exploration projects.
tion of strategic key research workshop to
projects and define prototypes
(continued)
Table 4 (continued)
development as explo- stages and testing
ration labs to learn for periods.
scaling. • Experiment:
• Implement: Visuali- Unplanned rapid
zation of transforma- experimentation in
tion factors and context of organiza-
roadmap to create a tional crisis.
common orientation • Implement: Participa-
artifact that helps nav- tive redesign of IT
igate through huge governance concept.
complex projects.
Results human level • Co-creation of team • Common definition • Team alignment on
purpose and vision for of starting point and corporate lab process
common orientation goal; co-creation of strengths and weak-
and as a basis for self- transformation vision nesses.
direction. in workshops with • Collaborative map-
• Establishment of cross-functional lead- ping existing project
monthly milestone ership teams from on digital transforma-
team workshops as a technology and busi- tion process frame-
combination of design ness perspective. work and decision
thinking method train- • Internal and external about future redesign
ing and project work. storytelling about stra- needs.
• Integrating high fre- tegic goal, collabora-
quency feedback tive process, and status
mechanisms in daily quo of transformation.
work for continuous • Participative devel-
learning and opment and testing of
optimizing. hybrid linear and agile
governance concept
prototypes.
• Integration of new
intersection role to
enable efficient com-
munication between IT
and business.
Results technology • Implementation of • Change of IT pro- • Corporate lab’s
level digital collaborative cesses from technol- scope is focused on
project work manage- ogy focus to user and digital services for
ment systems user-product focus. business model trans-
matching, with formation. So far, five
selected agile project digital services pro-
management methods. jects are work-in-
progress.
Results organiza- • Implementing agile • Establishment of • Work-in-progress:
tional system level project management strategic key visual to Development of pro-
methods (OKR). communicate interre- posed adaptive digital
• Implementation of lation of people, pro- transformation pro-
regular knowledge cesses, and technology cess and action sets
(continued)
Table 4 (continued)
sharing and feedback systems for organiza- for standardizing cor-
formats. tional transformation. porate lab workflows.
• Integrating Design of user-
“synapses”-roles into centered IT gover-
overall team structure. nance concept includ-
ing structures, roles,
processes, KPIs
Hurdles • Leadership conflict of • Complexity of IT • Lack of structure and
rapidly growing pro- restructuring while standards for corpo-
ject scopes and team running daily business. rate lab processes.
sizes on one hand and • Communication hur-
time needed for rede- dles between business
sign of team gover- and IT department
nance concept on the team members.
other hand. • Team dynamics.
• Orientation gap of • Cyber-crisis.
team members in
change period of
restructuring and
implementation of new
project management
methods.
• Overall time pressure
that would not allow
additional time invest-
ment for collaboration
and learning phases.
Design thinking • Empathy, • Empathy, • Empathy, iteration,
leverage impact teambuilding analogiz- teambuilding, diver- systems thinking.
ing, systems thinking. sity, analogizing.
Limitations of • Operationalizing and • Structural gover- • Classical design
design thinking; measurement of verti- nance concept redesign thinking process does
completing thought cal and horizontal with classical frame- not map the innova-
schools, disciplines, alignment for time- works (RACI) that tion and the integra-
and methods efficient teamwork. were adapted with the tion process.
• Management-by- help of design • The necessity of
objectives method thinking-based user stakeholder involve-
(OKR) used to steer research and ment from the begin-
collaboration work and prototyping. ning on.
measure teamwork • Design thinking
results. does not help in legal
questions of venture
development.
• Business frame-
works (e.g., SWOT,
Cynefin); areas like
foresight and strategic
project management.
6.1 Case Study 1: From Siloed Best Quality Performer

to Collaborative Knowledge Provider for Complex Need
Systems (National Publicly Owned Organization Energy
NPO/EN > 400)
Organization and Background Motivation NPO/EN had grown from approx.

200–400 employees within the past 2 years. Operating as expert hub for energy
consultancy, project development, and network building at the intersection between
public, industry, and private stakeholders, the organization had to cope with its
increasing importance, new dynamics, and growing work scope complexity.
The director of one of the largest departments in the organization, the consultancy
department, aimed to unleash self-motivation and the intrapreneurial mindset of
teams in the context of this dynamic growth. The upper middle management actor
(I3), who started the digital transformation activities, attended a design thinking
leadership program at the HPI Academy in 2019.
Transformation Entry Area in Company System The consultancy department
started their transformation program by focusing on the internal infrastructures.
Initial Goal for Digital Transformation The main reason for the transformation
efforts, as quoted by the department director, was “. . .to connect the knowledge and
motivation of each of us to form a connected think and do tank with maximum
capacity to solve our multifaceted challenges. What we sell is knowledge, expertise,
and solutions for a highly complex topic. To increase the value-for-money benefit for
all our stakeholders, we want to and we must bundle our forces.” This translated into
a mixed initial growth objective of human and organizational system (business)
value.
Challenge The leader described the challenge the organization faced as follows:
“With smaller teams and projects, our structures and processes were working
perfectly. But growing at this high pace and facing continuously new challenges,
we were confronted with the fact that we could not scale our existing organizational
architecture. We would move on and deliver—but the price we had to pay was more
work, less time to deliver, and an increasingly critical impact on our team spirit. We
already used digital collaboration and project management tools like Google Teams
and Stackfield, but that didn’t really help. We did not even have the time to properly
understand and implement them.” They started with the aim to get a clear under-
standing about themselves as a team and their specific organizational system.
Questions they asked themselves were, for instance, “which stakeholders are
involved in our value creation processes and how do the different team roles and
interactions in project work respond to the defined deliveries?” or “what part of our
work can we plan in advance and where do we have to act on demand?”
Generic Cultural Factors The self-assessment of the five cultural factor values
(by the director) showed the lowest values in iteration-driven (25%) and human
centered (35%). “We expect high resolution results, close to perfection. Although
‘first small seeds’ would appear with a C-level actor showing an innovator’s
mindset, it still lacks a consistent rollout with a method or a strategy.”
Human centeredness was rated the same value internally and in the work with
stakeholders, yet for different reasons. “We have been working for such a long time
with our partners, that we think that we always know what their needs are. But we
don‘t really ask ‘why,’ when things don‘t work out as planned.” In her directly
controllable field of responsibility, the director mentioned positive experiences in
testing solutions and receiving feedback from customers and partners: “Internally,
we do have a lot of surveys about employee satisfaction—what lacked in the past
was the synthesis and the resulting actions. We are getting better at this, as current
results such as in the ‘Great Places to Work’ rating show.”
The collaboration factor (40%) was evaluated as being “on a good way: We
evolve from classical hierarchical and in-transparent decision mechanisms to more
collaboration and sharing of knowledge. Yet, there is still a rather strong competition
mindset. But when we anchor collaboration in a project structure, it works.” Tech-
nology-responsive (80%) and system-minded (externally 75%) were both rated high.
The strong impact of technologies for the organizational purpose of climate protec-
tion and the system character of the topic were mentioned as the reasons. The highest
contradiction in the generic cultural factors was seen in the gap between the external
and internal (20%) system-minded rate. The director explained the connection with a
competitive mindset between the departments and the complexity of the interrela-
tions between the different energy impact factors.
Company-Specific Cultural Core Factors The three specific cultural factors
added were best quality (80%), performance (70%), and team spirit (80%). “We
may take longer than others when we craft our recommendations, but we really have
the best experts in our organization, and we check everything before we present our
solutions.” The business model of the organization is based on regulated catalogs of
requirements and predefined result deliveries connected to respective time invest-
ments. As the director points out: “We do perform; we deliver and start again to
perform and deliver best quality. We do not take the time to breathe or to recapitulate
what went well or wrong.” The positive team spirit, however, was seen as emotional
buffer in times of extreme pressure.
Cultural Worldview and Resulting Strategic Need The egalitarian perceptual
lens on the world came across in statements like “team spirit,” “talking on eye level,”
and informal communication habits (using the informal German address “Du” across
hierarchical levels). In the workshops, especially the teambuilding interventions
were quickly adopted and transferred to daily business processes. Mixed teams
with participants of different hierarchal levels did not block team dynamics related
to the different positions. Important parts of the interview with the director were
dominated by topics such as boundaries through strict regulations as well as being
unable to define clear deliveries in constantly evolving projects. This corresponds to
a hierarchical worldview in the top right-hand quadrant on the cultural map (Fig. 7).
We assumed the strategic need for controllable collaborative work. This guided the
selection of action sets for the research workshops in different transformation

phases.
Transformation Purpose/Vision “We believe that climate protection needs easy-
to-apply processes and a good functional team play among all stakeholders.” This
purpose defined by the leadership team relates to their commitment to added value
and to the urgency of changing their current way of teamwork.
6.1.1 Transformation Process Phases
Kickoff and Envision Teambuilding Workshop, Definition of the Team’s Trans-

formation Mission, Vision, and “Hot Topics” of Transformation. As a first step, the
director initiated a design thinking workshop to set up the first collaboration activity
with her leadership team. The aim of the workshop was to define the team profile,
purpose, and vision. The workshop was also used as a space to openly discuss the
internal problems in project work and to develop first solution concepts. The
questions of “how to prioritize projects under time pressure” and “how to enable
participative decisions in diverse teams” were chosen as key challenges in the
context of an optimization of processes and teamplay. The created ideas served as
steppingstones for the different transformational action described further below.
Plan Upskilling Training Leadership Team and Team Members in Strategic Design
Thinking and Agile Project Management Methods (OKR). To establish a solid
knowledge basis and confidence in application, the director and her leadership
team decided to invest in two main method trainings: strategic design thinking, to
enable the crafting of human-centered transformation strategies and operational
implications. In addition, the Objectives and Key Result (OKR) project management
methodology supported self-direction and collaboration in teamplay. The team was
able to plan and track the success of their key transformation experiments with these
two methods.
Experiment Selection of strategic key projects and development as exploration
labs to learn for company-wide scaling. To create their first blueprints for new
structures and processes, the team decided to focus on two leverage points. One
project would establish an institutionalized network of key users for continuous
feedback on the organization’s services, and the second project aimed at building a
so-called project navigator. This is a (physical and virtual) container of all constitu-
tional elements and principles that have to be built up for supporting climate
protection with “easy-to-apply processes and a good functional team play.” Both
projects were planned to include several learning loops and iterations to deliver
solutions that would pay into the performance and best quality culture.
Implement Visualization of factors and roadmap to navigate huge, complex pro-
jects. After some prototyping cycles, the team decided to visualize their new
structure and processes to document their learnings as a temporary draft. It was a
tool to be used in all strategic meetings and presentations as starter and reference.
The visual roadmap was used as a living artifact, which would be updated every few
weeks before the stakeholders’ meetings.
6.1.2 Results Human Level
Establishment of Monthly Milestone Team Workshops as a Combination

of Design Thinking Method Training and Project Work “We do not have the
time for trainings only.” The high-performance focus in the organizational culture
has a blocking effect on “pure trainings” without connection to day-to-day business.
Accordingly, the strategic decision was taken to combine key milestones in project
work with the application training of fundamental design thinking concepts such as
empathy, diversity, or iteration. The leaders and team members trained in the design
thinking courses were slowly moving into becoming facilitators of the milestone
works sessions. The result was that the teams moved on in their project work and
created results; they did not have the feeling of losing work time with “fancy design
thinking games” and could grow their knowledge on a cognitive- and skills-based
level.
Integrating High Frequency Feedback Mechanisms in Daily Work
for Continuous Learning and Optimizing The first direct change in the work
routine was the establishment of a compact feedback mechanism in the daily stand-
up meetings. This was inspired by the classical design thinking feedback grid: “What
works well in my project?” “Where do I need help?” and “What is a good new
solution for a challenge?”. This format allowed a time-efficient added value for
growing collaboration and knowledge.
Results Technology Level The leadership team had struggled with the implemen-
tation of digital collaborative project work management systems. This was expressed
in the comment: “The time we need to transfer all our Excel content into a digital
system that we have to learn to handle simply does not exist.” When the team
realized that PM systems could be matched with the selected agile project manage-
ment method OKR, the prioritization changed. The team leaders quickly got infor-
mation on project achievements without losing time in meetings. Additionally, the
“one-click” horizontal alignment between the teams within project flows was an
attractive aspect that balanced the time investment in learning how to use the digital
tools.
6.1.3 Results Organizational System Level
Implementing Agile Project Management Methods (OKR) The implementation

of an agile project management method called “Objectives and Key Results” (OKR)
helped teams to work in a self-organized way by connecting on horizontal and
vertical levels. Teams and their leaders follow a structured workflow that starts
with the overall business objectives, which is translated into concrete results and
work packages. Synchronization of all actors takes place in defined frequencies. The
teams and their team leads quickly appreciated the benefit of knowing how the
specific work packages were connected to the bigger picture and how these would
impact the other team’s work. Although the implementation of the OKR method was
time-consuming, everybody actively contributed to it.
Implementation of Regular Knowledge Sharing and Feedback Format The
second main change was the integration of different exchange formats between the
key stakeholders to ensure a complete and constant understanding of respective need
structures. The aim was to create a monthly sharing format in a small team
representing main stakeholders to openly share knowledge and discuss issues
beyond daily business. We/the team built the user panel mentioned above to get
closer to the core user-multiplicator group.
Integrating “Synapses” into the Organizational Structure The third important
change was implemented in the organizational structure of the consultancy depart-
ment. They established a coordination team in addition to the different expert teams
for specific topics and classical service teams, such as legal consultancy, communi-
cation, and digital tools and applications. Their job was to create “the synapses of the
organizational brain” by making sure that temporary teams from suitable areas could
easily form on demand, efficiently perform, and finally evaluate their results of a
specific subproject. This transformation represented the urgently needed structural
element that would make collaboration a “built-in” part of every work package.
Hurdles on the Digital Transformation Way The main hurdle expressed by the
director was the conflict of rapidly growing project scopes and team sizes on one
hand and the time needed for redesign of team governance concept and respective
new ways of working on the other hand. The overall time pressure would not allow
additional time investment for collaboration and learning phases; therefore,
“transforming while performing” was a challenge. The team also had to deal with
the orientation gap in the period of restructuring and implementation of new project
management methods.
Design Thinking Leverage Impact Especially teambuilding- and empathy-related
design thinking actions helped to optimize the time vs. result ratio. These included
team check-ins and checkouts and regular stakeholder feedback sessions. Knowing
better how to meet specific objectives would lead to better results and less rework. In
addition, stepping into the shoes of her team, the director integrated the active
communication of transformation benefits to her team in daily work. Among these
were good feedback from top management or clients and a time-saving way to
prioritize knowledge topics. Using the analogy of a map helped the team to make the
complex information and stakeholder system they operate tangible and manageable.
The team defined interrelations as “highways” for frequent alignment and “streets
and country lanes” for flows with smaller amount of information and less “travel
frequency.”
Limitations of Design Thinking and Completing Thought Schools

or Methods Used For a structured operationalizing and measurement of vertical
and horizontal alignment to enable time-efficient teamwork, design thinking did not
offer suitable strategies or methods. Here, the business management method based
on the Management-by-Objectives approach (Drucker 1954)—the OKR method—
was implemented to steer collaboration work and measure teamwork results. As it
fits to the design thinking principle of systems thinking, the OKR method connected
easily to other actions results, for instance, to the vision the team had defined.
6.2 Case Study 2: From IT as a Cost Factor to an Integrated

Partnership for Organizational Future-Fitness European
for-Profit Organization Safety and Hygiene (EF/SandH
>11.000)
Organization and Background Motivation Becoming the “recognized leader in

sustainable, innovative, and digital solutions for all customers” in their market
segment is the defined overall strategic goal of EF/SandH, a family-equity company
rooted in Germany. The company has 11,000 employees and operates across
Europe. EF/SandH was founded as a sales and service company in the 1950s and
later merged with a textile service company in the 2000s, to be finally fully
integrated into a European family-equity portfolio in 2019. The top management
actor (I2), who started the digital transformation activities, attended a design think-
ing leadership program at the professional development entity of HPI Academy in
2019. After changing to her current position as CIO (Chief Information Officer), the
decision-maker started a comprehensive restructuring of the IT department, includ-
ing functional, personnel, structural, and processual changes. Design thinking was
chosen as a strategy in combination with classical change management methods to
drive the process. The entire organization had just been reorganized from a central-
ized to a divisional structure to better meet customer needs in areas that operate in
different markets.
Transformation Start Area in Company System The transformation program
started in the IT department, which was responsible for the implementation of digital
transformation activities. This department cooperated closely with the digitalization
department, responsible for the development of digital transformation activities.
efforts by the CIO as well as the leadership team was “for business reasons. . .to
survive and continue to grow our business in times of increasing competition and a
quickly changing environment.” The main activities of the transformation program
had been defined on different levels. These included harmonization of current IT
systems, development, and implementation of a comprehensive IT security system
as well as integration of data- and AI-based customer relationship systems. This
transformation also required the establishment of new agile governance structures to

augment customer focus, speed, and performance.
Challenge According to the CIO, the problem was that “[they] got stuck.” Classical
organizational governance frameworks like RACI [author’s note: RACI is an abbre-
viation for defining who is responsible and accountable, must be consulted, or must
be informed in different project phases] would not be sufficient to take decisions to
create a suitable structure. Nor could they facilitate requisite processes and job
profiles to bring about customer centricity and flexibility while meeting the given
performance and resource objectives. “There are many different organizational
setups that we consider, but we can’t decide which one is the best for us. . .also,
we can’t just stop and build from scratch, but we have to keep on running the
business while restructuring and implementing new processes.”
Generic Cultural Factors The self-assessment of the five cultural factor values by
the leadership team showed low values in almost all generic cultural factors. The
factor HUMAN CENTERED (35%) was interpreted as internal factor relating to the
employees; whereas CUSTOMER CENTERED (25%) was related to the (internal
and external) customers using products and services. The factor ITERATION-
DRIVEN was evaluated with 25%. SYSTEM-MINDED was again subdivided
in internal company SYSTEM-MINDED (30%) and external world or market
SYSTEM- MINDED (60%). The latter, higher value, was discussed in the team as
“natural” and linked to the organization’s purpose and market operation field safety
and hygiene. Collaboration was rated with a value of 50% that was explained by
“great conversations across hierarchies and disciplines happening,” yet “the situation
of siloed working of the past is still present” despite digital collaboration tools that
although supporting functional—“forced”—collaboration, would not translate into
content-related teamwork. The low scores for iteration-driven and human/customer-
centered factors led to intensive conversations about the missing failure and learning
culture as well as the perceived urgency of changing the perspective from “IT as a
tool to IT as a partner.” Technology-responsive was rated with 30%. The common
evaluation agreed on the knowledge and focus of the functional benefit of new
technologies, without being aware of implications from a human-centered or cultural
perspective.
Company-Specific Cultural Core Factors The two specific cultural factors that
the team added were stability/safety and cost efficiency. Stability (20%), a factor
rooted in the company’s heritage in the safety and hygiene industry, received a
particularly low rating. This was explained with the ongoing change initiated by the
transformation program (“we are still changing, even though the direction is clear”).
Cost-efficiency (100%) was rated the highest in the entire factor combination. This
also led to an intensive team discussion about manifestations such as a strong focus
on key performance indicators (KPIs), the priority on cost reduction, delivery on
financial results, a general perspective through the “cost lens,” and measurability of
activity success. The team also reflected on the relation between the overall sustain-
ability objectives of the company and the financial stability as one aspect to achieve.
This is the so-called Enkelfähigkeit—a concept the family-equity company commits

to as described by the economic philosopher Anders Indset. “Being ‘enkelfähig’
means living in a value-oriented way and reconciling this with entrepreneurial
thinking. Enkelfähigkeit is economic sustainability over time—not in time—where
ecology and economy are not contradictory.” The high rating of the factor system-
minded (60%) for the external system supported this deeper reflection.
Interpreted Cultural Worldview and Assumed Strategic Need The conversa-
tions and verbal notes on Post-it’s around the cultural factor prompts showed a
concentration of expressions like “hierarchy,” “rules,” “stability vs. instability (due
to transformation),” “top-down approach,” “too much politics,” “cost-driven,” and
“silo structure,” which can be interpreted as an emphasis on strong regulation, given
rules and structures. This corresponds to a hierarchical worldview in terms of
cultural theory (Thompson et al., 1990). We found this perspective frequently in
medium-sized companies with classical family-foundation roots. The team identified
the strategic need for participative transformation actions, user-need understanding,
and teambuilding routines.
Transformation Purpose/Vision The IT team analyzed their skills, passions, and
the needs of the organization regarding the transformation process. This resulted in
their transformation purpose as “carrying the company safely to a data-driven
future.” This statement describes the team’s commitment to its r service and support
role as well as its connection to the overall company purpose with its safety core.
Transformation Process Phases The CIO initiated a multistep process with her
leadership team and decided to base the milestones on collaborative, partly cross-
functional workshops. To “unleash and connect the intelligence in the team,” she
opted for working sessions facilitated with design thinking methods.
Kickoff Setting up collaboration, teambuilding workshop, definition of the IT
team’s mission, and “hot topics” of transformation. The 11 IT leadership team
members met to form a transformation team. Their aim was to analyze their skills,
discuss their personal passion regarding the transformation, and define their purpose
as well as the team values to which they would commit. They discovered nine “hot
topics” that were rated as critical for the success of their transformation program, the
top 3 being “governance,” “overcoming silos,” and “a common understanding of the
IT role for the company-wide transformational success.” The topic of governance
was selected as a priority area.
Status Quo Expanding collaboration, cultural self-assessment workshop base. In
the second step, a collaborative workshop for cultural self-assessment based on the
maturity model took place including colleagues from different business areas. In
three mixed teams, the workshop participants evaluated the cultural profile of their
company based on concrete manifestations like projects, processes, remuneration
systems, or crisis behaviors. The three teams consolidated their evaluations into one
organizational cultural profile, which would serve as reference for planning the
transformation activities.
Envision Increasing customer centricity, vision workshop to design the ideal future
IT structure and processes. In the third step, the team invited their direct internal
customers from the different business areas to join in a collaborative concept
workshop to prototype the ideal IT structure and processes. In teamwork
co-creation sessions and one-to-one interviews, functional and emotional customer
needs were collected and synthesized to serve as inspiration for three different
approaches to the organizational setup of the future:
1. Creating “built-in” connection points between IT and business departments.
2. Organizing an efficient change with service focus, defining products and projects
consequently from a user’s point of view (responsibility for tech-onboarding of
new employees) instead of from a technology’s perspective (responsibility for the
printers).
Plan Prototyping for testing and iteration, exploration research workshop to define
prototypes stages and testing periods. The fourth step consisted of deciding on a
concrete organizational setup, prototyping archetypical use case scenarios for the
future IT services, and crafting the exploration strategy to plan testing, iteration, and
implementation. The core IT team met to share and synthesize their new insights,
build the new IT structure and governance concept, as well as define the respective
implications for exemplarily job families and job profiles. Based on the cultural
profile, concrete, cultural value-related KPIs were defined for all planed experi-
ments, for example, “raise the perceived collaboration between IT and business
department to at least 50%.” An exploration strategy containing plans, time periods,
and concrete actions for three levels was defined for three activity levels. These
levels were team and collaboration activities, prototype, testing and measurement
activities, as well as communication activities.
Experiment The unplanned crisis as living lab, rapid experimentation and learn-
ing during a cyberattack. During the transformation process, just before running the
defined experiments, the company suffered a cyberattack. Within an extremely short
time, systems had to be stopped, secured, and rebuilt. “Decisions and changes that
would have taken months to implement were now put to work within 3 weeks.” The
team was forced to work around the standard processes and structures to secure the
quick reestablishment of basic value creation processes. From a transformational
point of view, this crisis can be considered an “extreme experimentation space.”
Decisions and solutions would be put into work immediately and iterated on the run.
As the team could not follow—and be hindered by—usual procedures, the agile way
of experimenting forward was a welcome strategy that turned out to be efficient.
Implement Participation and team conflicts; social dynamics management
becomes priority in participative design of new IT government concept. After having
coped successfully with the cyber-crisis, the team joined forces in one of the research
workshops to continue work on the governance model and to consider the learnings
from their “extreme experimentation.” When the concept proposed by the leader was
physically put on the table, a team conflict became tangible that had been hidden by
the cyber-crisis. These upcoming team dynamics were blocking the teamwork, so
that they had to be managed immediately during the workshop and transformed into
new team rules before the governance concept could be finalized and communicated
to middle management.
Results Human Level The CIO of the company argued as follows: “Two things
struck me about design thinking. First, it has the power to unleash team intelligence
and to connect it to something new and bigger. Second, it is a systems thinking
perspective on complex challenges and focuses on visual communication in a way
that helps to tell your transformation story.” She decided to build her strategy
presentations around a simple visual that communicates the interrelation of three
key factors of the intended restructuring: the people, processes, and technology
factor. This helped her to explain the complexity of the task and to create clarity
about the area of decision-making. It also made it easy for the leadership team to tell
one consistent story to their teams and to craft clarity about the interrelations of
different transformation areas.
Internal and External Storytelling about Strategic Goal, Collaborative Process,
and Status Quo of Transformation The CIO also increased transparency and
frequency of information, going beyond the internal presentation and update activ-
ities. She started an internal and external storytelling series, openly talking about
strategic goals, collaborative processes, achievements, and the status quo of trans-
formation activities.
Results Technology Level The transformation of the IT services changed funda-
mentally. Putting the focus on user and user products (services) resulted in a redesign
of entire IT processes, the quicker implementation of new IT systems and platforms,
as well as the establishment of new technological skill profiles.
6.2.1 Results Organizational System Level
Participative Development and Testing of Hybrid Linear-Agile Governance

Concept Prototypes Before the crisis, the leadership team had phrased the main
question as follows: “The biggest challenges lie in front of us—how will we be able
to explore and learn by testing our prototypes for agile governance in a culture where
cost efficiency and stability are the most important values?” Taking the identified
cultural profile as a reference, the team created a precisely crafted test design with
different stages and clear test hypothesis. Emphasis was on measurable indicators for
successful solutions as well as the interrelation of those cultural factors identified as
“uncontestable.” These were the factors customer centricity and cost efficiency. The
main key narrative in organizational storytelling by the leadership team was now
“cost-efficient transformation = failing cheap to succeed sooner.” What surprised
the leadership team and their superior was how appreciative middle management
would react to being asked for creative participation in the execution and rollout of
the new concept. The main change in the governance concept was the integration of
a new intersection role, “digital Dolmetschers,” speaking both the languages of IT
and business, meaning the establishment of an additional function to enable efficient

communication between IT and their internal customers from the business divisions.
On a process level, all IT services and each archetypical IT product were precisely
structured regarding the linear and agile phases. The result was a clear governance
structure and processes that enable both running the IT services efficiently and
implementing new IT services while learning quickly.
Hurdles on the Transformation Way At the beginning, the most important
hurdles during the research workshops were stated as the complexity of IT
restructuring while running daily business. Later, this was the communication
hurdles between business and IT department team members. The cyberattack crisis
represented a blocker that was transformed into an accelerator. The team dynamics
were a hurdle that could have made “the whole thing fail,” according to the CIO.
Design Thinking Leverage Impact To handle the complexity, the team used
principles of systems thinking and prototyping. The key visualization of
interconnected people, technology, and process systems helped to deconstruct and
cluster the elements and topics that had to be worked on. An important milestone for
the restructuring meant exploring the needs of users in interviews and integrating a
respective role in their structure. Analogizing energized the process in the different
phases of getting started and defining a tangible vision (“we are the carrier”)
addressing critical topics (“hot potatoes”) and unexpressed conflicts (“elephants in
the room”). The most important impact, though, was created by the application of
principles such as Empathy and Teambuilding. Using the team dynamics cycle
(Tuckman, 1965) and related methods of nonviolent communication, the team
managed to solve conflicts and was equipped with tools to handle those in the future.
or Methods Used The structural governance concept redesign was done with an
adaptation of classical frameworks that were combined with design thinking-based
user research and prototyping approaches.
6.3 Case 3: Toward a Structured Yet Flexible Process

for a Corporate Incubator—National for-Profit
Organization Insurance Services (NF/IS >14.000)
Organization and Background Motivation NF/S is a national insurance company

that emerged from a fusion to a cooperative organization in the 1930s. Later,
financial services joined, and the economic growth was largely driven by the
expanding mobility market. The innovation department had started with single
innovation projects to explore new business opportunities in their automotive insur-
ance market 7 years ago. Feeling the increasing pressure and decreasing legitimation
of “selling insurance face to face, and just relying on [their] good brand image,”
actors in different areas of the company were given budgets to use digital technology
to create innovations for the service portfolio. One of the projects turned out to be
particularly successful: an app for truck drivers that made the search for parking lots
easier. The upper middle management actor (I5) who started the digital transforma-
tion activities attended a design thinking leadership program at the HPI Academy
in 2017.
Transformation Entry Area in Company System The project team established
themselves as drivers of organizational innovation and became the first members of
an official corporate innovation lab with transformational goals. With a team of
10, they handle approximately five to seven projects in parallel, which are chosen to
transform the company’s services and product portfolio.
efforts is quoted by the leader of the lab as follows: “The insurance business as we
know it today will not exist anymore tomorrow. This is due to different social and
technological developments (. . .) we now must discuss topics like security aspects
when nobody is actively driving a car anymore (. . .) the classical paper insurance
card with classical insurance parameters is about to die—which is also the case for
our specific distribution channels: physical banks. The “every-day-problem-solving”
for commercial clients that had been defined as the core of the internal narrative for
future success positions the organization’s interest of transformation within the
intersection of human value and organizational system value creation.”
Challenge Initially, the leader defined the challenges of the lab in the internal
teambuilding area and in the project portfolio and in relationship to partners and
customers areas. “How do I make sure that I do not demotivate my team in daily
business?” “How can we scale our successful pilot project?” or “How can we help
our clients come up with future-oriented business models?” Synthesizing the various
questions and needs, the team realized that after 2 years of official “lab operations,”
the entity would need a tailored, user-centric, effective, and repeatable process with
respective basic tools for the development of transformative innovations. In fact, the
overarching question was “How can we explore to learn what works for the
establishment of a corporate incubator and lab to create future value for the
company?
Generic Cultural Factors In the five interviews that we conducted with leaders
inside and outside the lab, the self-assessment of the five cultural factor values
showed the lowest values in customer centered with 25% (externally) and collabo-
rative with 40% (externally). This was explained by the perceived relationship gap
between the organization and their partners and customers. “Feedback and the
exploration of needs are not built in our value creation processes.” One of the written
rules is, “if necessary,” clients can be consulted. “When we want to know something,
we usually ask the sales rep—assuming that he would know what the client needs,
but we don’t have any centralized space to collect user data. In the lab, we work in
close exchange with a user panel that we built up in our first innovation project.” The
form of the organization is based on a cooperative model, and the internal human
centered factor rated accordingly high with 80% and collaborative (internally) with
60%. The reason given for a medium iteration-driven rating of 50% was surprising:
“We have a positive culture regarding failure—nobody is blamed for making
mistakes—but we don’t have mechanisms to learn from failures, and more impor-
tantly, the problem of failure lies in our product management processes. Very often,
the projects that we work on are too big to fail. We move on, because a high budget
has been invested, even if we know with common sense that it probably won’t work
out.” The high rating of technology responsive (80%) is connected to the organiza-
tion’s core value “security.” All capabilities of digital technology that would help
increase safety and security are continuously explored and applied. The nature of
insurance business processes as well as the cooperative values led to a high rating of
the factor system minded with 80%. “When we introduce something new, we
consider the consequences: What will change for the client? How does it affect the
employees in their daily work? Do they have the necessary skills for it to succeed?
We have a strong worker’s council; they care a lot about the consequences of
change.”
Company-Specific Cultural Core Factors Three specific cultural factors are
related to the organization’s core value creation concept as an insurance company
and cooperative form: security, rated with 90%; continuity/reliability, with 80%; and
a strong community spirit, which explains the tolerant handling of failure mentioned
above, with 90%. Interestingly, community spirit did not find its way into the lab’s
purpose, although representing a relevant user benefit in the market category and,
more importantly, a core business model factor in some of the innovation projects.
“Community spirit is deeply anchored in our culture. It translates in our leadership
guidelines, hierarchy structure, and guidelines for individual development paths, for
instance, with a long-term view on life success instead of a short-term view of
individual success.” The downside appears in decision processes or in the fact that
decisions take a long time to finally be taken. “Our consensus culture simply blocks
the speed. Also, uniqueness or courage is not fed by consensus.” When “the
hierarchy joins the game, these qualities slow down,” one leader pointed out.
Cultural Worldview and Resulting Strategic Need The focus on an egalitarian
worldview with a distinctly hierarchical orientation would help the organization to
kickoff human-centered collaboration processes yet block the design and establish-
ment of new formal structures and processes for innovation and transformation
processes. Mindset-wise, there is a fertile ground that cannot be easily transformed
in structured and repeatable actions. Therefore, after synthesizing the interviews, we
defined the strategic need for repeatable work processes that enable both the creative
self-direction of lab teams and the measurement of experimentation result
achievements.
Transformation Purpose/Vision The lab team had developed their vision based
on the “golden circle” (Sinek, 2009), a systems thinking-based framework putting
the “why” (purpose) of an organization in relation to the “how” (value guidelines)
and the “what” (concrete activities). The aim was defined as “challenging the status
quo (of classical automotive insurance category) for a better tomorrow and evolving
from an insurance company to a solver of our clients’ daily problems.”
6.3.1 Transformation Process Phases
Envision Definition of the lab’s mission, values, and vision. With the formal
establishment of the lab, the team leader had started in a participative way to define
their reason for being. “Challenging the status quo for a better tomorrow” was
completed by values such as love of problem, solving for change, customer centric-
ity, diversity, and open mindness. The scope of the lab was defined in “building great
mobility solutions that no one would expect from an insurance company.” “These
are our guidelines and decision criteria for everything we do,” the team leader stated.
Experiment Running several innovation projects. After 2 years of lab work and
approximately five to seven work-in-progress projects, the team had accumulated a
broad and deep knowledge about what would work or not work. However, in the
phase of growing with new team members, it was now important to synthesize the
learnings and to integrate the knowledge into an effective lab process. Especially
aspects like stakeholder buy-in and marketing of new solutions represented an
unsolved area with many question marks. “The service is well accepted by our
pilot group, but scaling is a problem, and internally, the decision takers start to
hesitate in moving on with the investment,” the team told us.
Implement Co-creation workshop to learn from experiments, spot process gaps,
and plan optimized lab process for ongoing and future projects. The team used the
case research workshop to connect their knowledge and to do a structured analysis of
their projects focusing on the most recently completed one that was about to be
scaled. Using the design thinking feedback grid structure for analyzing strengths,
weaknesses, open questions, and existing improvement ideas, they first unpacked the
knowledge data. In a second step, the team matched the data around our proposed
digital transformation process framework phases. It was now easy to have focused
discussions about the drivers and blockers in the different process phases, because
their own case served as a concrete example on one hand and could be deconstructed
for easier reflection. The reflection results were later aligned with the process to
create a complete picture with clearly identifiable gaps. The team decided to use the
proposed framework as a basis for the redesign of their lab processes. The most
interesting discussion during reflection focused on the early involvement of stake-
holders in the process to avoid resistance in later implementation and scaling phases.
The team decided to integrate a step where they would discuss the starting point of
projects regarding the exploration level, that is, exploring user needs at the
start vs. exploring user needs connected to an existing solution idea as a starting
point.
Results Human Level For the first time, the team reflected on the strengths and
weaknesses of the corporate lab process and decided to transform it into their tailored
process. A team participating at one of the next strategic design thinking programs at
the HPI Academy will work on this project. With the collaborative mapping of their
group knowledge regarding the existing project on the proposed digital transforma-
tion process framework, the team created a common reference of future redesign
needs and rules.
Results Technology Level The corporate lab’s scope strongly focuses on digital
services for business model transformation. The team decided to integrate a stronger
user focus into the future process.
Results Organizational System Level Work-in-progress is the further develop-
ment of the proposed adaptive digital transformation process with action sets for
standardizing the corporate lab workflows.
Hurdles on the Digital Transformation Way Even though team members were
experienced project managers, many with design thinking skills, it was not easy for
the team to effectively define the governance concept with roles, skills, and pro-
cesses for their workflows that would help them in:
1. Enabling lab project strategies that would consider the dynamics of their com-
pany culture.
2. Integrating stakeholders for buy-in in early stages.
3. Developing project rationales/narratives for broad internal communication in
early stages.
4. Setting metrics for decisions about moving on or stopping experiments.
5. Collecting, documenting, and synthesizing their learnings from experiments.
Design Thinking Leverage Impact The “lessons learned” about empathy, itera-
tion, and systems thinking helped to transfer design thinking principles into other
domains of transformational actions such as leadership and emerging transformation
guidelines (e.g., “we accept a 70% solution”). Connection points of design thinking
with the organizational culture were done on principle level. “Systems thinking is
part of our culture; it fits to our community spirit.” The design thinking rhythm of
diverging and converging, with which we underpinned the digital transformation
process, helped the team in defining the concrete phases of independent work as a lab
(diverging) and collaborative decision taking as a part of the organization
(converging).
or Methods Used “I thought that there are things missing in the design thinking
process. When I built up the lab, I could not just take the process and map it.” This is
the evaluation of the lab team leader. In the workshop, team members addressed
following gaps: Classical design thinking process does not map:
• Both the innovation and the integration process of transformative solutions.
• The necessity of stakeholder involvement and storytelling from the beginning on.
• Design thinking does not help in legal questions of venture development.
Business frameworks like SWOT analysis, Cynefin framework, and disciplines

like foresight and strategic project management are not anchored in the design
thinking toolbox or process.
6.4 Lessons Learned from the Cases: Opportunities

and Limitations of Design Thinking for Navigating
Digital Transformation
Learning 5: The cultural digital transformation maturity can serve as strategic decision
reference. It helps to define the starting point and metrics to track achievements and it
creates individual identification.
We can summarize the overall learnings from the cases as follows:

• In all three cases, the active evaluation of cultural beliefs and values and the
reflection about the interrelation of generic cultural factor values and specific
cultural factor values created a tangible reference for transformation decisions
and actions taken by both the actors and the facilitators of the research workshops.
• Active reflection about the value of the generic cultural maturity factors in
relation to the specific cultural core factors helped to create a starting point and
measurement references for transformation strategies and results. On a leadership
level, this translated into decision confidence about choosing education programs
that would grow factors with perceived weakness as well as about defining
respective transformation actions.
• In all three cases, the leader or the leader and her team perceived the organiza-
tional culture profile as an important help to “zoom out and synthesize everything
after having zoomed deep into the projects.”
Learning 6: Transformation processes are vulnerable and fragile. Teams get caught in the
“paralysis trap” in times of priority conflicts with daily business or unplanned events and
need “kick-starters” to continue. (NPO/EN)
Starting in an organizational area with increasing importance and size, the main
strategic need within the transformation process was a new setup of workflows, work
division, and work collaboration. Active participation in the transformation process
was intended, supported by the leader, and took place, yet the intensity and fre-
quency still varied between the team members, due to daily business time resources
as well as work priorities. Whenever unplanned additional work packages would call
for action, the priorities of transformation activities were pushed to a lower impor-
tance level. Then when transformational actions were continued, the team had to
invest time in remembering the status quo where they had stopped. (Note: This
motivated us to come up with canvases that condense the results of the different
action areas and phases to have a precise starting point to continue).
Learning 7: Digital transformation requires constant integration of human, technology, and
system perspective to be successful. (EF/SandH)
The transformation process was initiated in the IT department, an organizational area

with interconnection to all other areas. The transformation strategy focused on
creating small prototypes that were tested with users before being implemented in
daily work. Influenced by their hierarchy-driven culture, the sudden “responsibility
of creating a structure that affects the entire organization” was a strong driver for the
team for considering all main company perspectives. One of the most important
insights that was gained in the research workshops was the communication gap
between IT and business teams, due to their fundamentally different perspectives.
This led to the decision of integrating the “digital Dolmetschers,” specific roles in the
intersection areas of IT-business project work into the organizational governance
model.
Learning 8: Integrated transformation strategies with clearly structured process that guides
analysis, vision, learn, and diffusion actions (NF/IS) are more likely to succeed because they
• Give everybody in the team orientation and structure.
• Give the team and lead confidence for early collaboration and communication with
stakeholders in the organization.
• Provide the team lead with a reference of how to measure team performances in self-
directed, explorative work processes.
• Provide the team lead with a basis for defining specific skills, profiles, roles, and
respective development plans for team members.
Starting in an organizational area dedicated to digital transformation and the creation

of new business models, the lab team’s strategy focuses on developing and
implementing new services to drive the organization’s evolution from an insurance
provider to solver of daily problems connected to mobility in the wider context of
security. The team felt like pioneers in defining the future agenda of the organization.
Coming from an interpreted egalitarian worldview with a strong hierarchical focus,
our assumption was confirmed: Our results show a culture-related strategic need for
a formal, repeatable structure that would organize the explorative way of working of
the lab and create connections between the lab projects and the organizational
system along the way.
6.5 Case Conclusion
The preceding sections have argued—both at the conceptual and empirical levels—
the case for extending and integrating organizational culture into maturity models of
digital transformation. For one, as the cases have demonstrated, culturally sensitive
maturity models enable analysts as well as would-be organizational transformers a
more nuanced and profound understanding of where the organization stands, what
potential trajectories are appropriate and feasible, as well as what existing transfor-
mation potential is ready for mobilization. In this way, digital transformation efforts
are more likely to resonate with extant organizational structures, norms, and prac-
tices, which significantly increase the chance of success. In sum, the evidence from
these cases seems to indicate that a culturally sensitive maturity model may exhibit
the following features and functions:
1. Externalization of perceived cultural beliefs and values as a reference for starting
a transformation process.
2. Growing of individual and collaborative understanding about opportunities and
hurdles in a transformation process.
3. Orientation and confidence for decision-making when crafting a transformation
strategy.
4. Decision support for design of success measuring metrics of the transformation
activities.
5. Reference for integration, anchoring, and scaling of transformation activities in
the organizational system.
6. Participation catalyst—in raising the entrepreneurial perspective.
7. Synthesis tool that helps zooming out within the transformation process after
zooming in phases.
7 Summary and Outlook: Design Thinking for the Digital

Transformation’s Challenges of Tomorrow
After a year of practice-oriented action research, the opportunities and limitations of

design thinking as a strategic approach for navigating digital transformation can be
described in reference to the three levels of design thinking. The approach is a
mindset, a method, and a set of concepts or principles in the sense of lessons learned
from reflected experiences.
Navigating digital transformation throws the leading actors into a field charac-
terized by dynamic complexity, which leads to a high level of ambiguity, volatility,
and uncertainty. They engage in a long-term journey where they must manage the
human, technology, and organizational systems that are naturally interrelated and
constantly influence each other. Therefore, on the way, the unexpected becomes the
standard, and the ability to creatively deal with unplanned events is key. On the other
hand, transformation extends over a longer period and needs to follow parallel paths:
the exploration paths for the new and the integration path for connecting the new
with the existing system. The best prevention against “disruption paralysis” is to
keep the cycle of exploration and integration going.
On a mindset level, design thinking can be described as a motivation motor for
leading actors who want to actively drive transformation processes. With design
thinking, it is easier to dare to do things differently in huge organizational systems
with high levels of rigidity. This means building up new entities and starting
transformation processes that will impact the entire organization with a strong
inner belief that embracing collaboration, human centricity, or learning by experi-
ments are the best ways to move forward in that complex journey. Any limitations
within the concrete process were seen in the lack of operationalization tools for
distinct transformation tasks, especially on the integration paths.
On a method level, design thinking is an impactful toolbox, applied to get the
right things done in the right way. These are tasks in the transformation process areas
that are elements of the classical design thinking approach: for instance,
teambuilding, stakeholder needs exploration, and learning processes. The limitations
mirror the ones mentioned on the mindset level. This means the design thinking
toolbox is less suitable in guiding and structuring action, specifically for essential
tasks in the transformational action areas of analysis, vision, and diffusion.
On a concept or strategic principle level, we think that design thinking offers an
untapped opportunity field with high potential. Design thinking crossed the innova-
tion boarder to become a helper in transformation, when practitioners could trans-
form their mindset and method experiences to lessons learned for the transfer into the
diversity of their distinct application contexts. On a concept level, design thinking
can be combined with concepts of other disciplines like foresight, organizational
development, or governance modeling.
This led us to our conclusion: We see the future contribution of design thinking
for digital transformation processes in its deconstruction. Design thinking concepts
along with the scientific explanation of their transformational impact could become
the ingredient for an adaptive strategy kit that every actor can use. Through the use of
this kit, the actor can develop it in self-direction.
Design thinking should continue to be open and develop itself as a “cocktail of
intelligences” coming from various disciplines to evolve to transformation thinking.
From a practitioner’s view, it should become easy to mix and match design
thinking concepts with existing concepts of business thinking and foresight to infuse
human centricity, quick learning, and collaborative diversity into tailored transfor-
mational strategies and actions. Thus, our motivation is to expand our adaptive
digital transformation strategy kit, more specifically with further research-practice
bridges that build the basis to design specific action sets.
For the future development of design thinking as a strategy for digital transfor-
mation, our research has led to more open questions that could translate into possible
follow-up projects. The importance of culture and governance concepts for success-
ful transformation is the main field that we want to investigate further. How can we
understand specific cultures with the cultural theory to craft transformation strategies
that avoid the waste of resources and value on the way? And how can we craft
governance concepts that enable both a waste-avoiding value creation and continu-
ous learning for adaptivity to the future challenges? These are the topics that will
contribute to the evolvement of design thinking, creating a link to digital technology
as an integrated, impactful approach to transform the reality of today into desirable
futures.
Acknowledgments First and foremost, we would like to thank Prof. Dr. Christoph Meinel for
supervision and the Hasso Plattner Foundation for funding this research project within the Hasso
Plattner Design Thinking Research Program. Thanks go to our colleagues in the research commu-
nity who provided input and feedback and to Sharon Nemeth for editing.
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Designing Innovation in the Digital Age:
How to Maneuver around Digital
Transformation Traps
Carolin Marx, Thomas Haskamp, and Falk Uebernickel
Abstract Companies that embrace human-centered digital innovation approaches

like Design Thinking are better equipped to master the challenges of digital trans-
formation. Still, the number of failed digital transformation activities is rising, and
companies struggle more than ever to turn their transformation initiatives into a
success to remain competitive in the digital age. One promising avenue toward
detangling this phenomenon is to identify the “traps” that, if not identified or
addressed, can cause an organizational digital transformation to run into distress
and potentially fail. In this chapter, we discuss the potential traps organizations can
fall into during their digital transformation activities. We then synthesize them based
on their difficulty to identify in a three-layered framework. The framework consists
of execution traps, reaction traps, assessment traps, and recognition traps. Based on
an in-depth case study with a large incumbent firm in the banking sector, we validate
the trap categories and provide guidelines on how to use the framework in practice.
This not only adds to the “demystification” of failing digital transformation
endeavors but also serves as a foundation for understanding how adopting human-
centered digital innovation approaches or other mitigation strategies can help to
maneuver around the traps of transformation.
1 Introduction
Companies that embrace human-centered digital innovation approaches like Design

Thinking are evidently better equipped to master the challenges of organizational
transformation. Adopting Design Thinking creates higher customer proximity in IT
departments (Vetterli et al., 2016), improves requirement engineering (Hehn &
Uebernickel, 2018), and accelerates digital transformation (Magistretti et al., 2021;
Marx, 2022). There exists a profound understanding in academia of how specific
Design Thinking elements can be linked to the building blocks of digital
C. Marx (✉) · T. Haskamp · F. Uebernickel

Hasso Plattner Institute, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany
e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]
324 C. Marx et al.
transformation activities (Marx, 2022). However, we cannot explain exactly how the
adoption of Design Thinking might contribute to the gap between companies
managing to succeed through digital transformation compared to those that fail
this challenge. One promising avenue toward detangling this relationship is to take
a step back and look at the “traps” that can cause an organizational digital transfor-
mation to fail—unless they are recognized and addressed.
The digital transformation of organizations is a topic that has been hyped for
years and declared dead by many (Gale, 2021). After thousands of articles, a plethora
of models, discussions, and special issues on the subject, and a whole new digital
acceleration brought to the fore by the global pandemic, there is most certainly no
executive left in the world who has not heard about digital transformation. The
Google Trends interest score for the search term “digital transformation” has more
than doubled within the past 5 years (Wade et al., 2020). Yet, at the same time, the
number of failed digital transformation activities remains high and rising. How can it
be that after all these years of knowledge and experience-gathering, firms are still
struggling to turn their digital transformation initiatives into a success and remain
competitive in the digital age? Taking a closer look, one can see that managing and
leading this “continuous, complex undertaking that can substantially shape a com-
pany and its operations” (Matt et al., 2015, 341) has become one of the most
challenging tasks in today’s business world (Vial, 2019). To remain competitive,
companies need to integrate digital technologies into products, processes, and
business models to successfully develop and implement digital innovations
(Fichman & Dos Santos, 2014). This imposes challenges throughout the whole
process of innovating. Given this high relevance, it is not surprising that academic
research and practitioner reports on challenges, barriers, and failure causes of digital
transformation activities are plentiful, but also highly fragmented. While the focus
has been on challenges in general, it would be more interesting to study those
situations and conditions where a negative outcome is very likely but still avoidable.
Hence, considering that the goal is to eventually turn distressed digital transforma-
tion initiatives around, it is most promising to search for potential “traps”—things
that companies should try to avoid or, if already too late, at least be aware of—
instead of looking at challenges or barriers in general.
Thus, this chapter aims to identify and synthesize the potential traps organizations
could fall into during their digital transformation journey. Looking at these pitfalls
not only adds to the “demystification” of failing digital transformation endeavors but
also serves as a foundation for understanding how adopting Design Thinking or
other mitigation strategies can help us maneuver these minefields. We, therefore,
pose the following research question:
Designing Innovation in the Digital Age: How to Maneuver around. . . 325
1.1 What Are the Biggest Traps for Organizations when

Digitally Transforming?
To address this question, we developed an integrative trap framework for digitally

transforming organizations. Regarding research design, our framework builds on
two steps. In the first step, we conducted a literature review on digital transformation
traps following our conceptualization of “traps.” As part of this literature review, we
analyzed the literature on digital transformation in management, information sys-
tems, and psychology regarding potential traps, their potential impact, and how
difficult it is to identify them in practice. The resulting list of traps from the
interviews and the literature served then as a basis for several research workshops
in which the resulting framework was developed. We further validated our frame-
works and findings through expert discussions with MIT Center for Information
Systems Research members in Boston, USA, and experts from the Haas School of
Business at the University of California, Berkeley. In a second step, we applied our
framework to practice. For this, we ran an in-depth case study (Yin, 2011) with a
large, established firm in the banking sector that is in the middle of an agile
transformation. As part of this framework validation, we applied the identified
traps to the case and used the framework to assess the biggest potential traps.
The trap framework developed in this study is based on two main assumptions.
First, we are convinced that traps are not generic but specific to the activities that
organizations employ when digitally transforming. We will therefore start with a
conceptualization of digital transformation activities and so-called explosions, which
will serve as the foundation for identifying traps. Second, our conceptualization of
traps implies that stepping in a trap likely, but not necessarily, leads to negative
outcomes. Hence, a core factor for synthesizing the traps is identifying their exis-
tence and assessing their probability. After elaborating on the different digital
transformation activities that serve as the context for traps to unfold, we will
therefore discuss the traps based on their difficulty to be identified in practice.
2 Digital Transformation Activities and Explosions
The term digital transformation has been used extensively in the past years to
describe the overall impact digital technologies have on organizations and societies
(Baiyere et al., 2017). With regard to the organizational layer, we understand digital
transformation as “the combined effects of several digital innovations bringing about
novel actors (and actor constellations), structures, practices, values, and beliefs that
change, threaten, replace or complement existing rules of the game within organi-
zations, ecosystems, industries, or fields” (Hinings et al., 2018, 53). Thus, the
boundary-encompassing characteristics of digital technology seem to trigger a set
of fundamental changes on the societal and organizational levels (Appio et al.,
2021). In particular, incumbent companies are challenged by digital transformation,
326 C. Marx et al.
as they—in contrast to born-digital companies—need to change their entire business

model to secure organizational survival (Vial, 2019; Sebastian et al., 2017). This
includes strategic changes that companies experience due to the impact of digital
technology. Hence, digital technologies threaten existing value-creation paths or
afford new paths for organizations to pursue. Especially large incumbent organiza-
tions are subject to strong inert forces (Haskamp, Dremel, et al., 2021a). To ensure
organizational survival, they need to engage in digital transformation activities that
aim to renew the existing structures, as well as processing and adopting a digital
culture and mindset to avoid organizational death.
2.1 Digital Transformation Activities
Current research refers to digital transformation activities as a broad set of actions

and activities that companies pursue in order to drive digital transformation. To
kickstart digital transformation, companies launch dedicated digital transformation
strategies or roadmaps and derive initiatives, programs, and projects (Barthel, et al.,
2020b). These activities may unfold in different organizational domains. In terms of
specific activities, a set of instruments has emerged over the past years to drive
digital transformation. We briefly highlight two exemplifying activities that in
particular incumbents pursue.
To increase speed and overcome high inertia in terms of structure and processes,
many incumbent organizations try to adjust their organizational setup by, for exam-
ple, setting up a digital transformation office, often closely affiliated with the
organization’s CEO, CIO, or CDO (Barthel, et al., 2020b). Further, companies set
up dedicated organizational units—so-called digital innovation units—to develop
new digital business models or to digitize existing processes (Barthel, et al., 2020a).
These units are granted greater freedom for action and are often used as speedboats
to develop new digital innovations (Barthel, et al., 2020a). While their success is
hard to assess (Haskamp, et al., 2021c) and their specific design varies a lot
depending on the context, they have become an integral part of the digital transfor-
mation efforts in companies (Dremel et al., 2017).
Further, building digital capabilities often comes with adopting new ways of
working (van der Meulen et al., 2020). This usually includes the company-wide
adoption of agile methods and frameworks such as Scrum and SAFe (Fuchs & Hess,
2018) or the adoption of human-centered design methods such as Design Thinking
to develop digital products or upskill existing employees (Wang, 2022). Initially
born in digital software development, these methods now diffuse into other organi-
zational areas such as marketing, human resources, operations, or product
development.
2.1.1 Status Quo: Dealing with Spaghettis and Silos
In transforming their existing organization, many firms need to redesign their current
structure and processes (Sebastian et al., 2017). In many cases, existing approval or
budgeting processes are too slow to cope with changing environmental factors and
with the required speed to develop new products and services. Thus, tensions are
likely to emerge between the requirements for digital product and service develop-
ment and the already existing analog products and processes (Haskamp et al., 2023).
In practice, successfully transforming a company’s business requires dealing with
the existing legacy that organizations have accumulated over the past years. This
legacy can become very sticky, with organizational inertia the reason behind the high
failure rate of many digital transformation activities (Forth et al., 2020).
Inertia appears in different forms as part of an organization’s digital transforma-
tion journey (Haskamp, et al., 2021a):
• Structural inertia refers to existing processes and structures in place that have
served in the past successfully but now emerge as a barrier to the successful
development of digital innovation.
• Socio-cognitive inertia refers to cultural traditions and values that have secured
success in the past but have now become a challenge in implementing digital
technology.
• Socio-technical inertia refers to existing IT infrastructures, such as enterprise
resource planning systems, which may become a barrier with hard-to-access data
or missing interfaces undermining new digital efforts.
• Political inertia refers to vested interests that companies need to overcome to
launch new products and services.
• Economic inertia refers to resource decision conflicts between exploration and
exploitation undermining change efforts.
Taken together, firms must find ways to deal with these issues, as existing
products and services are often established in organizational silos, which are
connected through a set of complex processes and practices, also referred to as
spaghettis (Woerner et al., 2022; van der Meulen et al., 2020). In order to be able to
launch new digital products and services, established organizations need to find
ways to detangle these spaghettis and overcome silo-thinking within the company.
While different pathways exist to deal with the existing legacy, companies all share
the same goal: become future-ready (Weill & Woerner, 2018).
2.1.2 The Objective: Becoming Future-Ready
Future-ready companies can overcome these issues by mastering the multiple

tensions involved in pursuing digital transformation and acting ambidextrously.
This means that they are innovating with new products and services and continue
to serve changing customer needs while simultaneously focusing on cost reduction
328 C. Marx et al.
and efficiency, ensuring an effective and efficient operational backbone (Weill &
Woerner, 2018). Research shows that companies that can master both outperform
their peers by far, not only regarding financial results but also in championing
employee satisfaction and customer scores (van der Meulen et al., 2020). Hence,
becoming future-ready is imperative for successful transformation.
2.2 Organizational Explosions
However, becoming future-ready is a challenging endeavor, as it requires serving

existing customers while changing the business model at the same time. Depending
on how companies try to become future-ready, they experience so-called organiza-
tional explosions (Weill et al., 2018; Woerner et al., 2022). Organizational explo-
sions refer to general issues companies must confront as part of their digital
transformation journey. Often these issues are rooted in tensions grounded in the
existing way of doing things optimized for the effectiveness and efficiency of current
operations which are now being challenged with new requirements to develop digital
products or services (Haskamp et al., 2023). Thus, as companies pursue digital
transformation, these conflicts emerge as organizational explosions, which execu-
tives are forced to deal with (Weill et al., 2018).
Current research (van der Meulen et al., 2020) on these explosions distinguishes
between four types: changing decision rights, adopting new ways of working,
performing organizational surgery, and adopting a platform mindset.
2.2.1 Changing Decision Rights
Companies often need to introduce new processes, projects, and products to realize
digital innovation and carry out a successful transformation. This requires a change
in decision rights, affecting business practices such as funding, reporting, and hiring.
With these changes comes the question of whether the decision rights of existing
management members are extended or whether new joining management members
are driving digital efforts to take over responsibility. These decisions often involve
questions around funding and budgeting, but also about what products the company
is supposed to sell, which customers to target, and how to position the company in
the market. A core answer to these questions is found in the changing roles of
information technology within organizations. Whereas formerly, the management of
digital technologies was assigned to CIOs and their teams, with the
all-encompassing character of digital technology, this management has become
pervasive in all functions and products of organizations. Thus, aligning business
and IT is not enough but is a prerequisite to developing new digital products. This
also requires rethinking what structures need to be in place to support the develop-
ment of digital products and who is in charge of the development. Therefore,
changing decision rights becomes a major organizational explosion that executive
teams must handle over the course of their digital transformation efforts. These
changes are related to changes in performance metrics, incentives, budgeting prac-
tices, and approval processes, which challenge the organization’s power and status
relationship (van der Meulen et al., 2020).
2.2.2 Adopting New Ways of Working
Another relevant organizational explosion as part of digital transformation comes

with the adoption of so-called new ways of working. These often refer to the
adoption of methods such as Scrum, SAFe, Lean Startup, and Design Thinking
that are implemented and scaled in organizations to make organizations more
customer-centric and to increase speed within product development (Fuchs &
Hess, 2018; Magistretti et al., 2021). These methods are often closely related and
applied for digital products and are then transferred to other contexts and depart-
ments such as operations, marketing, and HR to foster a more collaborative,
customer-centered, and faster approach to work. While this transfer to other organi-
zational areas is often challenging and becomes subject to discussions (Fuchs &
Hess, 2018), there is nevertheless a fundamental shift in terms of organizations’
required speed and customer-centricity. To achieve this, these methods aim to
increase customer proximity, often involving customers directly in the co-creation
or co-development of products and services.
2.2.3 Performing Organizational Surgery
The explosion of organizational surgery refers to activities around the restructuring

of business processes, reworking corporate hierarchies, and changing corporate
functions and roles (Weill et al., 2018). These restructuring activities have been
pursued by organizations for many years and belong to the bread and butter of
executives. Still, their extent in the context of digital transformation often exceeds
prior experiences. For example, elements of digital transformation such as
reorganizing product and service delivery based on organizational structures or
establishing a new product order and delivery process are often hard to avoid.
Further, installing a new digital innovation unit raises power conflicts between
existing and new stakeholders. It also raises the question of product and develop-
ment responsibilities and, in the end, questions about where digital technology is
supposed to be located in the organization. Hence, “organizational surgery” is not an
easy undertaking and often involves the management of numerous conflicts and
tensions. Still, it becomes necessary to prevent the organization from becoming
subject to organizational inertia and to ensure efficiency, effectiveness, and smooth
integration of new and ongoing operations.
330 C. Marx et al.
2.2.4 Creating a Platform Mindset
Digital transformation further requires companies to deal with the explosion of

creating a platform mindset. Developing digital products and services requires a
fundamental change in how the organization is operated and how employees think
about their daily lives. Whereas companies previously focused on providing a
specific product or service to one specific customer group, today’s successful
companies, such as Amazon or Spotify, are platforms providing a digital infrastruc-
ture that creates an ecosystem for several stakeholders and customer groups. Thus,
thinking in terms of a platform requires building modular technology that is
implemented quickly and in which application program interfaces (APIs) ensure
seamless integration of other services. Therefore, adopting a platform mindset
affects the product and service infrastructure and is about moving toward a mindset
of continuous delivery. While organizations previously relied on projects as a
vehicle of product development, with the adoption of digital technology, product
development became a constant task, requiring continuous resource supply for
digital product teams.
3 Digital Transformation Traps
Based on our literature review and the conceptualization of activities and explosions,
we have developed an integrated framework synthesizing the different kinds of traps
organizations should look out for. The categories are execution traps, reaction traps,
assessment traps, and recognition traps. We have further identified eight subcate-
gories and grouped the traps according to their difficulty to be identified in practice
into three layers. The resulting framework of digital transformation traps is displayed
in Fig. 1 and will be explained in detail within the following subchapters.
3.1 Recognition Traps
Recognition traps refer to biases in the very beginning of thought processes and
attitudes regarding the organization’s digital transformation activities. Biases
describe systematic faulty tendencies in perceiving, remembering, thinking, and
judging (Tversky & Kahneman, 1974). These tendencies usually remain uncon-
scious and are based on cognitive heuristics. Hence, this trap category can be
difficult to identify in practice. While remaining unnoticed, the single effects can
cascade into a deluge that threatens the very core of a successful digital transforma-
tion endeavor.
Fig. 1 The three layers of digital transformation traps
3.1.1 Biased Goal Setting
Short-term thinking/protection of profitability: Unfortunately, digital transformation

programs are often viewed as a destination rather than a journey by executives
driving the effort. This results in choices and investments that enable short-term
success but shackle the program from evolving meaningfully once the business
operations kick in. This lack of long-term commitment and impatience can easily
threaten the success of the organization’s digital transformation and is one of the
major underlying traps we have identified.
Pursuit of perfection: While in general, there is a positive connotation with the
word perfection, there exists, however, a significant difference between striving for
excellence and insisting on perfection. Insisting on perfection and overemphasizing
details can be a major barrier to dynamically adapting through experimentation.
Especially in the context of digital transformation initiatives, perfectionism can
severely backfire. Insisting on perfection when striving for organizational transfor-
mation can put an incredible strain on employees and other stakeholders. It adds to
the risk of setting too high expectations and can potentially slow change processes
down. In practice, however, pursuing perfection is a common phenomenon fre-
quently standing in the way of successful digital transformation activities.
332 C. Marx et al.
Copying others: As a potential response to uncertainty, organizations within a

similar field face the general tendency to adopt related behaviors, hence becoming
increasingly similar to each other, for instance, in terms of processes and internal
structure (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983). By modeling the success of others, the
imitating organization hopes to obtain success for itself. However, given the com-
plex and dynamic nature of digital transformation where recognizing threats and
opportunities under uncertainty is key, the process of copying others can eventually
impede change. In most cases, the combination of external and internal factors
shaping the need and the conditions for digital transformation is not the same
between companies. Moreover, copying can become a trap, as the actual factors
that have led the leading company to its success are often based on actions that are
invisible to outside companies. Hence, the underlying more intangible changes a
company goes through to achieve successful transformation are extremely challeng-
ing if not impossible to imitate.
3.1.2 Biased Decision-Making
Fear of failure and experimenting: In a digital, ever-changing environment, organi-

zations have to constantly adapt and strive for flexibility in their decision-making.
However, with high levels of uncertainty and rapidly changing conditions, the path
toward success is extremely difficult to plan in advance and nearly impossible to
predict. Hence, experimenting and dynamically adapting are key actions. In practice,
however, one can frequently observe low experimentation and risk-averse behavior
in organizations aiming to transform digitally. This tendency can be linked to the
fear of doing things “the wrong way,” which is often rooted in the organization’s
enforced pursuit of perfectionism.
Escalation of commitment: Given the complex, uncertain, and dynamic nature of
digital transformation endeavors, many initiatives continue to run over budget,
extend past schedule, and deliver less than or different outcomes than anticipated.
While persistence is intuitively associated with success, it can also be applied to
distressed or generally troubled digital transformation initiatives. In this case, being
overly persistent and committed without recognizing negative signs can become a
severe trap. Escalation of commitment—the failure to withdraw from negative
courses of action (Staw, 1981)—is a phenomenon that can be frequently observed
in practice. The failure to address escalation of commitment and to turn distressed
initiatives around can lead to declining managerial performance and firm profitabil-
ity, productivity loss, and increased organizational inertia, which eventually
threatens the very core of a potentially successful digital transformation (Marx &
Uebernickel, 2022).
Excessive caution: Although it goes without saying that a business should not be
reckless in the decisions it makes or how it operates, when a company undertakes a
digital transformation, it is easy to find organizations at the other extreme: those who
are overly cautious. To some degree, it is possible to plot out the system and process
changes that need to be made, but with that change there ought to be an appreciation
of the element of risk. Implementing incremental changes is unlikely to result in the

transformation desired. Hence, a certain comfort with risk in order to implement bold
and innovative strategies is essential when trying to change the status quo. Unfor-
tunately, excessive caution is a frequently observed behavior and a major risk when
putting digital transformation strategies into action.
3.2 Assessment Traps
Assessment traps refer to inaccuracies in evaluating opportunities and challenges

related to digital transformation activities and resulting organizational change. We
have identified a plethora of potential traps organizations could fall into when
making sense of potential challenges and risks and assessing market opportunities
or existing capabilities. While assessment on the individual level is a cognitive
process involving rational thinking, there are major parts in the process of assessing
challenges and opportunities that rely on intuition and remain unconscious. Hence,
the traps in this category are considered as difficult to identify in practice. When
remaining unnoticed, underestimating challenges and the overall complexity of a
transformation in combination with overestimating opportunities and existing capa-
bilities can easily snowball and threaten the success of the organization’s digital
transformation.
3.2.1 Underestimating Challenges and Complexity
Forgetting about infrastructure: In a survey study about small and medium-sized

enterprises, Shevtsova et al. (2020) found that challenges related to supporting
technical infrastructure are key technical barriers when it comes to implementing
digital transformation initiatives. Changing processes or implementing new technol-
ogy as part of a digital transformation project requires in most cases the foundation
of a suitable technical infrastructure. In practice, however, we frequently observe
that those dependencies and the necessity to build suitable product architectures and
infrastructure before implementing technological changes are overlooked. For
instance, many organizations struggle with the technical integration of digitally
extending an analog product because architectural challenges are underestimated.
In general, many organizations underestimate the complexity and the dependencies
related to digitizing processes, reorientating their business model, or leveraging data
which can jeopardize the entire initiative (Vogelsang et al., 2019).
Underestimation of complexity and dependencies of changing processes: Digital
transformation is often referred to as a never-ending mammoth project that is likely
to affect every single aspect of an organization. Still, many organizations underes-
timate the complexity and the dependencies related to organizational change.
Underestimating cultural barriers, for instance, is frequently brought up as a major
reason for poor digital transformation performance (Wade et al., 2020).
334 C. Marx et al.
Underestimating existing IT legacy: Given the complexity of average IT archi-

tectures in organizations, underestimating existing IT legacy is another major trap
organizations can fall into when digitally transforming. The existing landscape of IT
systems may impose limits on the integration of new digital innovations. Remaining
unaddressed with substantial integration efforts, those existing structures can impede
transformation efforts, potentially slowing down or even hindering the success of
integrating new digital innovations. For these integration efforts to be successful, it is
crucial that the initial assessment of potential IT legacy barriers is accurate. The high
number of IT projects running over budget and time, however, indicates that this
assessment is far from being accurate in most cases.
Underestimating regulatory issues: Along the same lines of underestimating the
general complexity of changing processes and threats, such as existing IT legacy
slowing down integration projects, organizations often struggle with regulatory
issues related to digital transformation activities. Barriers in the form of legal policies
are a major cause of transformation failure (Orzes et al., 2018). Underestimating
regulatory issues that are particularly present in data-related activities can impede the
change process and endanger the success of the overall digital transformation.
Underestimating potential of daily business to hijack DT agenda: Entities,
functions, roles, and established stakeholder constellations have to be reorganized
to realize digital transformation. As a result, new internal units emerge that try to find
their role within the organization. During these complex changes associated with
digital transformation, there is a significant risk that employees are still “trapped”
within old roles and responsibilities, while the transformation efforts require sub-
stantial resources. Along the same lines, a common conflict in practice is a battle for
resources, where the daily business often “hijacks” the digital transformation agenda
(Heavin & Power, 2018).
3.2.2 Overestimating Opportunities and Capabilities
Overestimation of existing capabilities: While the underestimation of challenges is a

severe threat to the success of transformation efforts, so is the overestimation of
opportunities and capabilities. On an individual level, inaccurate capability assess-
ments due to overestimation as a form of overconfidence or ignorance are a common
trap (Moore & Healy, 2008). The tendency to overestimate the existing capabilities
and resources of an individual but also of the entire organization can severely
backfire, especially in the context of digital transformation. In an uncertain and
disrupted environment, organizations have to build dynamic capabilities to remain
competitive through digital transformation (Marx et al., 2021; Teece et al., 1997).
For this, an accurate self-assessment is essential. Hence, overestimating existing
capabilities is a common trap for organizations that aim to digitally transform. If
unaddressed, this can significantly endanger the transformation’s success.
Falling for hyped topics: Digital transformation is on every executive’s agenda
and one of the most popular topics in the management press. This hype, however,
also has its downsides as it creates buzz and excitement about specific technologies
or topics. Companies believed they had to do something—and fast. In many cases,

falling for hyped topics and technology without carefully creating a digital roadmap
has led to expensive efforts that did not always produce transformative results.
Hence, it is a major challenge to carefully separate hype from reality and to assess
the actual fit and advantages of specific actions instead of “doing things just for the
sake of doing them.”
Overemphasizing technology over people: With technological advancements and
changing market dynamics come changing requirements and needs regarding suc-
cessfully operating a business in the digital age. Unfortunately, many organizations
assess these new requirements and needs only through the lens of technology while
not giving much thought to what these choices mean for the employees who need to
adopt it. Too often digital transformation programs are exclusively focused on digital
technologies (Wade et al., 2020). As digital transformation is as much about people
as it is about technology (Marx et al., 2023; Kane, 2019), recognizing the challenges
the transformations pose for the individuals involved, and explicitly addressing these
issues is crucial. Acknowledging the importance of the human factor in digital
transformation, academia, and practice identifies human-centricity as an essential
foundation to build when digitally transforming (Marx, 2022; Magistretti et al.,
2021).
Starting with step 100: Many organizations face the dilemma of whether to
increase the efficiency of current operations as a top priority or to emphasize
customer-centricity and address needs (Heavin & Power, 2018). Setting the right
priorities and focusing on the plethora of potential digital transformation activities
are a crucial task to successfully maneuver around digital transformation traps. In
practice, however, many companies have adopted a “let a hundred flowers bloom”
philosophy. Such an approach generates excitement and fosters experimentation,
but, if not carefully managed, it can also be self-defeating. Ignoring the necessity of
building foundations, for instance, suitable IT infrastructure, and running too many
competing initiatives are success-threatening results of this lack of focus and
priorities.
3.3 Reaction Traps
Digital transformation at its core is about change. Reaction traps refer to unfavorable
reactions caused by those changes that potentially impede digital transformation.
These reactions can be rooted in two main areas. First is in the inability to change due
to a lack of resources, miscommunications, or support deficit from management or
from within the organization. Second, the reactions can be tied to conscious or
unconscious unwillingness to change. When remaining unaddressed, reaction traps
can jeopardize otherwise smoothly running transformation initiatives and reinforce
inert forces. While the “symptoms” of reaction traps are comparatively easy to
identify, like employee resistance to change, it is still extremely challenging to
notice the complex interdependencies and influencing factors that might cause
336 C. Marx et al.
unfavorable reactions to digital transformation activities within organizations.

Hence, we have placed this trap category in the middle layer of identification
difficulty within our trap framework.
3.3.1 Inability to Change
Lacking capabilities and resources: Most companies underestimate how long it

takes to build new or alter existing capabilities. Lacking organizational capabilities
and resources and lacking individual-level skills like technology and process knowl-
edge are typical traps within the digital transformation journey of organizations that
can lead to an inability to change (Hille et al., 2023; Vogelsang et al., 2019). For
instance, a lack of resource capacity to deal with data by relevant actors can represent
a major bottleneck. Regarding the individual level, factors comprising human
capital, such as the number of employees or the presence of specialized personnel,
are particularly important for changes that embed a high degree of new knowledge.
In the case of big data, for example, the adequacy of IT-literate personnel and the
availability of data science expertise are essential success factors (D’Ignazio and
Bhargava, 2021).
Lacking support from management: Top management support is essential
throughout the whole transformation process since digital transformation strategies
affect the entire organization (Matt et al., 2015). However, lacking management
support is one of the most frequently experienced barriers in digital transformation
initiatives (Nambisan et al., 2019). Digital innovation activities, for instance, are
often very difficult to steer and evaluate as innovation outcomes require new ways of
measuring (Haskamp, et al., 2021b). Hence, those activities rely particularly on top
management support to create legitimacy and provide sufficient financial resources.
Further, lacking management support can have negative spillover effects on the
reaction of employees and other stakeholders to change initiatives. Unfortunately,
this trap is reinforced by existing structures and traditional ways of measuring
performance and success. Hence, it is particularly challenging to execute a digital
roadmap if the top management does not fully support the initiatives. While dedi-
cated roles like the chief digital officer can counteract these mechanisms, in practice,
only a very small fraction of organizations have engaged a chief digital officer to
support their transformations.
Lacking support from employees: When having recognized the need to transform,
many organizations try to force it to happen by pushing for top-down compliance to
new processes and systems. Often, a lack of enthusiasm and evolving skepticism
about the necessity to digitize can be identified as barriers resulting from insensitiv-
ity. Given that digital transformation is a challenging organizational task affecting
the very core and almost every aspect of an organization, lacking support from
employees can be fatal.
Misunderstanding changes/miscommunication: Another form of inability to
change as a reaction trap that organizations fall into when digitally transforming is
miscommunication. One of the key challenges of digital transformation is that the
whole organization needs to be involved. In this regard, formulating a digital

transformation strategy and communicating its implications across the enterprise
are of utmost importance as miscommunication might lead to resistance among the
employees and decreased legitimacy. When introducing new processes or technol-
ogies, many organizations make the mistake of neglecting the implications these
changes can have on existing working habits. Frequently observed consequences of
poorly communicated changes are “workarounds” where employees manage to
remain within their old habits while conditions and structures around them have
changed. Those workarounds are often inefficient and potentially result in negative
spillover effects making it increasingly challenging to implement changes within the
organization.
3.3.2 Unwillingness to Change
Change fatigue: Sustaining the momentum of a major transformation effort against

inert forces is a major challenge. Hence, it is not surprising that organizations put
tremendous resources and efforts into transformation initiatives. However,
employees can easily become overwhelmed by the scale and complexity of the
transformation and the strain the change imposes. This makes change fatigue a
major threat to success (Vial, 2019). Change fatigue often evolves slowly as teams
are worn down by process changes, new learning curves, and workflow disruptions.
In practice, visible symptoms of change fatigue include employee apathy, confusion,
frustration, and stress (Bernerth et al., 2011).
Rejection and fear of change: Change is an emotional and diffuse issue. One of
the major reaction traps implies fears and acceptance problems of individuals—like
skepticism or missing acceptance (Vogelsang et al., 2019). The extent to which
people are willing to change depends very much on the management and the
communication of change. In the context of organizational transformation, fear of
change can be linked to negative anticipations of consequences around the changes.
For instance, employees might fear changing how they typically do things or fear
becoming irrelevant, losing power, or becoming lower in status within the organi-
zation. Fearing change is a common and very natural tendency that, under certain
circumstances, leads to rejection of or even resistance to change. The latter can
fracture teams and erode trust between employees and management. Along these
lines, research has emphasized the role of inertia as “a form of rigidity that is
determined by past experiences and actions and that manifests itself on multiple
levels as part of digital transformation activities”—as a key barrier and potential trap
in the context of digital transformation (Haskamp, et al., 2021a, 7).
338 C. Marx et al.
3.4 Execution Traps
Execution traps refer to the symptoms directly visible when something in the
execution of the digital transformation strategy goes wrong. We have clustered
those symptoms in internal symptoms, including, for instance, the perception of
cannibalization effects and digital divide, and external symptoms like lacking
desirability of newly developed services or products. We call these traps symptoms,
as they are usually linked to a complex underlying structure of influencing factors.
This makes execution traps comparatively easy to recognize in practice but also
more difficult to avoid.
3.4.1 Internal Symptoms
Cannibalization effects: The perception of potential cannibalization effects, when

introducing new digital products or services as part of digital transformation, is a
major trap for organizations. Cannibalization effects refer to the fear that new digital
services or products will undermine sales of existing core products and services. In
line with this often irrational but very common inference is the aim of protecting
profitability. This idea is reflected in the argument that existing products guarantee
certain profits that the executive team wants to keep. In contrast to this tendency,
research has shown that willingness to cannibalize might explain why certain
organizations are better at developing radical innovations than other organizations
(Nijssen et al., 2005). Hence, while “the extent to which a firm is prepared to reduce
the actual or potential value of its investments” (Chandy & Tellis, 1998, 475) is
crucial for developing new and more radically original products and services, in
practice it focuses on fearing cannibalization and protecting existing profits. These
effects can also be transferred to a departmental level, where departments fear losing
their access to existing customers.
Digitizing “garbage” processes: For many companies, digital transformation
starts with digitizing analog processes. While these activities might seem less
complex than other digital transformation-related initiatives, they hide a common
trap. In line with the challenges of providing focus and a clear roadmap to digital
transformation activities, many organizations make the mistake of transferring
existing inconsistencies and flaws of analog processes to the digital world. This
results in process redundancies, where processes are conducted several times within
the organization with similar steps and goals without being synergized.
Digital divide: Market fragmentation and ambiguity challenge the existing logic
of incumbent organizations. Firms that undergo digital transformation often change
existing structures, processes, roles, and even business models in order to adapt to
external disruptions. These profound changes require clear priorities and dedicated
top management support to succeed. However, ingroup-outgroup employee situa-
tions can arise from a lack of sensitivity about the far-reaching effects of these
changes. Likewise, perceptions of interorganizational digital divide can result. The
initial definition of digital divide refers to “the separation between those who have
access to digital information and communications technology (. . .) and those who do
not” (Dewan & Riggins, 2005, 289). This becomes a transformation trap: Presumed
and actual digital divide can cascade into frustration and resistance on the individual
level and diminish efficiency on the organizational level. Hence, recognizing and
bridging the interorganizational digital divide is of utmost importance when maneu-
vering around digital transformation traps.
Identity loss: While digital transformation involves a new organizational identity,
IT-enabled transformation enhances an existing organizational identity (Wessel
et al., 2021). This is a key differentiating factor. This factor can be linked to changes
in the value proposition that come with digital transformation. A famous example of
organizational identity change is Netflix, a former provider of rental movies that
became a streaming platform. Changing organizational identity, however, can be
challenging for employees and customers who are used to the status quo and fear a
loss of identification with the organization. Furthermore, a strong identity that has
been built up over a long period of time needs to change, and this change affects the
very core of an organization. Utesheva et al. (2016) found that in order to survive
digital disruptions, an ongoing strategic renegotiation of the identities of all the
actors involved is required. Hence, identity renegotiations and changes must be
handled very carefully. Identity loss is a dangerous trap that organizations should be
aware of and ideally avoid when transforming their value propositions.
3.4.2 External Symptoms
Developing something that you can’t (feasibility): Surveying the skills of employees,
a study found that 80% of employers question the adequacy of their workforce
training in the context of digital transformation (Koshal & Natarajarathinam, 2019).
Similarly, many organizations overestimate their readiness in terms of resources and
capabilities when it comes to changing their value proposition and developing new
products and services. In combination with falling for hyped technologies acceler-
ated by the pressure to keep up with the market developments and competitors, this
tendency can lead to overconfidence and unrealistic expectations, eventually threat-
ening the success of the digital initiative.
Developing something that nobody wants (desirability): Human-centricity is a
crucial part of successful digital transformation (Micheli et al., 2019; de Paula et al.,
2022). It has been shown that adopting Design Thinking and other human-centered
approaches is directly and indirectly connected to the mechanisms of generating
rapid adaptation and supporting changes in the organizational setup. These are ideal
prerequisites for digital transformation (Marx, 2022). In practice, however, many
organizations struggle to identify changes in customer needs caused by technolog-
ical advancements and general changes in customer expectations. Fueled by hyped
technologies and mechanisms, such as copying successful competitors, “developing
something that nobody wants” is a dangerous trap that can cascade into transforma-
tion failure if not adequately addressed.
340 C. Marx et al.
Developing something that is not viable (viability): Many digital transformations

run into difficulties because costs explode while savings or revenue growth takes
longer than expected. Innovation and rapid experimentation are costly, and it is
extremely challenging for organizations to balance desirability and economic via-
bility, especially when it comes to developing new products and services. Viability
in this context refers to whether the business model and the way companies build
new solutions along the way of digitally transforming are profitable.
4 Application to Practice
In this chapter, we aimed to identify and synthesize the potential traps organizations
could fall into during their digital transformation journey. Given the high practical
relevance of this endeavor, we decided to translate our theoretical trap framework
into a useful tool for practitioners. Additionally, the application to practice functions
as a validation of the developed framework. We urge practitioners involved in
transformational activities to be aware of the traps which, if not recognized or
unaddressed, can prove fatal to the transformation’s success. To use the framework,
we suggest two essential steps: First, as traps are sensitive to context, practitioners
should reflect on which specific digital transformation activities and explosions are
relevant to their transformation journey. This adds scope and helps to focus on the
most relevant traps. In a second step and based on the selected activities, practi-
tioners should go through the potential traps and assess their relevance, likelihood,
and the extent to which falling into the trap would threaten the transformation
activity. Here, both the recognition of traps that the company already fell into and
those that are likely to be relevant in the future should be considered. For the
assessment, the various layers of identification difficulty also help to raise awareness
for those difficult to identify traps.
In the following, we will describe the in-depth case study that we conducted and
the traps applicable to this specific case.
4.1 Adopting New Ways of Working at a Financial Service

Provider
This case study deals with a “new ways of working” initiative of an operations
department of an incumbent financial service provider. The department headed by a
managing director has five teams with five to ten team members, each including a
team lead per team. This adoption took place in the operations department, which
(1) serves as a coordinating unit of activities within the company, (2) runs process-
wise end-to-end activities, and (3) pilots and incorporates new digital technologies
within the operations of the company for other departments within the company.
Specifically, they focused on adopting agile methods within the department as a new
way of working. This agile transformation was initiated in 2020 with the managing
director’s appointment, as she is deeply convinced about organizing work based on
agile principles. The adoption of agile practices was understood as a means for
adopting a new mindset that relies on values of human-centeredness, teamwork,
iterative working, client-centeredness, open-mindedness, and openness to change.
Here, agile practices referred to organizing work based on tribes, squads, and
chapters, including cross-functional staffing of teams. Practically, it was about
adopting new ways of working, empowering teams to make decisions, giving
teams the freedom for iteration and reprioritization at the end of each sprint, and
focusing on clients. Adopting agile ceremonies was a vital part of the process,
including dedicated sprint planning, daily team huddles, a sprint retrospective,
backlog refinements, and demos. Regarding the implementation approach, the idea
of agility was embraced. According to the department: “We want to introduce agile
in an agile way—this means a continuous improvement of our approach to achieving
a robust agile maturity level (numerous iterations) and best-fit agility model for the
team.” This meant that rather than deploying all methods and concepts fully,
individuals and teams were supposed to adopt agile practices step-by-step, con-
stantly evolving. Thus, it was acceptable for teams to “fail” as long as they were
seriously committed. In terms of the implementation, the managing director decided
to run all operations agile after an initial successful pilot. The team leads were to
execute this and rolled out agile practices supported by a few knowledgeable people
in the team. Jira was implemented and used as a tool for tracking activities and
running sprints to embed agile within the organization.
4.2 Transformation Traps in the Case
As part of the introduced case study, the department encountered different transfor-
mation traps based on the introduced framework. We will shortly introduce the top
3 traps encountered and what the managing director and the team did to handle them.
Fear of failure—the blind leading the blind: A critical challenge that the man-
aging director encountered was fear of failure from the team leads. As one of the
team leads explained from his perspective: “The way the managing director
described it was, ‘I want to introduce this as an agile way, so you try out these
tools and we gradually build from there.’ But the problem is that we’re like the blind
leading the blind. I have no idea how to use these tools. I have no idea whether we
are doing it right or wrong and, therefore, whether we are moving in the right
direction or not.” The lack of knowledge on the side of the team leads, including
the fear of failing in front of the team members, made the team leads feel insecure.
The department’s leadership team tried to mitigate these feelings by providing some
initial training, but there emerged an additional conflict based on different mindsets.
Whereas the managing director wanted people to try things out and learn from them,
the team leads were afraid to expose themselves too much to their employees.
342 C. Marx et al.
Lacking resources/capabilities—no budget for training: Contributing to the

issues previously presented were some structural shortcomings and a lack of
resources and capabilities. While within the department, the adoption rate and
the level of expertise differed among the people involved, due to the COVID crisis,
the financial service provider decided to cut training budgets immediately. Although
the company ran an agile transformation hub, which included coaches to support
departments going agile, it was impossible to access the funding for training. The
managing director, a certified coach herself, was trying to train and share her
knowledge and expertise, yet the lack of budget for external training was still an
immense barrier. This amplified some of the team leaders’ skepticism. They chal-
lenged the implementation approach by asking for more training before adopting
agile practices, which would have delayed the entire transformation as training
budgets were frozen then. At a later time—when the budget freeze was over—
intensive training was offered, but the initial skepticism was still hard to overcome.
Complexity and dependencies—the others don’t run agile: Another key trap in
this case that needed to be overcome was related to significantly challenging
dependencies on other departments. The department’s activities and projects were
deeply embedded within the overall organizational structure and processes.
Depending on their role within each project, they had limited abilities to impose
changes on work practices on projects that other departments led. A team lead
explained the underlying problem: “Agile typically works within a project where
you are all trying to achieve the same goals. If you now have a broader organization
with different teams working on different goals and objectives, and they are not
aligned with each other, then the sprint ceremonies and plans concept does not quite
fit as well.” This led to problems in specific projects. For instance, employees needed
to report progress in different formats, which led to frustration: “Currently, we have
to report it in three different ways. You do a presentation, you create a storyboard,
and it also is part of the audit tool set. So you end up with an audit tool set,
presentations, and a storyboard. This means you’re doing about three different
ways of communicating the information.” Hence, the fact that members of the
department did not own the projects entirely posed a major challenge and
undermined agile practices. This example shows how structural dependencies
threaten the ongoing change and make it hard for organizational members of the
department to fully adopt agile practices.
5 Conclusion
A major challenge in today’s business world is to turn distressed digital transforma-

tion activities around. While adopting Design Thinking might be one very promising
strategy to increase the chances of successfully transforming, until now little has
been known about the underlying traps that can cause failure if neither identified nor
addressed. Our digital transformation trap framework addresses this opportunity.
Based on a literature review, an analysis of different digital transformation activities,
and the application to practice through an in-depth case study, we identified the trap
categories recognition, assessment, reaction, and execution traps each consisting of
two subcategories and six to eight specific traps. Hence, in total, we could identify
and describe 27 major traps. Moreover, the three layers of our trap framework
account for the fact that different traps vary in difficulty to detect.
The application to practice through the case study demonstrates how to use the
trap framework in practice and provides real-world examples of three major trap
areas that were relevant to the case.
This chapter contributes to the “demystification” of failing digital transformation
endeavors and can serve as a foundation for understanding how adopting Design
Thinking, or other mitigation strategies, can help navigate around digital transfor-
mation traps.
Regarding future research, we intend to further validate the trap framework with
real-world case studies. Moreover, we plan to scale and ease the application of the
framework in practice by translating it into a self-assessment tool for practitioners.
Acknowledgments We appreciate the funding provided by the Hasso Plattner Foundation as part
of the HPI-Stanford Design Thinking Research Program that enabled this research. We further
thank our research partner from practice, as well as our collaboration partners from the MIT Center
for Information Systems Research and the Haas School of Business at the University of California
Berkeley.
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Facets of Hybrid Education
Selina Mayer, Martin Schwemmle, Claudia Nicolai, and Ulrich Weinberg
Abstract Hybrid educational formats are on the rise, but there exists neither
definitional clarity on the term “hybrid” nor has there been a deeper examination
of approaches that lend themselves to highly collaborative education, such as that
required for design thinking. This book chapter first presents a taxonomy of time-
and place-based hybridity. It then discusses in-depth the settings that are particularly
relevant to design thinking education and presents their key opportunities and
challenges. Overall, this chapter raises awareness and understanding of teaching in
hybrid settings and offers researchers inspiration for future research and educators
issues to consider when teaching in hybrid formats.
1 Introduction
The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted education worldwide, accelerating the transfor-

mation from physical spaces to virtual settings. While information technology has
influenced education already strongly in various manners over the past 30 years,
many institutions still relied heavily on traditional physical classroom teaching. The
“screeching halt” to on-site education that was triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic
(Ellis et al., 2020, p. 559) led to the emergence of a variety of hybrid education
formats. Today, educators and researchers use the term hybrid education in many
ways. For some, hybrid education refers to the streaming or recording of the
traditional lecture with frontal input, allowing no or only limited interactions. In
the literature, hybrid learning commonly refers to the combination of online and
face-to-face learning activities (Olapiriyakul & Scher, 2006). While the former are
Selina Mayer and Martin Schwemmle contributed equally to this chapter.
S. Mayer (✉) · M. Schwemmle · C. Nicolai · U. Weinberg

[email protected]
348 S. Mayer et al.
flexible, so that learners can access learning material online any time they want, the
latter require learners and educators to meet at the same time.
These understandings of hybrid education, however, run short in the context of
highly collaborative learning settings, such as in design thinking education. Design
thinking is highly collaborative and based on experiential learning; subsequently,
hybrid education for design thinking requires suitable formats. Whereas, for exam-
ple, grammar lessons might be easily transferrable into hybrid settings via videos and
exercise sheets, collaborative problem-solving asks for more advanced hybrid set-
tings. One concept honoring this demand is hyflex education, combining hybrid
(e.g., the combination of online and face-to-face learning activities) with a high
flexibility (flexible choice of attendance by the learner) (Beatty, 2014). We believe
that this flexibility can be defined along two dimensions, time and location, thus
allowing synchronous or asynchronous learning. This means, for example, allowing
some learners to remain off-site while at the same time permitting others to flexibly
join in on-site. In addition, depending on the learning content or group dynamics,
some elements will require attendance, while others can decide between an on-site or
off-site option. . We will provide more detailed examples in Sect. 2.
Providing flexible education settings is crucial for modern education systems.
Mayer gives three major reasons arguing for more flexibility (Mayer, 2023). First,
the numbers of students and learners are constantly growing, bringing physical
spaces in universities to their limits, already today (Twigg, 2003). Second, life-
long learning is on the rise as a central concept, reflected in the adult learners who
form the majority of online learners (Ke & Xie, 2009). Adult learners have to balance
various tasks, such as their work and their family life with their educational tasks,
demanding a higher flexibility in order to profit the most from their education (Kara
et al., 2019). And last, our world is becoming strongly interconnected, allowing and
demanding highly international audiences (Mittelmeier et al., 2018). While infor-
mation technology makes international learning settings possible, it also creates a
highly diverse learner community with different needs and preferences (Wise et al.,
2012). Flexible education settings can help better integrate international learners and
their demands.
In this chapter, we explore the various facets of hybrid education and discuss the
major challenges and opportunities in this format.
2 Forms of Asynchronicity in Hybrid Education
Flexibility in education can be defined along two dimensions: location and time.
Each of these two dimensions has three broad categories. For location, we distin-
guish between “on-site,” “hybrid,” and “remote.” “On-site” refers to rather tradi-
tional classroom education where educators and learners come to the classroom or
lecture hall. “Remote” refers to complete online education, where educators and
learners join from different physical locations. Hybrid combines the two mentioned
Facets of Hybrid Education 349
Table 1 Flexibility in education: nine settings

All on-site All remote
Traditional education Location-hybrid Online education
All same time 1. Traditional educa- 2. Hybrid education 3. Online education
(compulsory tion with compulsory with compulsory atten- with compulsory atten-
attendance) attendance. dance(time-synchro- dance.
nous). Live streaming
Mixed or separate times Remote group work
by location (not hybrid)
Remote and on-site group
work
Educator location:On-site
or online
Time slots 4. Education with 5. Hybrid education. 6. Online education
(possibilities possibilities for joint With possibilities for joint with possibilities for
for joint attendance(time attendance joint attendance (time
attendance) slots). (time slots) slots).
Flexible presence, not Flexible presence, not
forced attendance forced attendance
Different knowledge Different knowledge sta-
status, need ways to tus, need ways to update,
update online
Not all same 7. Self-organized 8. Self-organized. 9. Self-organized online
time education with physi- Hybrid education (time- education.
(self- cal presence. asynchronous) self-directed learning
organized) “Lernbüros” (learning Same as 7) MOOCs
offices) in schools No examples to our Forum
In higher education, no knowledge
examples to our
knowledge
options, containing elements for on-site interactions as well as purely online

interactions.
When speaking of time, we differentiate between “same time,” “hybrid,” and “not
same time.” “Same time” means all learners learning simultaneously, which is
usually the case for compulsory attendance. On the other end, in “not same time,”
learners are completely flexible as to when they want to learn, which is usually the
case for self-organized learning. Hybrid forms generally include formats with
flexible learning times, but also some defined spots of group attendance.
Together, these two dimensions with three categories create nine different learn-
ing settings. Table 1 displays all nine options. In this section, we will offer a brief
overview of all nine learning settings.
Setting 1: Traditional On-Site Education
The traditional on-site education setting refers to all learners on-site at the same time
(i.e., with compulsory attendance). This includes the classical lecture or face-to-face
teamwork in the classroom. This setting still dominates today’s education system in
high schools or universities. Similar to the increase of flexible work in companies
350 S. Mayer et al.
and the rise of new teaching formats, the relevance of this setting might decrease in
the future.
Setting 2: Hybrid Education with Compulsory Attendance
(Time-Synchronous)
In the hybrid classroom setting, flexibility is allowed for location, but not for time.
This means, for example, that a classical lecture takes place with a portion of the
learners on-site, while the lecture is also live-streamed to a remote attendance. Such
models have already been applied in previous years, for example, when lecture halls
were not large enough to guarantee a seat for each learner. Hybrid classrooms are
now more regularly used, as they seem a good compromise between pre-COVID
traditional classroom settings and the during-COVID remote classrooms. We offer
more details for this setting and more interactive and collaborative learning modes in
Chapter “Predicting Creativity and Innovation in Society: The Importance of Places,
the Importance of Governance”.
Setting 3: Online Education with Compulsory Attendance
The setting describes online education with compulsory attendance that takes place
fully virtually. While the educator and the learners are all in different remote
locations, they meet at the same time in a virtual room. This setting allows a fast
mix between live-streamed lecture elements and remote group work settings, such as
in breakout rooms. This setting is becoming increasingly popular for new universi-
ties that don’t require large facilities and attract international students or those from
more rural areas without a university nearby.
Setting 4: On-Site Education with Possibilities for Joint Attendance (Time
Slots)
Setting 4 refers to education formats that center around on-site education but allow
flexibility in attendance. This might include on-site teaching without compulsory
attendance (and without live streaming, which distinguishes Setting 4 from Setting
2). Thus, learning material has to be provided to allow components of self-learning.
This material does not have to be provided online but can also be physical reading
material. This setting can also refer to on-site offers with mandatory attendance but
which offer differing time slots and therefore provide some form of flexibility for
learners. Another example could be exercises or colloquia, where educators offer
learners rooms to clarify questions or have discussions about certain topics.
Setting 5: Hybrid Education with Possibilities for Joint Attendance (Time Slots)
Setting 5 includes educational formats with the maximal flexibility of time and
location and thus combines the two other hybrid settings (2 and 8). Learners can
choose whether to attend on-site or remotely and can flexibly choose time slots. In
our experience and to guarantee the presence of students, most educational formats
define specific time slots for attendance and leave other time slots open to choose for
self-learning or teamwork. Generally speaking, this setting creates a high complexity
for educators as they cannot plan the number of attendees and have to avoid the
danger of learning deficits between different learning groups.
Setting 6: Online Education with Possibilities for Joint Attendance (Time Slots)
This setting refers to formats where all learners are remotely located, but there are
time slots for joint online attendance and time slots for self-learning. The online
attendance can be compulsory or voluntary. Examples include a live-streamed
lecture, which is also recorded and available for individual consumption at any
point in time. It also refers to massive open online courses (MOOCs), in which the
content is usually provided online via video or other learning material but where
learners can meet for joint discussions or working sessions.
Setting 7: Self-Organized Learning with Physical Presence
Setting 7 implies full flexibility with regard to time but is combined with physical
presence. To the best of our knowledge, such a format only takes place at schools in
the form of “Lernbüros,” roughly translated as “learning offices.” Learners attend, as
usual, their school on-site. However, they don’t have a strict timetable but can
flexibly choose at what time they want to work on which subject. Educators provide
learning content and discuss learners’ next steps and progress, and the learning itself
can be both self-reliant or in teams. We could not find examples for higher education.
This might be because physical presence might be more a question of surveillance
and guidance, reasons which usually do not apply to adults.
Setting 8: Self-Organized Hybrid Education (Time-Asynchronous)
This setting is like Setting 7, but with an additional online component. While we can
imagine that the learning offices listed under Setting 7 have a hybrid component
(e.g., offer learning material online as well as on-site), we have not found examples
for this in practice.
Setting 9: Self-Organized Online Education
Setting 9 refers to self-organized online education. Relying heavily on self-directed
learning, this includes MOOCs without any joint attendance. Often, MOOCs have
one dedicated “running cycle,” in which the format is run “live,” offering dedicated
slots for joint attendance. After this running cycle, the MOOC is still available to
learners, however without any support or supervision. While such purely self-
organized online education is providing full flexibility for learners, collaboration is
only possible indirectly, for example, through forums, where learners can pose
questions and receive answers from other learners—but not in real time.
Conclusion
When it comes to collaborative learning, formats with no same-time learning
opportunities are not suitable, as collaboration relies mostly on the (virtual) presence
of other learners. Hence, formats 7–9 cannot be recommended for such learning
formats. Therefore, hybrid forms of collaborative learning work best when all or
some time slots are presence time (i.e., Settings 2 and 5).
352 S. Mayer et al.
3 Two Main Challenges and Opportunities
In the following, we discuss two main challenges and opportunities of hybrid

education settings. A more detailed description and the scientific approach to
defining these challenges can be found in our conference paper (Mayer, 2023). We
introduce the challenges and combine them with opportunities from our experience
as researchers and educators.
3.1 Challenge 1: Fostering Fruitful Interactions
Facilitating interactions between the educator and learner, as well as between

learners, is a crucial component of learning (Mayer et al., 2022). This is a challenge
in hybrid settings, as learners are either not at the same location or not present at the
same time. We differentiate two cases of this challenge and discuss the hybrid
challenges for each of them.
3.1.1 Creating Personal Connectedness
This challenge lies at the core of ensuring interactions. How can educators create
interactions and trust between learners in hybrid settings?
Regarding space-hybrid settings, educators have two main options to handle this
challenge. Either, they treat both groups separately, so that there are purely online
and purely offline teams. Or, they form hybrid teams, so that learners on-site team up
with remote learners. The first option implies that collaboration does not take place
across media but that only virtual and only on-site learners will collaborate. This
option comes with two main advantages. On the one hand, it is much easier to
manage and handle for educators and learners, as those students online remain in an
online space and those working on-site can work together in real teams. Presenta-
tions are streamed, but teams can independently work with the tools they prefer. On
the other hand, it is also easier from a logistical and noise perspective, as teams
on-site do not necessarily need screens and computers and don’t communicate via
microphones and speakers. This keeps noise levels in a manageable range.
At the same time, choosing this option has two main disadvantages. It prevents
certain individuals from interacting and bears the danger of systemic discrimination.
Remote learners, in particular, may come from international backgrounds, so that
separating online and offline groups can lead to systemic biases. For example, local
learners collaborate with local peers but miss out the collaboration with international
remote students. To at least partly solve this issue, educators might schedule specific
slots, where remote and non-remote students interact, for example, during check-in
rounds in the morning or coffee table settings. The second disadvantage is that
on-site students will not experience virtual collaboration, which, in light of increased
Fig. 1 Hyflex learning environment at the HPI School of Design Thinking (picture copyright “HPI
School of Design Thinking/Jana Legler”)
global collaboration in organizations, is a skill that should be trained in higher

education settings.
The second option, consequently mixing teams so that remote and on-site learners
are in different teams, bears several advantages—but also two main challenges.
Obviously, mixed teams allow for high levels of diversity, with a greater possibility
of learners coming from different countries. This added “team mixing” overcomes
the challenges of participation and reduces the danger of discrimination. At the same
time, students of such teams learn how to collaborate remotely and best use
technology in teamwork. These skills prepare them for their future jobs, such as in
international organizations. In contrast to these advantages, we see two major
challenges. The first challenge is a logistical one: On-site students need technology
to collaborate with their virtual peers. Each student may work in front of their own
device with headphones on, which raises the question of why these students need to
be in the classroom, at all. In the other case/otherwise, spaces need to be equipped
with the right technology, so that students belonging to the same team can work
together on-site. The team spaces at the HPI School of Design Thinking, for
example, were designed for this situation. They are equipped with a conference
camera that can show several people and automatically moves to the speaker.
Moreover, this space has table microphones so that all on-site team members can
be understood easily. Lastly, the space/area is equipped with two screens—one for
seeing the remote participants and one to be used as a virtual whiteboard. Figure 1
depicts this setup. Depending on the room situation, increasing noise levels with
multiple calls in parallel and learners next to each other can be a further issue here.
The second challenge of such fully mixed teams is to integrate remote learners in the
on-site team. In particular, activities that require physical interaction (such as
prototyping) or conversations during lunch breaks or side conversations may lead
to excluding remote students. A more technical solution is to use conferencing
354 S. Mayer et al.
robots, so that remote team members can “join” the coffee break. A further way of
handling this challenge is to establish rules that avoid these kinds of exclusion. We
will discuss this issue in more detail in the next section on providing equality.
Creating connectedness in time-asynchronous settings is even harder, if not
almost impossible, as learners do not necessarily have any “overlap” in terms of
shared time. It is thus advantageous to at least schedule some social slots for getting
to know each other or exchanging views in between. To make these social events
more entertaining, educators can use networking platforms, such as Wonder, or
invite their students to other virtual activities, such as a virtual exit game. A further
way to establish social connections between time-asynchronous students lies in
structured forms of self-presentations. For example, every learner fills out a virtual
profile or creates a short video introducing themselves to the class. These videos can
then be distributed via a learning management system or be sent as daily emails to
the team. Furthermore, educators can support such endeavors through social net-
works, such as a LinkedIn group or internal forums provided by the learning
management systems.
3.1.2 Ensuring Equality
From conversations with coaches, we learned that a further challenge of virtual

settings is to ensure the equality between learners. We remember quite well the quote
of one coach who considers full online education as making participants equal, as
each learner is represented through a tile on the screen. However, this turns into a
challenge for location-hybrid settings. Two main factors determine the specifics of
this challenge—the location of the educator and the number of students on-site. If
educators are on-site, they have to make sure to treat their remote learners equal to
their on-site learners—as the latter can much more easily communicate through
nonverbal communication and more easily join discussions. Educators can, for
example, deliberately give space to online learners by actively addressing them.
They might also mirror their experiences from the classroom to the online world,
such as sharing that they sense insecurity in the classroom and ask if this holds also
true for remote learners. The second factor refers to the proportion of students online
and on-site, as this might determine what is considered to be the dominant class-
room. If the majority of learners joins remotely, educators might automatically cater
more to this audience. Ensuring equality then means to also create a meaningful
educational experience for on-site learners, so that they still have benefits from being
in the classroom. For both challenges, it might help to establish clear rules, such as
raising real or virtual hands to ensure that everybody can join a discussion or
repeating all questions or side discussions in the classroom so that remote learners
can hear what is going on. Regular quick surveys about how included learners feel
can give educators an indication of how well they manage the task of ensuring
equality.
Besides the challenge of providing equal participation in class, ensuring equality
can touch further topics, of which we discuss two more points that particularly refer
to international learners. On the one hand, different time zones can cause inequality,
so that learners from different continents might have to get up at night to join a
session. While such inequalities cannot be avoided completely, educators should
communicate timings upfront, should be aware of the special effort such students are
willing to invest, or might even consider offering their courses at alternate times. On
the other hand, the technical infrastructure in different countries differs greatly. For
example, learners with low Internet bandwidth will be unable to join with their video
or might have problems using tools with a high data consumption, such as Miro. The
specific handling of such inequalities is a matter of the specific case, which seems to
make general recommendations inappropriate. However, the first step should be to
create awareness for such issues for both educators and fellow learners. Using such
realities as creative constraints might be a more playful way to handle them. For
example, educators could challenge their learners by simulating a server downtime
of a provider, to demonstrate why one of the commonly used tools simply cannot be
used anymore.
3.2 Challenge 2: Flexibility and Structure
The second challenge of hybrid education concerns learners’ flexibility of freely

choosing their time and location, while at the same time structure is needed to ensure
joint learning experiences. We discuss three issues of flexibility and structure in the
following—creating group experiences, random encounters, and the diversity of
learners.
3.2.1 Creating Group Experiences
The high flexibility of hybrid education provides each individual learner with the
freedom to learn when and where they want. However, learning is far from being an
individual task. In particular, more innovative learning formats that rely on group
work and collaboration need some sort of presence. Moreover, if learners are
completely free to choose whether they join a virtual or physical session, the
educator or a few students might end up being alone in the classroom, which
might cause frustration. Thus, educators should carefully balance the flexibility for
their learners with the need to create a group experience. To this end, they might
together with their students create rules for a learning culture, such as the default of
being present, or use tools to make transparent who is there and who isn’t so that
everybody can plan accordingly. This holds true for both time- and space-hybrid
education.
A further aspect of group experiences concerns questions of creativity and
innovation. As a recent study shows, purely virtual collaboration can reduce the
novelty of ideas or the behavioral collaboration itself (Balters et al., 2022). Hence,
356 S. Mayer et al.
especially for more innovative tasks, such as for the project-based learning in design
thinking, planning time for physical presence might advance learning outcomes.
3.2.2 Enabling Random Encounters
Besides structured learning taking place through inputs, lectures, or group work,
learning experiences also happen more randomly. For example, a learner approaches
an educator during the break or after class to clarify a question. Similarly, learners
have a conversation in the coffee break that raises new questions on the course topic,
or they help each other in better understanding certain content. Both time- and space-
hybrid education make such random encounters hard. Educators can at least com-
pensate for such random encounters through creating fixed touchpoints. From our
experience, using smaller groups, such as breakouts in video calls, tremendously
helps to spur conversations. In space-hybrid settings, educators can create a setting
with coffee table, where each table has a computer including some remote learners.
In time-hybrid settings, creating such encounters is challenging. Without having
tried out such formats on our own, we can only think of a world café-style, where
students add thoughts to certain topics on a virtual whiteboard and others can “join”
this discussion afterward or directly get in touch with other people whom they would
like to talk to.
3.2.3 Different Life Conditions
Lastly, we want to point out that the need for flexibility and structure is quite
different for learners who are in different life phases. Whereas high-school or
university students might prefer to work late at night or not have lectures early in
the morning, adult learners with a part-time job and a family have to schedule their
week precisely in advance. They prefer flexibility to follow other obligations (such
as work or family obligations), unlike students who associate flexibility with spon-
taneity and doing things at the spur of the moment. Planning their curricula and
course formats for hybrid education, educators are well-advised to critically think
about what their learners need, so as not provide flexibility where it does not make
sense or is unnecessary.
4 Conclusion
This chapter introduced time and location, each with three variations, as central
dimensions to better understand the variety of existing hybrid education formats. In
detail, we describe the flexibility of education formats across time and location with
nine different settings. This structured approach offers a systematic way to evaluate
and compare existing education formats and thereby contributes to the fast growing
discourse around hybrid (and hyflex) education.
In addition, we describe two major challenges that arise from these various
possibilities, specifically in hybrid education formats. By describing these chal-
lenges and the possible opportunities they bear, we hopefully enable educators and
learners to (a) be aware of them and (b) to find ways to overcome these challenges.
To support readers in this endeavor, we have presented examples we found in
practice and describe certain methods and approaches that can give a first kick-
start into successfully experience and design hybrid education formats, including
asynchronous dimensions of time and location.
While the limitations imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic might be reduced
within the next months, we hope that the forced experiences of more hybrid
education will lead to the emergence of new hybrid education experiences. Techno-
logical developments, such as augmented or virtual reality and the metaverse, will
further accelerate such developments. As we emphasized in this chapter, the over-
arching goal should be the creation of optimal learning experiences, so that hybrid
education is not technology-focused, but learner-centered.
Acknowledgments The authors want to thank Dr. Sharon Nemeth for her copyediting support. A
more scientific analysis of the challenges and opportunities of hybrid learning that served as an
inspiration for this book chapter is described in the following conference paper: Mayer S. (2023)
Understanding the Challenges and Opportunities of Hybrid Education with Location Asynchrony.
Proc 56th Hawaii Int Conf Syst Sci.
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iheduc.2011.11.007
Design Thinking Transfer Gap: Differences
Between Knowledge and Application
of Design Thinking in the Organizational
Environment
Lena Mayer, Selina Mayer, Katharina Hölzle, Nikolaus Bönke,

Abstract Design thinking has become a popular innovation approach in organiza-

tions globally. The request for design thinking (DT) training has increased in the past
10 years. However, the question remains if and how employees transfer their DT
knowledge into their organization. In this study, we assess employees’ DT knowl-
edge and DT application in an international company. We assume a gap between
what employees know and apply, what we call the design thinking transfer gap.
Furthermore, we assess employees’ perception of their own DT practice vs. the
company’s DT practice. We find that on average, employees rate their knowledge of
DT significantly higher than the extent of the application of DT in their work.
Employees also perceive their individual practice of DT as higher than the
company’s practice, indicating a potential mismatch between the organizational
climate for innovation and employees’ capabilities. Our results call for further
examination of the design thinking transfer gap. We discuss future research avenues
and point out practical implications.
1 Introduction
Whenever I’m faced with a tough business challenge, rather than trying to use some
prescribed CEO logic, I tackle it as a design problem. That’s not an inborn ability, it’s a
skill—OK, a mastery—learned over many years of doing.
L. Mayer · S. Mayer (✉) · C. Meinel

e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]; offi[email protected]
K. Hölzle
IAT Universität Stuttgart und Fraunhofer IAO, IAT Universität Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Germany
N. Bönke
Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany
360 L. Mayer et al.
—Tim Brown, August 27, 2015, in the Harvard Business Review, When Everyone Is
Doing Design Thinking, Is It Still a Competitive Advantage?
Design thinking has moved from its early conceptualization of capturing and
understanding designers’ cognition and work to a managerial approach for problem-
solving in all fields of an organization (Brown, 2015; Martin, 2009; Badke-Schaub,
2010). Practitioners and scholars claim that design thinking (DT) is suitable when
dealing with complex, uncertain environments, when solutions to a problem are
unknown (see Rittel & Weber, 1973; Kröper et al., 2010; Johansson-Sköldberg et al.,
2013). Especially well-established and large companies strive to integrate dynamic
work modes to stay flexible and adapt quickly to fast changes in order to come up
with new, innovative solutions (e.g., SAP, P&G, IBM). Design thinking has been
one of the preferred instruments and processes in this respect over the last years
(Schmiedgen et al., 2015). Its user-centered approach helps teams to focus on the
needs and hidden motivations of users and to come up with user-centered solutions.
Furthermore, its iterative and fast-paced approach focusing on trial-and-error and
rapid prototyping enables companies to increase the pace of the innovation process
and become overall more nimble and flexible. In the past 10 years, requests for DT
and DT training in the business have substantially increased (Dorst, 2011; Seidel &
Fixson, 2013). Companies are sending their staff to 1-day and multiday training to
learn the DT process, the instruments, and the mindset (Royalty & Roth, 2016). The
aims are manifold—better products, more creative employees, new revenue streams
or business models, a better overall performance, or a more attractive and innovative
company culture (Martin, 2009; Carlgren et al., 2016; Dell’Era et al., 2020; Nagaraj
et al., 2020; Nakata & Hwang, 2020). Besides the mentioned positive aspirations,
there are still many open questions when it comes to the actual implementation and
application of DT in organizations apart from these trainings. Although many
physical, digital, and hybrid learning formats exist, there is little research on the
successful transfer of DT training in organizations (Schmiedgen et al., 2015). An
open question is what happens to employees when they return to their organizational
routine after a DT training.
Looking at the training industry in general, companies invest up to $54 billion
(in the USA in 2000) or 33.5€ million (in Germany in 2013) for employee training
on an annual basis (Arthur Jr. et al., 2003; Seyda & Werner, 2014). Yet only ~10%
of the skills, knowledge, and abilities taught in further education programs are
actually transferred to the workplace the way organizations intended (Holton III
et al., 2000). Therefore, in order to gain the assumed benefits from DT, organizations
need to understand if and how this transfer gap is also happening for DT training.
In addition, research has asked for a better understanding of which training and
practices are needed to become a “design thinker” (Micheli et al., 2019; Razzouk &
Shute, 2012). Investigations on how to assess the acquisition and effectiveness of DT
skills are called for by Micheli et al. (2019). Researchers further suggest the
investigation of contextual factors, e.g., organizational climate and culture, to better
understand aspects that support and impede DT deployment in organizational
environments (Beverland et al., 2016). This is in line with literature on Education
Design Thinking Transfer Gap: Differences Between Knowledge. . . 361
and Training Evaluation Research, which outlines an infinite list of factors that can
affect or predict successful training transfer (e.g., Burke & Hutchins, 2007; Holton
III et al., 2000).
Overall, investigating the knowledge transfer gap for DT promises to bridge the
educational and organizational DT literature. Organizations want to know how their
practice of DT relates to what academic literature states and practitioners advise
(Royalty et al., 2019). Not knowing if training leads to the envisioned application in
the organization, organizations might reduce or stop their training investments (Salas
et al., 2012). Organizations might even conclude that DT itself does not create the
expected organizational outcomes, blurring the effectiveness of DT as an innovation
approach with the success of training initiatives. More needs to be known about the
actual transfer of knowledge into application after DT training.
Therefore, this study investigates to what extent employees know about DT (DT
knowledge) and to what extent they actually apply DT (DT application) in their
organizational work. We assume a gap between employees’ DT knowledge and DT
application. As this is the first study to explore this DT transfer gap, we have chosen
an explorative research design to investigate to what extent DT knowledge and DT
application are due to individual factors, and we additionally assess three types of
employee expertise (Tenure, DT Expertise, Innovation Expertise).
Finally, we compare how employees perceive their own DT practice (Employee
DT Practice) vs. the company’s DT practice (Company DT Practice).
1.1 Theoretical Background and Research Questions
In order to investigate the DT transfer gap, we refer to DT literature as well as

educational research. First, we cover literature on DT in organizations and education,
with a focus on how DT is applied in the organizational context. We then move on to
the broader educational research and embed this study in the scientific frame of
training evaluation and knowledge transfer. We conclude with the derivation of all
research questions.
1.1.1 Organizational DT and DT Education
DT process visualizations by institutions and agencies are numerous. For example,

the Stanford d.school illustrates five hexagons, the Hasso Plattner Institute School of
Design Thinking in Potsdam teaches the DT approach in six bubbles, and IDEO.org
represents three DT phases (e.g., see d.school bootcamp bootleg, 2011; HPI School
of Design Thinking, 2020; IDEO.org, 2015). Recently, practitioners have
established a number of DT resources for application (Mayer et al., 2020; Osann
et al., 2020; Lewrick et al., 2018), yet researchers still discuss the conceptualization
of DT. Systematic literature reviews and case studies suggest frameworks to classify
DT and attempt to come up with a mutual understanding and definition of the
362 L. Mayer et al.
phenomenon (Johansson-Sköldberg et al., 2013; Carlgren et al., 2016; Liedtka,

2017; Elsbach & Stigliani, 2018; Micheli et al., 2019; Dell’Era et al., 2020;
Magistretti et al., 2021). Organizations have different manifestations of DT and
ways to use it, with no unified version (Hoolohan & Browne, 2020). Schmiedgen
et al. (2015) conducted a multi-method study to explore the effects that employees
report in establishing the DT approach in their organization. Specifically, the out-
comes of DT practice are taken into consideration. Other studies focus on the
elements or challenges of DT application in organizations (Rauth et al., 2014).
Based on qualitative company interviews, Carlgren et al. (2016) introduce a frame-
work capturing a mutual understanding of DT elements across a multi-organizational
sample.
To date, qualitative investigations are numerous, yet quantitative investigations
remain few in number—despite being called for multiple times (e.g., Elsbach &
Stigliani, 2008). Quantitative studies to date focus on the impact and outcomes of
DT (Jaskyte & Liedtka, 2022) and often contain student samples (Seidel & Fixson,
2013; Roth et al., 2020) or resemble practitioner reports by McKinsey and IBM
(Sheppard et al., 2018; Forrester Research Inc., 2018). For example, first quantitative
insights can be drawn from an IBM internal study, stating, for example, a ROI up to
301% and two times faster time-to-market for projects run with the DT approach
(Forrester Research Inc., 2018).
Specifically looking into the impact of DT training, Kurtmollaiev et al. (2018)
investigated the effect of DT training in a quasi-experimental field study. The result
showed a positive effect on teams’ dynamic capabilities and innovation outcomes
(Kurtmollaiev et al., 2018). The following paragraph gives a more detailed overview
of DT Education Research.
After years of training and learning about DT outside the designers’ realm, in
educational institutions such as the Stanford d.school (Palo Alto, USA), the HPI
School of Design Thinking (Potsdam, Germany), OpenLab (Stockholm, Sweden),
CUC Communication University of China (Bejing, China), and many other design
thinking schools or affiliated training centers, the research literature on DT education
continues to increase (e.g., Cross, 1982; Dunne & Martin, 2006; Lindberg et al.,
2010; Dampérat et al., 2019; Taheri, 2022).
The takeoff of DT in student-target educational systems was noticed by a
business world facing complex and ambiguous problems. This led to an increased
interest from companies looking for external DT training as well as in establishing
internal DT capabilities for employees beyond their core design team (Dorst, 2011).
Companies have adopted DT programs to train their managers to develop dynamic
capabilities (Kurtmollaiev et al., 2018) or to prepare them for dealing with uncer-
tainty (Schumacher & Mayer, 2018). Roth et al. (2020) conducted an empirical study
on innovation projects run with a DT approach in a student-company setup. The
authors found that DT practices increase project performance, mediated by psycho-
logical empowerment, indicating that DT education in organizational settings might
have similar benefits.
Consequently, the question arises as to how the gathered DT knowledge is
transferred into practice. For organizations, this is a central question, as “transfer is
critical because without it, an organization is less likely to receive any tangible
benefits from its training investments” (Salas et al., 2012, p. 77f).
1.1.2 Education and Training Evaluation Research
In the educational literature, researchers define education as “the acquisition of the

art of utilization of knowledge” (Whitehead, 1968, as cited in Everwijn et al., 1993,
p. 425). From this definition, it could be derived that the goal of education is not to
acquire knowledge and be familiar with the topic at hand but to make the knowledge
accessible in the application context. In connection with organizations, this implies
that organizational learning is effective when employees apply their knowledge in
their daily work. The training literature refers to transfer as “the extent to which
learning during training is subsequently applied on the job or affects later job
performance” (Salas et al., 2012, p. 77). Having employees apply their capabilities
in the organizational context can help organizations advance and gives employees
the opportunity to show their skills and secure their place in the company as valuable
human capital.
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Kirkpatrick developed a model which describes
training evaluation criteria in four steps: reaction, learning, behavioral, and results
(Kirkpatrick, 1959a, 1959b, 1960). The popularity of the model has endured since
then, and it has been used numerous times (e.g., Alliger & Janak, 1989; Bates, 2004;
Kraiger & Ford, 2007). The reaction criteria refer to a trainee’s satisfaction and
enjoyment. The learning criteria refer to how much a trainee has learned in terms of
the gained knowledge. The behavioral criteria describe measures to assess the actual
application in the trainee’s context. And the results criteria refer to how well a
training is reflected concerning an impact on organizational outcomes. Following
Kirkpatrick’s four training evaluation levels, we can position the DT transfer gap
between the learning and behavioral criteria, as we refer to a gap between DT
knowledge and DT application. This is in line with previous literature, stating that
“the distinction between learning (level two) and behavior (level three) has drawn
increased attention to the importance of the learning transfer process in making
training truly effective” (Alliger & Janak, 1989, p. 342). Understanding the bridge
from knowledge to application is therefore a crucial factor in investigating training
effectiveness.
In addition to understanding evaluation processes of training, researchers have
investigated numerous factors that predict training success (e.g., Burke & Hutchins,
2007; Holton III et al., 2000). Commonly named factors are, for example, cognitive
ability, opportunity to perform skills on the job, and supervisor support (see meta-
analysis by Colquitt et al., 2000).
In the following section, we derive and propose this study’s research questions
building on the outlined theory from the educational and training literature and
quests from DT researchers to investigate DT application in the organizational
context.
364 L. Mayer et al.
1.2 DT Knowledge Vs. DT Application
In this study, we introduce the constructs DT knowledge and DT application with DT

elements adapted from Carlgren et al. (2016) and Royalty and Roth (2016).
Employees’ rating of how familiar they are with all eight DT elements comprises
the construct DT knowledge. Employees’ rating of the extent to which they use all
eight DT elements depicts the construct DT application. In line with the previously
described training evaluation model by Kirkpatrick, one critical element is a gap
between what people know and what they apply after a training. We therefore
assume that employees have more knowledge about DT elements than what they
apply in their work.
The ensuing research question reads as follows: RQ1a: Do employees know
(DT knowledge) more about DT elements than what they apply in their company
(DT Application)?
The aim of Carlgren et al.’s (2016) study is to introduce a framework of DT for
theoretical and practical research avenues. Thirty-six employees across six organi-
zations took part in their interview study. Mapping the commonalities and discrep-
ancies across all interviews, Carlgren and colleagues introduce mutual
characteristics of design thinking. The framework consists of five themes: user
focus, problem framing, visualization, experimentation, and diversity. For each
theme, they name a set of DT principles, practices, and techniques. With user
focus, the authors refer to “empathy building, deep user understanding and user
involvement” (p. 46). Problem framing explains the process of looking beyond the
problem scope, challenging the problem at hand, and reframing an initial problem.
Visualization describes visual representations of ideas, like mock-ups. Experimen-
tation entails “testing and trying things out in an iterative way” (p. 47). Carlgren
et al. also include divergent and convergent thinking as part of the experimentation
theme. Diversity refers to the team mode of collaborating in multidisciplinary teams
for a broader perspective on the topic.
Royalty and Roth (2016) report on design thinking metrics for the organizational
context. The authors divide them into measures for empathy, reframing, iteration,
and team collaboration.
Based on and adapted from Carlgren et al.’s (2016) five DT themes, and Royalty
and Roth’s (2016) measure categories, we assess eight DT elements in this study:
user focus, problem framing/reframing problems, field research, experimentation,
visualization or prototyping, divergent thinking, convergent thinking, and diverse
team collaboration.
1.3 The Expertise Factors
Additionally, we want to know if employees’ expertise influences DT application,

on a global and on an item level for single DT elements. Therefore, we assess three
types of expertise: DT expertise, innovation expertise, and tenure. Tenure describes

the number of years employees have already worked in the company, DT expertise
refers to the years of employees’ DT expertise, and innovation expertise captures
how many years subjects have been working on innovation topics.
Razzouk and Shute (2012) introduce the factor expertise in their review on DT
characteristics, processes, and differences between novice and expert design
thinkers. The authors highlight that accumulated experience is instrumental in
moving from a novice to an expert level. Cross (2004, p. 428) defines expertise as
“the result of a dedicated application to a chosen field.”
In reference to the training literature, Baldwin and Ford (1988) explain that
learning and transfer is characterized by trainee characteristics (individual), work
environment (organizational), and training characteristics (also see Grossman &
Salas, 2011). High correlations between expertise and DT application might be
explained by characteristics such as motivation (e.g., meta-analysis by Blume
et al., 2010), learning confidence (longitudinal study by Warr et al., 1999), and
self-efficacy (e.g., Colquitt et al., 2000; Burke & Hutchins, 2007).
Considerations from DT scholars and training literature lead us to examine
expertise as a possible explanatory factor. Conclusively, we pose the following
question: RQ1b: What is the impact of expertise (DT expertise, innovation expertise,
and tenure) on DT knowledge and DT application?
1.4 DT Practice as a Method, Process, and Mindset
As mentioned above, there are numerous studies investigating DT (Beckman &

Barry, 2007; Carlgren et al., 2016; Liedtka, 2017; Micheli et al., 2019; Roth et al.,
2020). Yet, they do not necessarily create an easier understanding of DT. Instead,
they offer a high variation of what DT actually is—meaning it often ends up being a
fuzzy concept. Studies differ from showing 10 underlying attributes and 8 essential
tools and methods (Micheli et al., 2019), over 5 themes with 17 underlying princi-
ples/mindsets (Carlgren et al., 2016) to identifying 19 mindset elements (Dosi et al.,
2018). Researchers have therefore started to analyze commonalities between these
conceptualizations. Carlgren et al. (2016, p.40) postulate that all DT descriptions
include certain process stages, a set of tools, and a way of thinking (mindset).
Brenner et al. (2016) differentiate between mindset, process, and toolbox to define
DT in their book chapter. For this study, we focus on DT as a concept composed of
three categories: method, process, and mindset. Schmiedgen et al. (2015) propose a
similar categorization for the spectrum on which practitioners perceived DT in their
mixed-methods study. They introduce four categories along a continuum: from tool
(box), method/process/protocol, and methodology to mindset.
Based on these conceptualizations of DT, we adapt Schmiedgen et al.’s (2015)
terminology and distinguish between practicing DT as a method, process, and
mindset. Our definitions are as follows:
366 L. Mayer et al.
(a) Method: DT as a toolbox of independent creativity methods (e.g., use of warm-

ups, tools like semantic analysis, POV).
(b) Process: entertaining and fostering team innovation projects working along the
DT process, e.g., divergent-convergent phases with extensive problem space
exploration with interviews, etc.
(c) Mindset: Work along the DT principles of experimentation/rapid prototyping,
testing, and user focus/empathy, and encourage, facilitate, and develop
teamwork.
The research question resulting from this is as follows: RQ2: How do employees’
perceptions of their own vs. company DT practice vary, for (a) method, (b) process,
or (c) mindset (employee DT practice vs. company DT practice)?
2 Empirical Method
2.1 Sample and Procedure
Our study was conducted at the German headquarters of a global chemical company.
All study participants represent a group of employees who are highly interested in
innovation topics and are on an interest group list for DT topics.
For this study, we invited participants via email to a workshop titled “Learn How
to Kickstart Your Design Thinking Workshops.” At the beginning, we had an
internal interest list of employees who were keen to be informed about DT activities
in the organization. We sent workshop invitation emails to this employee list. From
those, several forwarded the email to more colleagues, creating a snowball and self-
selection effect. At the end, we had a sample of around 40 interested participants. We
decided to run the workshop on 2 separate dates to limit the group to max.
22 participants, due to the capacity of the workshop room.
The company contact suggested setting up and collecting data in a physical
workshop setting to create a win-win situation for employees and to ensure survey
responses.
Data collection took place at the end of each workshop. Additional data was
gathered from employees who communicated their interest in the workshop but
could not attend due to a scheduling conflict, illness, or other reasons. Several of
these employees had asked us to run the workshop a third time or expressed a desire
to participate in any future workshop activities. Hence, we also asked them to
participate in the survey.
The workshop consisted of 3 h of training that included a presentation of recent
DT research findings, a hands-on DT team activity, and recommendations for free
DT resources and tools. At the end of the workshop, employees filled in the paper-
pencil survey individually and submitted it to us.
In total, we received 55 completed surveys. For data analysis, four people were
excluded from the dataset, as they were interns and/or graduate students, who only
had limited access to and knowledge of the company. Thus, the study sample
consists of N = 51 employees, nF = 19 female and nM = 32 male. N = 36 survey
respondents had attended the workshop. The remaining respondents (n = 15) com-
municated their interest in the format and upcoming similar events.
2.2 Measures
The survey consisted of (a) demographic and organizational data, (b) questions
assessing employees’ DT knowledge and DT application, and (c) questions com-
paring employees’ perception of their own vs. the company’s practice of DT as a
(A) method, (B) process, or (C) mindset. All questions and definitions were
discussed and finalized by four DT experts (with over 5 years of experience in DT
research and practice). All questions were answered via self-report.
2.2.1 Demographic and Organizational Data
We collected the following demographic and organizational data: gender and type of
employment. We asked about type of employment in a forced choice format:
permanent position, fixed-term contract, or other (providing space to comment).
Type of employment served to eliminate subjects on fixed-term contracts. For
analysis, we only included employees with permanent positions.
We also assessed employees’ tenure (how many years had they already worked in
the company), DT expertise (how many years their DT expertise spanned), and
innovation expertise (how many years they have been working on innovation
topics). These questions served to give an overview of the employees’ experience
level and how closely they are related to the DT and innovation field.
2.2.2 DT Knowledge and DT Application
The focus of this study was on the question-sets to assess employees’ DT knowledge
and DT application. The questions are based on the suggested categories by Carlgren
et al. (2016) and Royalty and Roth (2016): user focus, problem framing/reframing
problems, field research, experimentation, visualization or prototyping, divergent
thinking, convergent thinking, and diverse team collaboration. Both constructs are
measured with an eight item scale. Example items are “To what extent are you
familiar with the following DT elements?” (DT knowledge) and “To what extent do
you use the following DT elements [your company]?” (DT application). Internal
consistency was excellent for DT knowledge (α = 0.92) and good for DT application
(α = 0.89).
Answers were provided on a seven-point Likert scale (1: very poor or very rarely;
7: very good or all the time). We added 0: not at all as a response option for those
368 L. Mayer et al.
new to the topic or in case employees were only familiar or used certain elements and
others were not known or applied.
2.2.3 Employee vs. Company DT Practice as Methods, Process,

and Mindset
Subjects rated the extent to which they practiced DT as a (a) method, (b) process, and
(c) mindset and how they thought the company practiced them. The intention was to
analyze perceived self-rating versus perceived company rating. The DT categoriza-
tions method, process, and mindset were based on previous research by Schmiedgen
et al. (2015), Carlgren et al. (2016), and Brenner et al. (2016). Internal consistencies
were acceptable for the perceived employee and the perceived company items of
these two three-item scales (employee: α = 0.76; company: α = 0.73).
2.3 Preliminary Analysis
We used independent t-tests to compare the mean values of the participants who
finished the DT workshop with those who participated in the survey without having
attended the workshop. No significant differences between the groups could be
detected. This was true for all variables included in the analysis ( ps > 0.16).
Nonetheless, there was a general trend that workshop participants had lower values
in every DT related construct (see correlations in Table 1).
Effect sizes were calculated with the Cohen’s d statistic (Cohen, 1988). All
significance testing was performed at the 0.05 level. We conducted statistical
analyses in the statistical software R (version 4.0.3).
3 Results
3.1 Descriptive Statistics
On average, employees worked in the company for approximately 13 years, ranging

from 1 month to 35 years. The sample’s DT expertise is close to 2 years, ranging
from none to 10 years of DT experience. However, subjects have worked in the
innovation field for approximately 7 years on average, ranging from 0 to 24 years.
Descriptive statistics and intercorrelations of all variables are displayed in Table 1.
RQ1a: DT Knowledge-Application Link
We conducted a paired t-test to compare the mean item scores of DT knowledge and
DT application. The mean of all eight items differed significantly depending on
whether participants were asked about DT knowledge or DT application
Table 1 Means, standard deviations, and intercorrelations among variables in the present study
Variable Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
1. Tenure 12.89 8.46
2. DT expertise 1.98 2.19 0.24
3. Innovation expertise 6.47 6.39 0.33* 0.53**
4. DT knowledge 4.16 1.66 0.00 0.45** 0.35* -0.13 -0.18
5. DT application 3.67 1.64 -0.02 0.31* 0.25 -0.16 -0.22 0.84**
6. DT employee 4.18 1.74 -0.04 0.34* 0.34* -0.03 -0.15 0.70** 0.70**
7. DT company 2.58 1.05 0.17 0.07 0.08 0.02 -0.07 0.35* 0.41** 0.33*
Note: N = 51. DT = design thinking. *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01, two-tailed tests
Design Thinking Transfer Gap: Differences Between Knowledge. . .
369
370 L. Mayer et al.
Fig. 1 Mean of employees’ knowledge vs. application of all DT elements. Note: N = 51. Error bars
represent standard errors
(t(50) = 3.71, p < 0.001, d = 0.52). This means that on average, participants rated
their DT knowledge significantly higher than their DT application, DT knowledge:
M = 4.16, SD = 1.66; DT application: M = 3.67, SD = 1.64 (see Fig. 1).
Results further show that the employees’ knowledge of single DT elements is
higher than their actual application of these aspects in the workplace (see Fig. 2).
RQ1b: Impact of Expertise on DT Knowledge and DT Application
The difference between DT knowledge and DT application is also present within the
correlation of each construct with employees’ DT expertise. Simple linear regression
analysis reveals a significant correlation between DT knowledge and DT expertise
(t(47) = 3.46, p < 0.01). All eight DT knowledge items significantly depend on DT
expertise (see Table 4 in Appendix).
Table 2 shows that only single elements of DT application are significantly
related to years of DT expertise, in particular field research, experimentation, and
diverse team collaboration. This suffices for a significant correlation between mean
item scores of DT application and DT expertise overall (t(47) = 2.26, p < 0.05).
Fig. 2 DT knowledge vs. DT application of single DT elements across all employees. Note:
N = 51. Error bars represent standard errors. For a clearer overview, some DT elements as
outlined in the Introduction are shortened in the visualization as follows: collaboration = diverse
team collaboration, convergence = convergent thinking, divergence = divergent thinking, fram-
ing = problem framing/reframing problems, prototyping = visualization or prototyping
Table 2 Results of the simple linear regression analysis to predict the score of DT application
items based on years of DT expertise (N = 49)
Variable Intercept a Slope b SE b t p
User focus 4.60 -0.01 0.14 -0.04 0.97
Framing 3.98 0.02 0.15 0.15 0.88
Field research 1.97 0.41 0.12 3.32 0.002 **
Experimentation 2.10 0.47 0.12 3.84 <0.001 ***
Prototyping 3.44 0.18 0.14 1.27 0.21
Divergence 2.71 0.21 0.14 1.46 0.15
Convergence 2.94 0.23 0.14 1.66 0.10
Collaboration 3.50 0.30 0.14 2.08 0.043 *
Note: *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001
Next, we conducted a hierarchical regression analysis 1 examining the relation

between DT knowledge and DT application. We controlled for the experience-
related covariates tenure, DT expertise, and innovation expertise, as well as for the
control variables workshop participation and gender. DT knowledge was entered at
the first step of the regression equation. At step 2, we added the remaining predictors
1
Before performing the regression analyses, we ascertained that there was no multicollinearity
between the independent variables.
372 L. Mayer et al.
Table 3 Hierarchical regression predicting the DT application

Step Variable B SE B β R2 ΔR2
1 0.68
Constant 0.22 0.38
DT knowledge 0.82 0.08 0.83**
2 0.70 0.02
Constant 0.48 0.53
DT knowledge 0.87 0.10 0.87**
Tenure -0.01 0.02 -0.04
DT expertise -0.08 0.08 -0.11
Innovation expertise -0.00 0.03 -0.01
Workshop participation -0.22 0.40 -0.07
Gender (female) -0.10 0.32 -0.03
Note: N = 47. DT = design thinking. **p < 0.01
to the regression eq. DT knowledge was the only predictor with a significant
influence on the dependent variable (β = 0.87, p < 0.001). As indicated in
Table 3, overall the model accounted for 70% of the variance in DT application (F
(6, 40) = 15.4, p < 0.001). In step 1, DT knowledge explained 68% of the variance
in our dependent variable (F(1, 45) = 96.42, p < 0.001). As a model comparison
using an ANOVA revealed (F(5, 40) = 0.43, p = 0.83), adding the control variables
to the model (step 2) did not lead to a significant improvement of the model.
RQ2: Employee vs. Company DT Practice as a Method, Process, and Mindset
We conducted a paired t-test to compare the mean scores of employee DT practice
and company DT practice. Item scores for the three items (a) method, (b) process,
and (c) mindset differed significantly (t(49) = 6.66, p < 0.001, d = 0.94) when
asking participants about their perceived DT practice vs. perceived company DT
practice. On average, subjects scored significantly higher on all items referring to
their own DT practice (M = 4.18, SD = 1.74) in comparison with all items referring
to their company’s DT practice (M = 2.58, SD = 1.05). The mean difference is
depicted in Fig. 3.
Additionally, we conducted paired t-tests to compare item scores for each DT
practice item. There was a significant difference for practicing DT as a method
between company (M = 2.82, SD = 1.41) and employee (M = 4.04, SD = 1.98);
t(49) = 3.98, p < 0.001, d = 0.56. Equally, we found a significant effect for
practicing DT as a mindset (t(49) = 6.70, p < 0.001, d = 0.95), with higher scores
for employee (M = 4.34, SD = 2.18) than for company (M = 2.33, SD = 1.18).
Likewise, the paired t-test to compare practicing DT as a process revealed a
significant effect (t(48) = 5.67, p < 0.001, d = 0.81), also with a tendency toward
higher values for employee practice (M = 4.10, SD = 2.15) than for company
practice (M = 2.57, SD = 1.30).
Fig. 3 Average perception of all employees on their own vs. the company’s DT practice. Note:
N = 51. Error bars represent standard errors
4 Discussion
Our results show that the transfer gap exists for DT in an organizational setting. On
average, employees rate their own DT knowledge significantly higher than their DT
application. This means that the employee sample, representative of the interest
group for DT in the organization, knows more about DT and its multifaceted
elements than applying DT and single elements in their work organization.
This is in line with Kirkpatrick’s research (1959a + b; 1960) that there exists a gap
between the learning (gained knowledge) and behavior stage (application in the
context). However, this poses the question why the employees do not use their
knowledge to its full extent. This is especially important as we focus on the interest
group around DT and innovation topics in the company, who could be seen as the
frontrunners and pioneers for new innovation approaches to project work in the
organization.
Training research outlines three types of factors that could explain unused
employee capabilities after training initiatives, individual, organizational, and train-
ing characteristics (Baldwin & Ford, 1988; Alvarez et al., 2004; Grossman & Salas,
2011). Adhering to Baldwin and Ford’s (1988) “Model of the Transfer Process,”
revisited by Grossman and Salas (2011), training characteristics precede learning,
while individual and organizational characteristics affect the knowledge transfer
after training initiatives. Hence, it can be concluded that future research should
374 L. Mayer et al.
focus on individual (employee) characteristics and organizational (work environ-

ment) characteristics. Recent qualitative studies might serve as a starting point for
organizational level considerations. Kwon et al. (2021) outline the differences
between the theoretical DT processes mapped to the DT processes the authors
observed in large organizations. Wrigley et al. (2020) derive four organizational
conditions in their case to move from a DT intervention to a DT implementation.
To take a first step in the direction of why there is a gap between employees’
knowledge and application, we investigated the impact of expertise on DT knowl-
edge and DT application in RQ1b. We found significant correlations between DT
expertise and DT knowledge as well as between DT expertise and DT application.
While all single DT knowledge items correlated significantly with DT expertise,
only the items field research, experimentation, and diverse team collaboration
yielded significant correlations with DT application. The significant correlation
between years of DT expertise and DT knowledge for all DT elements would
seem expected, considering the exposure to DT topics. As we only found significant
correlations between DT expertise and some DT application elements, we might
conclude that simply more years of DT expertise do not directly imply more
application of the acquired knowledge. Considering this finding, we refer back to
Razzouk and Shute (2012) who state that experience can transform novices design
thinkers into expert design thinkers. We propose that this might be true for the
knowledge level, yet to explain DT application, more prevalent individual (e.g.,
creative confidence, motivation) or organizational factors (e.g., transfer climate,
support, level of autonomy) might be leading to DT in action (Warr et al., 1999;
Blume et al., 2010; Bell et al., 2017; Kelley & Kelley, 2013).
Results for RQ2 point in the direction that the appropriate context is missing to
apply DT. Subjects perceive their overall DT practice significantly higher than the
company’s DT practice. Effect sizes between perceived employee and company DT
practice for the three dimensions were large for mindset and process. We found
medium effect sizes for the method difference. The significant results between how
employees perceive their own DT practice and the company’s practice on an overall
level and per item point toward a mismatch between what employees are capable of
and the supporting organizational environment. Consequently, this result asks for the
company to create application areas (and freedom) to apply DT knowledge. This
implication receives support by meta-analytic data from the training literature
(Arthur Jr. et al., 2003; Grossman & Salas, 2011). Arthur Jr. et al. (2003) and
Kraiger and Ford (2007) highlight that the opportunity to practice or perform is
crucial for employees to expose on-the-job behavior change (for empirical findings,
also see Ford et al., 1992) and thereby allow for training transfer of effectively
acquired training content. Next to opportunities, scholars name several constraints.
One hindrance factor that significantly inhibits transfer is the lack of time to make use
of new skills in the company (Cromwell & Kolb, 2004; Gilpin-Jackson & Bushe,
2007). Prior research has shown that the DT approach, particularly in the exploration
phase, needs unrestricted time, as captured in Rhinow’s (2017) dilemmas.
Taken together with the DT transfer gap findings, we presume that the organiza-
tional climate for innovation can impede applying DT. The large discrepancy
between mindset ratings followed by process underlines this point of cultural

readiness for DT in the organization. We could infer that the company’s practice
level of DT is situated on a level of what Royalty and Roth (2016, p.41) describe as
“applying tools” or having an innovation process in place. Royalty and Roth (2016)
postulate that DT is only then valuable when it creates behavior change, not in mere
tool application. Or following Schmiedgen et al.’s (2015) terminology, the company
and employees could be viewed as practicing DT on a mechanistic, technocratic
level. If companies wish their staff to work (iterative processes) and be (mindset)
more agile, it is important to enable employees and foster an organizational climate
that allows for innovation and failure.
4.1 Limitations and Future Research
Our research presents a first attempt to understand the DT application gap. We have
focused on employees who have been in contact with DT in a single company and
have shown an interest in the topic. While the data is self-reported and the sample
self-selected, the results give a first indication why organizations have been strug-
gling with showing in-depth impact of DT training to date (Forrester Research Inc.,
2018). Furthermore, based on a limited sample size, our results can only be counted
as exploratory but give way to further research in this area. We could show that
combining the different operationalizations of, e.g., Carlgren et al. (2016) and
Royalty and Roth (2016) give a good indication of individual and organizational
perspective as well as reflecting the different building blocks of design thinking
knowledge and application.
Our measures only allow us to discuss the constructs DT knowledge and DT
application as individually perceived constructs. These measures can’t provide an
objective assessment of employees’ DT activities and knowledge in the organiza-
tion. To assess and track employees’ real activities, we would need more objective
measures, like in situ observations during their project work, peer reported data, or
diary studies. For example, Seidel and Fixson (2013) observed and assessed DT
activities in multidisciplinary teams with live and reflective measures over a period
of 14 and 20 weeks. However, their sample consisted of student teams. Organiza-
tional data would be helpful in order to visualize what employees say they do
(perceived DT application) and what they actually do (objective DT application).
In summary, we suggest that future research could build on the key factors for
training transfer and innovation research to gain insight into individual (trainee
characteristics) and organizational (work environment) factors. This can help to
better elucidate the design thinking transfer gap.
376 L. Mayer et al.
4.2 Theoretical Implications
The study builds on previous qualitative research in the organizational DT literature

(Carlgren et al., 2016; Royalty & Roth, 2016; Schmiedgen et al., 2015). Our results
contribute to quantify DT elements and practices on an individual level. Most
previous studies examined DT application on the organizational level (Wrigley
et al., 2020) or for management (Rauth et al., 2014).
4.3 Practical Implications
Overall, our survey serves as a potential tool for companies to assess their DT
readiness and to define their strategic orientation to adopt and implement the DT
approach. Questions can help to spot alignment and mismatches between knowledge
and application as well as how employees perceive their own DT practice vs. the
company’s DT practice and act accordingly.
In addition, organizations can leverage the resources invested in training by
supporting them with the appropriate contextual factors, such as innovation climate
or the organizational support to apply their learned knowledge (Yuan & Woodman,
2010; Bos-Nehles & Veenendaal, 2019).
5 Conclusion
We conclude that results confirm our assumption about the DT transfer Gap. The DT
transfer gap describes the discrepancy between what employees know and apply in
regards to DT in an organization. This study can serve as a foundation to unfold
transfer barriers and bridge the DT transfer gap within organizations.
Future research should establish and validate contextual factors to explain the DT
transfer gap. On a practical note, management is tasked to provide the conditions
under which employees can exhibit their DT knowledge. More precisely, results
imply that it is not about providing further or more training opportunities but about
translating an employee’s knowledge into action.
Acknowledgments We thank the HPI-Stanford Design Thinking Program and our company
partner for enabling this study. Many thanks to Dr. Sharon Nemeth for copyediting and language
support.
Appendix
Table 4 Results of the simple linear regression analysis to predict the score of DT knowledge items
based on years of DT expertise (N = 49)
Variable Intercept a Slope b SE b t p
User focus 4.31 0.34 0.12 2.83 0.007 **
Framing 3.72 0.40 0.11 3.54 <0.001 ***
Field research 2.41 0.46 0.12 3.75 <0.001 ***
Experimentation 3.44 0.26 0.13 2.04 0.047 *
Prototyping 3.57 0.31 0.13 2.43 0.019 *
Divergence 3.21 0.32 0.14 2.28 0.027 *
Convergence 3.17 0.31 0.14 2.28 0.027 *
Collaboration 3.86 0.33 0.13 2.45 0.018 *
Note: *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001
To what extent are you familiar with the following DT elements?
0—not at 1—very 7–very

all poor 2 3 4 5 6 good
User focus
Problem framing/reframing
problems
Field research
Experimentation
Visualization or prototyping
Divergent thinking
Convergent thinking
Diverse team collaboration
To what extent do you use the following DT elements [company name]?
0—not at 1—very 7 – all the

all rarely 2 3 4 5 6 time
User focus
Problem framing/reframing
problems
Field research
Experimentation
Visualization + prototyping
Divergent thinking
Convergent thinking
Diverse team collaboration
378 L. Mayer et al.
For the following two questions, please refer to these definitions:

(a) Method: DT as a toolbox of independent creativity methods (e.g., use of warm-
ups, tools like semantic analysis, POV).
(b) Creative process: entertaining and fostering team innovation projects working
along the DT process, e.g., divergent-convergent phases with extensive problem
space exploration with interviews, etc.
(c) Mindset: Work along the DT principles of experimentation/rapid prototyping,
testing, and user focus/empathy, and encourage, facilitate, and develop
teamwork.
To what extent do you practice design thinking as a.
1—very rarely 2 3 4 5 6 7—all the time Not applicable

Method
Creative process
Mindset
To what extent would you say [company name] practices design thinking as a
1—very rarely 2 3 4 5 6 7—all the time Not applicable

Method
Creative process
Mindset
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A Genealogy of Designing as Performance
An interview with Dr Jonathan A. Edelman
Palo Alto, USA—Potsdam, Germany.
Jonathan A. Edelman, Joaquin Santuber, and Babajide Owoyele
Abstract In this final chapter, we provide a genealogy of the Designing as Perfor-

mance approach taking readers on the journey of how we got here. In an interview
with Jonathan A. Edelman, we reflect on our work in the Design Thinking Research
Program and specifically our Designing as Performance approach, tracing the events,
encounters, and inspirations that have shaped it. The power of our approach to
designing is that it leverages a vast array of research generated within the design
thinking community, as well as elsewhere. While in previous book chapters we have
elaborated on each one of these varied influences, the places, situations, and people
that contributed to bringing them together are often missing. Put in simple terms, this
document is the conversation that goes along with “An Introduction to Designing as
Performance” in a workshop setting. Thus, we trace the events and make the
connections that help the Designing as Performance practitioner find inspiration
and guidance when working with this approach. In this regard, the following chapter
should be read as a companion to our previous writings on Designing as Perfor-
mance because it complements them. Fellow researchers and practitioners will find
in the following pages a myriad of rich examples, stories, and references provided in
a more casual tone that places the reader inside the conversation. “A Genealogy of
Designing as Performance” aims to make our approach more accessible and closer to
the practitioner, fulfilling our long-term goal of bridging design research and
practice.
J. A. Edelman
Stanford University, California, USA
Center for Advanced Design Studies, Palo Alto, USA
J. Santuber (✉) · B. Owoyele
Center for Advanced Design Studies, Palo Alto, USA
384 J. A. Edelman et al.
1 Introduction
The goal of this chapter is to reflect on our work in closing the Research to Impact
group effort in the HPI-Stanford Design Thinking Research Program (HPDTRP) for
the past 5 years. The HPDTRP uses academic methods to study the success and
failure of design thinking (DT) innovation. Since 2008, the program has supported
over 100 research projects and published their findings in 16 annual volumes in the
Design Thinking Research series. In this chapter, we make accessible to fellow
practitioners and researchers the different streams of intellectual influences, places,
and people that have shaped our Designing as Performance (D-a-P) approach. In the
form of an interview with Dr. Jonathan A. Edelman, we recreate a genealogy
(Foucault, 1971, 2019; Hook, 2005) of Designing as Performance, by tracing the
events, encounters, and inspirations with the aim of helping the D-a-P practitioner
and researcher to answer the question: How did we get here?
In the past 5 years, we have explored the following topics under Designing as
Performance: (1) performative patterns of designing, (2) D-a-P in education, (3) dig-
ital prototyping with PretoVids, (4) Designing for Value Creation, and (5) structured
concept development with MEDGI. Each one of these contributions has materialized
in five publications:
• Accessing Highly Effective Performative Patterns (Edelman et al., 2020) was the
first-year project in which we concluded that DT is being transformed. Design
thinking is undergoing an important transformation. Previously, the content and
practices used in design thinking were based on personal experiences and stories,
but now they are being replaced by evidence-based content and practices. To
share this new information with designers and design teams, a new approach to
teaching design was needed. Our research suggested that the work of design
teams is a performance and that design sessions are a performance of a set of
behaviors that are common in design thinking. These behaviors can be trained
and learned as a set of skills called “performative patterns.” Performative patterns
provide shared frameworks and event schemas for previously unstructured con-
tent. This new approach to design education not only involves understanding
theory but also involves a hands-on practice of using the body, environment, and
artifacts to create designs. Training programs that are based on research can
provide both strong theories and effective performance patterns, which can help
teams excel at design. For example, a design team might use performative
patterns to structure their brainstorming session and come up with more creative
ideas.
• In the second year, we explored Designing as Performance for Bridging the Gap
Between Research and Practice in Design Thinking Education (Edelman et al.,
2021c). Design thinking has become popular among a wide range of industries
and professions who want to be more innovative. This growth has also led to an
increase in research and education focused on team-based design. Over the last
10 years, design research programs have produced a lot of new knowledge about
how teams work together in successful design projects. However, this research
A Genealogy of Designing as Performance 385
did not have a big impact on the way that design thinking is taught, and many of
the new methods, tools, and frameworks used in design thinking have lacked a
strong empirical foundation. In this chapter, we presented new training methods
for team-based design that are based on research from the Stanford Center for
Design Research and the Hasso Plattner Design Thinking Research Program, as
well as contemporary work in cognitive science. These training methods now
continue to take the form of “performative patterns,” which are micro-interactions
that form the basis for exercises and drills for training purposes. Our research
showed that these training methods are effective for both students and coaches of
design thinking. For example, a coach could use performative patterns to teach a
team how to brainstorm more effectively or to help students learn how to work
together in a design project.
• In the third year, we explored Designing as Performance in Digital Product
Development Settings (Edelman et al., 2021a). We observed that digital product
development teams often need to prototype new products to learn what customers
will like. However, traditional prototyping methods can be expensive and time-
consuming. We addressed this problem by introducing PretoVids, a new,
research-based method for prototyping that does not require any coding or
software development. PretoVids is specifically designed for digital media and
can be used in the early stages of product development. Our research showed that
traditional prototyping methods do not provide the agility that digital product
development teams need. PretoVids offers a faster and cheaper way to develop
new product concepts and elicit meaningful feedback from potential customers
and users. For example, a team could use PretoVids to quickly create a prototype
of a new app and test it with customers to discover new functions and use-case
scenarios. By using PretoVids, teams can avoid the risks and costs associated
with building fully digital projects and can more easily share and learn from their
prototypes.
• In the fourth year, we built on the previous work to embed D-a-P in a high-stake
setting—healthcare. In our chapter Designing for Value Creation: Principles,
Methods, and Case Insights from Embedding Designing as Performance in
Digital Health Education and Research (Edelman et al., 2022a), we highlight
our experiences working with actors in high-performance settings. We conclude
that Designing for Value Creation in healthcare entails engaging stakeholders in
both academia and industry. Therefore, education and training on value creation
for students and professionals are central to designing better healthcare systems.
In this chapter, we explore the state of digital health design education, particularly
how value creation can be rigorously explored and implemented. Our positioning
remains that a Designing as Performance (MEDGI + PretoVids) approach aug-
ments current healthcare innovation approaches in increasing engagement from
across the network of users—patients, doctors, nurses, caregivers, administrators,
researchers, and insurers—reducing risk, and improving profit. Here we review
the literature on current design thinking (DT) in healthcare and posit Designing
for Value Creation as a way forward based on our 4+ years of action research in
this emerging field. Our insights are relevant for design educators, medical
practitioners, and industry actors looking to leverage design for value creation in
healthcare in the digital transformation era.
• Subsequently we fine-tuned one of the core elements of D-a-P in a book chapter
called Beyond Brainstorming: Introducing MEDGI, an Effective, Research-
Based Method for Structured Concept Development (Edelman et al., 2021b,
2022b). In 2022, we reintroduced “MEDGI” as a new method for structured
concept development. MEDGI is an acronym for “mapping,” “educing,”
“disrupting,” “gestalting,” and “integrating.” This method is based on our
research and analysis of how successful design teams work together. Research
has shown that traditional brainstorming methods neither yield consistent results
nor are very effective. We have found that the rules of brainstorming have some
assumptions and flaws that make them unreliable. We continued to study how
high-performing teams worked by analyzing videos and transcripts of their
meetings. Our analysis suggested that these teams use a set of interactions that
help them generate new ideas and build on them. For us, “MEDGI” is one of
several “performative patterns” we have identified within the Designing as
Performance approach. Like the other performative patterns, MEDGI is based
on our research into team mechanics and how new concepts are developed in
teams. “MEDGI” is a practical application of this research and can be taught to
teams to improve their performance.
In this final chapter, we reflect on the journey so far and revisit the places, people,
moments, and situations from which our outcomes emerged. In later sections of the
chapter, we engage critically based on the limitations of our work, proposing initial
ideas for future engagements in the context of Designing as Performance beyond the
HPDTRP program. This chapter has the outline of the questions below and is based
on synthesizing the deep conversations we have had in the R2I. The questions guide
the structure of the chapter and its readability, and it proceeds mostly as presented in
the table of contents/questions below. We present our content in the form of a
podcast—with the reader as close to us three collaborators, Joaquin Santuber,
Babajide Owoyele, and Jonathan A. Edelman, as possible. And we explore our
journey until now.
2 Interview Opening: Why this Interview
Joaquin: The main reason for having this interview is that we wanted to capture in
our closing chapter on the Design Thinking Research book series a little bit of the
story behind Designing as Performance. And that is very much attached to your
work, Jonathan. This is why we wanted to do more of a retrospective—a genealogy
of our Designing as Performance approach—to hear about how things went from the
moment you started your master’s program in design (the Stanford Joint Program in
Art and Engineering) and what brought you to your PhD, then the creation of the
Envision dataset and how different elements of what later became Designing as
Performance started in that work. We wanted to look back at when we began to work
together and the work we have accomplished from which Designing as Performance
took shape. In this interview, we will answer the questions: Why does the notion of
performance play an important role in our approach to designing? How did the
performative patterns crystalize? How did Designing for Value Creation come
about? Finally, how does multimodal analysis tie this work together and suggest
new research opportunities? Since each one of these questions has a published
chapter where it is explained and answered in detail, we invite the reader to
complement them with this interview.
Jonathan: I just want to make one correction to what you said—it’s our work, not
my work, if you are willing to be a part of it. If you are not, you can say it is not your
work and wash your hands of it, but it really is our work. The real significant stuff
that happened came from the three of us working together. Period. There was a
foundation. There were the bare bones before that, but in terms of it getting nuanced
depth, subtlety it was from the three of us working together. The three of us. Period.
That’s how it was, and I can even tell you the moments when that happened. Like
when we were all kind of working together and we would see something and then we
would start moving it ahead and having you guys being so smart and able to quickly
ratchet things up and find more interesting theoretical and practical dimensions of the
work. In practical applications, when you saw stuff, I mean I remember very clearly
the moments when all our light bulbs were going on again and again from very
specific encounters, and that would never have happened without you. It would not
have happened; it would be one-tenth of what it is today because of you guys. Truly.
3 Early Experience as an Artist and its Influence

in Designing as Performance
Jonathan: So what happened early on? I had been an artist. I had done a lot of
interaction and motion graphics, working professionally. In different situations,
there were two big kinds of takeaways. One was that what you showed clients
made a huge difference in terms of the kind of feedback you got. If I showed them a
very finished comp,1 I’d get comments that just did not make sense in terms of where
I was in the design process—of kind of discovering. Clients were reading these well-
done comps in a way I did not anticipate. So, I started taking out crayons and big
pieces of newsprint and working through it with them. With that, the conversations
were very different.
Another thing was I had studied music and judo, and both had an enormous
impact on how I saw learning to do something, whether it was jazz or judo. There
was an incredibly high amount of rigor in terms of understanding the mechanics of
1
Compilation, draft
performance and understanding the structure of music. It was composition and

performance at the same time because that is how it is in jazz.
At the same time, I did classical music too, and there are chord structures. There
are ways of treating melodies. There are ways of thinking about genre and how you
transform something. And in judo—as I said—there are repetition, body mechanics,
basic routines, and specific skills and drills. I came with all this when I went into the
design master’s program. For as many wonderful things that there were in the
master’s program in design, it lacked a good pedagogy.
Furthermore, they were moving toward what was being called design thinking,
and none of it made real sense to me. I mean, if you stopped and thought about it, it
just did not make a lot of sense. It worked for some people, and it didn’t work for
other people, which means that you don’t have a real process or a real method. I
mean if—well, we call them performative now, and that happened later—but if a
performative process works, it will bring up 90% of the people significantly.
Probably 98% of the people significantly. Then excellence will happen usually in
a smaller number of those people who, for whatever reason, have worked a lot harder
or have a bent for it or whatever. But this was not happening. It was hit or miss.
There was no real explanation going on, and so I was frustrated with that. Actually,
my interest, to begin with, was really about understanding what happens when you
transform something into a different medium.
4 The Impact of Media Translation on Designing
Jonathan: I started looking at what was happening with photography. When I was a
master student, I was doing a lot of photography for Dave Beach,2 in the Product
Realization Lab.3 And what I would notice was that after about 100 photographs or
about an hour, the new designers I was working with— and I say new because they
were graduate students or undergrads—would have an epiphany about what they
were doing. Of course, part of that was us having a conversation as we were going
along looking at the photographs, but mostly we were trying to make a really good
photograph of something. Then I read something about Charles Eames and Ray
2
David W. Beach is the “Emeritus Director of the Product Realization Lab, [which] was the heart of
the Stanford Product Realization Lab from 1977 to 2022” (https://productrealization.stanford.edu/
people/david-beach accessed December 8, 2022).
3
The Stanford Product Realization Lab is “a multisite teaching facility where Stanford students
discover the power to create the future. Established as the Student Shops when the university
opened its doors, the PRL has been at the heart of Stanford’s pragmatic, results-driven curriculum
for more than 125 years. Each year, under the mentorship of PRL faculty and course assistants,
more than 1000 Stanford undergraduate, graduate, and professional school students make things of
lasting value—innovative medical, food production, transportation, communications, and consumer
products—that transform lives at home and abroad” (https://productrealization.stanford.edu/
accessed December 8, 2022).
Eames.4 I’m not sure who handed that to me. Charles had a really good eye. But he
would not say anything until he took a photograph of something and then looked at
the photograph. And of course, we are talking about when Charles and Ray were
doing this; it was hours later because they didn’t [have digital cameras]. I mean if
they had Polaroids, they would show them, but most of the examples aren’t
Polaroids that they are showing. They are taking photographs, and there’s something
about the act of translating an object—a chair, some coffee cup—into a good
photograph. It changed how Charles and Ray saw things. It certainly changed how
we saw things. And there is this guy, who worked with the Eames’ said Charles
would say nothing until he took a photograph and then he knew exactly what to do,
and in fact that is what was happening for us. We knew exactly what it was about and
what to do. So, I was working with a fellow student who was very sharp, Brian
Witlin,5 and we began to put together two by twos (2 × 2) and frameworks for trying
to understand what this stuff did and what it was about. We’d have these long—kind
of very technical slash philosophical conversations about what is going on with that?
Where does it fit?
Then I discovered Scott McCloud (McCloud, 2006), who is a graphic novelist,
comic book artist, and theorist who’s wonderful. He talks about when you look at
something. If it’s an exact rendering, you see it as it is in a certain way and you don’t
see yourself as that person. But if you dial it back to a certain point, you project
things onto it yourself. In his case, if it’s just a happy face, which is too generic. So,
there’s a place where you begin to fill in the blanks in a really specific way. What I
began to see was that there was this notion of something offered [by the image,
object, media]. A profile of completion. You complete things in different ways.
Different types of media demand different types of action. A prototype, they were
calling it at the time—I guess we were calling—at that time low-res and high-res.
High-res [media] you’d complete in a way of making very minor changes, but
changes that communicated a lot about finish and completeness. However, with
the low-res stuff, you could never do that too; it just did not make sense. But you
could start contributing things like, “What it could be in in a broader way?”
When I graduated from the Joint Program in Design, I still wanted to take another
semester of classes, and during that summer, I worked with Larry Leifer and most of
4
“Charles Eames (Charles Eames, Jr) and Ray Eames (Ray-Bernice Eames) were an American
married couple of industrial designers who made significant historical contributions to the devel-
opment of modern architecture and furniture through the work of the Eames Office. They also
worked in the fields of industrial and graphic design, fine arts, and film. Charles was the public face
of the Eames Office, but Ray and Charles worked together as creative partners and employed a
diverse creative staff. Among their most recognized designs are the Eames Lounge Chair and the
Eames Dining Chair” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_and_Ray_Eames accessed December
8, 2022https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_and_Ray_Eames)
5
Brian Witlin is an “American businessman and fine artist. He is a serial entrepreneur who has
cofounded a number of tech companies including Leverworks, Shopwell, and Golaces and has led
Yummly as its CEO both before and after being acquired by Whirlpool in 2017. Witlin participates
as a lecturer at Stanford University’s Hasso Plattner Institute of Design” (https://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/Brian_Witlin accessed December 8, 2022).
Larry Leifer’s—or a lot of his—research group at Panasonic Research Labs. It was a

lot of fun working with them and at one point I said to them, you guys do a lot of
really cool stuff. What does it take to get into your research group? When they said
you’re doing it right now, we’ll talk to Larry. That was how I got into it. Now what I
found from these guys is that they actually knew more about design and designing
than anybody that I had met at Stanford. Far and above, they had a whole vocabulary
for things, for example, the notion of “affordances,” which is fundamental in design
and something I had never heard of in the Joint Program. Larry’s group at the Center
for Design Research had many concepts about team dynamics, and their coaches
from ME3106 were spectacular. They were all extremely knowledgeable. There
seemed to be a clear basis for their observations and their suggestions, and so I
had found the group for me.
5 The Impact of Media on Small Team Interactions
Jonathan: At first, I looked at how photography impacts how we make changes in

design. But I felt that it wasn’t broad enough, so this then became how does media
impact the interactions of small teams. We spent a couple of years looking at that
(see Fig. 1). And I say “we” because we all worked together in different ways. It was
in this working style that we had our big epiphany. We were doing pre-studies, and
we thought that if you started with a rough prototype, you’d get farther along than if
you started with, say, a rough sketch. Our preliminary assumption or hypothesis was
that with a concept sketch you would get farther along than you would if you started
with an engineering drawing. We were wrong. What we found was that people made
these big changes when they were able to start with an engineering drawing and then
break away from it, as opposed to starting with a rough prototype. This was a big
surprise for us because the dogma being taught was that things went the other way
around. After that we ran several other studies, just pre-studies, in order to answer
the questions: How do we tease this out? How do we get clear about this?
Finally, we landed on a good research process to understand how people make
radical change. The reason I was looking at radical change was in the other stuff I
had been studying, such as optimization; it’s very well understood. It’s taught in all
sorts of classes, and we’re great at it. I mean, it’s one of the miracles of manufactur-
ing and design. It’s amazing how good we are at it. When I was a kid, cars would
break down on the side of the road all the time and airplanes would have mechanical
problems. This doesn’t happen very often anymore. That’s because of these incred-
ibly rigorous ways of understanding how to optimize processes and how to make
machines better. But we didn’t have any real understanding of radical change—it
was just a bunch of fuzzy stuff, and I was kind of happy about being fuzzy for early-
6
ME 310 is a class at Stanford University’s Mechanical Engineering Department (ME).
Fig. 1 Four different prompts used in the Envision dataset data collection, including an engineer-
ing drawing (upper right), a sketch (upper left), a cardboard prototype (bottom left), and a foam
prototype (bottom right). Jonathan Edelman, “Understanding Radical Breaks: Media and Behavior
in Small Teams Engaged in Redesign Scenarios” (2011), https://purl.stanford.edu/ps394dy6131
stage stuff. It just didn’t make sense to me because other creative groups had already
mastered this or had a real dialog about it, a nuanced approach to it.
There was also Donald Schön (1983, 1992), and the reflective process. I looked
into his work and it was pretty cool. However, there was no real unpacking of what
was going on. He was just pointing out what was going on. So again we found
ourselves in a place where there was no rigor or depth. While I think the process is
right, there was no delving deeper; it was more like a bandwagon of feel-good, fuzzy
belief. I had studied math and philosophy as an undergrad, and Schön’s work looked
interesting from a phenomenological frame but lacked context and a way of working
through it.
I mean people engage in reflection, but what is the conversation? It was just kind
of very broad generalizations instead of characteristics and mechanisms. What’s
really going on here? How do you teach this to someone the way you would teach
jazz music or the way you teach sports? If you are playing on a soccer team, you
wouldn’t just say: “Oh yeah, you know we’re passing the ball around to get it close
to the goal.” This just wouldn’t make sense. These were some of the things I
addressed.
There were also other things that happened along the way. I took a class about the
impact of media and photography on archaeology. I took it with from a brilliant
professor, Tim Webmoor (Webmoor, 2007; Webmoor & Witmore, 2008), who was
at the Stanford Multimedia Lab, and he introduced me to Wayfinding and Naviga-
tion, Tim Ingold (2022), and Heonik Kwon’s (1998) work. This was fascinating
because of the first-person point of view and how it changes how you see the
landscape and move through it. He also introduced me to a number of authors in
media studies such as Lev Manovich (2001) and the great Barbara Tversky, among
others. What I was going for at a certain point was to deepen the discourse about
design and product design. At least in our community I thought it was really just
virtually empty and superficial compared to the equivalent that was going on in other
fields. As a result, I looked at these materials more closely with a deeper concentra-
tion on phenomenology and cognitive science.
6 The Center for Design Research and how it Impacted

the Development of Designing as Performance
Jonathan: Back to our study, our first study, the real breakthrough was after watching
these videos and not being able to see what was going on about 100 or so times (see
Fig. 2). I mean really [watching them] again and again. They were very short videos.
And trying to analyze them and saying and then finally getting the point was a crucial
step. This seems as obvious but meant saying, “Let’s just look at when something
Fig. 2 The Design Observatory at the Center for Design Research (CDR), Stanford University,
where designing teams were recorded. Image from Jonathan Edelman’s setup for the video
recording of team interactions. Edelman, “Understanding Radical Breaks: Media and Behavior in
Small Teams Engaged in Redesign Scenarios.”
happens and then back up from there.” OK, so this is what happened with a group of
participants who were in the joint program at the time. The result was really good
and a big change happened. We stopped the video and then backed up more and
more and watched again and again. After another 50 or 60 times of watching the
video, one of us said: Oh my God, look at what they’re doing. Of course, these things
are right in front of you and you don’t see them until you see them. They began to act
out what had caught their attention in space. Sitting at the table, but acting out—what
we call “marking” today. This means acting out a scenario: “what if you’re a
geologist and you want to get to that thing over there but you can’t reach it, so
you break the thing and toss it somewhere else, throw it over there.”
The other piece comes from cognitive science and psychology and also came
from Tim Webmoor, because he introduced me to Tversky (1993), Hutchins (1995),
Kirsh, and others (2010a, 2010b). One key notion is extended cognition. I know
there’s a lot of talk about different types of extended cognition, but for our purposes,
what I mean by extended cognition is you’re thinking with your brain, and you’re
thinking with your body, and you’re thinking with the media itself. I met Barbara
Tversky (1993; 2019) and just started working with her and seeing what she was
doing on motion and cognition—and it was huge. Another was how things think for
you, and that comes from Hutchins (1995), because he was looking at how big ships
are navigated. The tools do the thinking, and they are distributed among people. So
of course, teams are a form of distributed cognition.
While I was conducting my doctoral research, I was not figuring out stuff, and my
son Liam had been born not long before that, and my wife handed me a book. It was
about causality: how human beings develop. The author, Alison Gopnik (2009),
who’s at Berkeley, talks about when humans develop a sense of causality in
reasoning. I never seemed to get past page 30. But I never got past reading page
30. I mean this went on for months, truly months. We kept on taking the book out
again and again. I took it out and she took it out. My wife said, “Boy, you’re going
really slow with that book. What’s going on?” I answered, “I don’t know. I just keep
on getting to page 30 and then I’m stopping.” She said: “well, it has something to do
with your work.” And of course, I said, “No way.” And then a few days later, I’m in
the shower and I go: Oh my God, Annie’s right, it’s all there.
What Gopnik says is that children have imaginary playmates, who are called
counterfactuals and can be quite eccentric. If you ask them about where they come
from, you find out that their homes are equally eccentric. Thus, she says there is a
sense of causality between context and place. The context is the paracosmos and the
thing that’s different is a counterfactual. I realized that these people, these design
teams, were going into a paracosmos together in a conversation:
– You see this, you walk down the street, you pull this, you do this. . .
– Oh yeah, yeah. . .
– And then this happens so the thing would have to have a so. . .
– so that did this or a functionality that did this right or the shape would be so and so.
All of these things came together. Out of this, we were able to design a new
experiment. The baseline was to pull this off with five different kinds of media and to
see what kind of responses the teams got.
We found a lot of cool things about what people did when they created radical
breaks or made incremental changes. All of it was based on this increased physical
interaction. It all depended on how big or small the physical interaction was and
what the scope or sphere of action was, which was a concept I learned from Craig
Milroy7 at the Stanford’s Product Realization Lab, and that became Dimensions of
Engagement in my work. This team behavior became path determination, which is
based on Ingold’s and Kwon’s wayfinding and navigation. And the third contribu-
tion is media models which were kind of what it was all about. It was not that I had
become less interested in media itself, but now my interest was focused on the
behaviors that were entangled with media. Media are not an entity by itself but also
involve objects, behaviors, and narratives and what unfolds over time. This was what
my PhD was about.
I also want to mention Ozgur Eris, whose work was, I think, one of the most
significant pieces of work at the CDR, and it was generative design questions and
deep reasoning questions (Eris, 2003). Deep reasoning questions were the analytic
questions, and generative design questions were the questions that opened up
possibilities. Now I think that his work was brilliant, but there is a limitation. Eris’
work was all about language and not about behavior and not about media. This
meant he was taking a slice of that, but the underlying principles of certain things are
generative and certain things are analytic, and it’s a continuum in media, not one way
or the other. I think this is fundamental. Part of the work I did in my PhD involved
translating Eris’ work in language into media. Then, the three of us together
translated this into gesture in the performative patterns, based on the work of
David Kirsch. We said, “OK, there’s marking and there’s miming, and they mean
different things.” And we then put this into our teaching.
7 The Significance of the Notion of Performance in our

Approach to Design Designing as Performance
Joaquin: I think all this is very well captured in Jonathan’s dissertation as it goes one
by one on each one of these aspects. The methodology behind it and a big part of
your PhD was the Envision dataset, which is what you just described. The recording
of teams, triads of three designers in the Design Observatory at the CDR with these
cameras and the different prompts that you gave them underway. The media that you
provided them as a prompt were shaping their thoughts and were shaping what they
7
Craig Milroy, Codirector of the Product Realization Lab, is also a Senior Lecturer and Director of
Undergraduate Teaching Labs in Mechanical Engineering at Stanford (https://productrealization.
stanford.edu/people/craig-milroy accessed December 8, 2022).
were doing. It was shaping their team dynamics. I think there’s a lot to unpack from
what you just said. You started your explanation of the foundations of Designing as
Performance talking about art, music, and judo. Then, talking about photography.
And then you went into this deeper academic area or what the research was about. If
we fast forward to today, we find again the word of performance, which is very much
related to these disciplines, art, music, and judo.
Jonathan: Designing as Performance. I know when it happened. So Larry Leifer
said again and again that designing—he would say design but I would say
designing—“is a performance of a corpus of behaviors.” So the question was, just
what are those behaviors? I forget exactly where it was that we formulated Designing
as Performance, but it was the three of us. We were doing something and talking
about designing like modes of performance. The notion of performative patterns
happened when I gave a talk at Dartmouth. We had been working together for about
a year and a half, I think at that point, and the prompt was: What’s your latest
research? On the plane I thought about it. I had a bunch of time to sit and reflect and
re-reflect and then it came to me: Oh, these are performative patterns. These are
patterns and they fit into Designing as Performance. I remember talking to you guys
about that and you were feeding into it and turning it over, and it was really
profound. The consensus was, “Let’s be hardcore and look at it.” We had been
looking at football games. We’d been looking at different types of performance
before that. I remember us looking at Herbie Hancock (Hancock & Dickey, 2014).
We were looking at lots of material together. And I think for us it all kind of
congealed.
Later, MEDGI came hand in hand with this. MEDGI happened because the three
of us were looking at the dataset and started going on a, you know, jam. A
collaborator was getting kind of angry at us like “what are you guys doing?” And
it’s like we were like, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, and we went
through and we saw these steps in the recordings. We saw the steps of mapping,
educing,8 disrupting, gestalting,9 and integrating we just saw it—it was right there.
We were looking at videos and whiteboarding it, and it was simply “there it is.” That
it was called MEDGI that happened because you guys went to Stanford and were
presenting this new work and it was Ade Mabogunje10 who said “so you have this
8
Educing, from the transitive verb educe: “to bring out (something, such as something latent)” from
“Definition of EDUCING,” accessed December 6, 2022, https://www.merriam-webster.com/
dictionary/educing
9
Gestalting, from the word gestalt which comes from the German, meaning literally shape or form.
In English, “something that is made of many parts and yet is somehow more than or different from
the combination of its parts. Broadly: the general quality or character of something” from “Defi-
nition of GESTALT,” accessed December 6, 2022, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/
gestalt
10
Ade Mabogunje is a Senior Researcher Engineer at the Mechanical Engineering Department,
Stanford University. (https://profiles.stanford.edu/adegboyega-mabogunje accessed December
8, 2022). His contributions to the design thinking research are significant, and especially relevant
for Designing as Performance is his groundbreaking work on the use of noun phrases by designing
teams (Ade Mabogunje, “Noun Phrases as Surrogates for Measuring Early Phases of the
MEDGI, your MEGDI thing.” We realized this acronym made a great name too—it
stuck! But it all came out of looking at teams again and again. We would just sit and
watch these videos for hours.
Joaquin: I have two remarks on that. So funny that Ade Mabogunje —the father
of the noun phrases performative pattern—was the one who made MEDGI a thing,
before it was just five steps. So this kind of confirms that there is a pattern there too.
Adding to what you said, I think we saw MEDGI in the videos of the Envision
dataset, and I also remember the moment when we saw MEDGI happening in
different videos, for example, the video from Barry Berkus. 11
Jonathan: It was during a workshop and you looked up at me and you said: “Oh,
this works here too”—and it was great. I hadn’t noticed it. I mean, had I noticed I
would have said, “oh, look, he’s mapping—what’s he doing?” I don’t remember, but
I do remember you pointing out it works here too. And it was one of those moments
when the sparks started flying and all the light bulbs started going off. That really
applies to all three other topics too.
In fact, MEDGI is one of the foundations of everything I do now. It doesn’t matter
what field it is. If I’m working in fintech, it’s in fintech. If I’m working in medical
projects, it’s in medical. You [Joaquin] do it in law and justice; Baba does it in his
work too with energy transitions. It’s just as clear as day that you have got to map
that thing out. Let me emphasize it; you’ve got to map that thing out! This is because
of a kind of externalizing and having something shared that you can manipulate in
the right way. It works as a mental prosthesis, so it really comes down to mapping.
It’s the same thing as starting with an engineering drawing, but the trick is to have the
tools and practices that allow you to break away from the map and transform the
thing. Yeah, those were all things that started popping up when we were working
together.
Some time ago I was working with Bill Burnett.12 He saw my stuff and said:
“This is the best stuff out there; however, it’s not accessible. You’ve got to create
exercises; you’ve got to operationalize this so it can be taught.” Because with design
thinking per se, it had all been operationalized in a very, very simple way, and that’s
one of the reasons why it was getting adopted. Not because it was better than other
things, but because it was dumb and easily acceptable, accessible, and easily
teachable. Which meant that people took it on right away. It had a reputation. So,
Burnett said: “Until you do that, it’s not going to fly.” That was while I was still at
Mechanical Design Process,” in The Proceedings of the ninth International Conference on Design
Theory and Methodology, 1997, 1997.).
11
Barry Berkus “How To Think Like An Architect: Improving Design” (available on https://www.
youtube.com/watch?v=DnqjaeQDShY accessed December 8, 2022)
12
Bill Burnett is currently Executive Director of the Design Program at Stanford and Adjunct
Professor at the Mechanical Engineering Department of the Stanford University. He is also the
Executive Director of the Life Design Lab (2007–present) and coauthor of the NYT bestseller
William Burnett and David J. Evans, Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life,
First edition (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2016) (2013). (https://profiles.stanford.edu/william-
burnett accessed December 8, 2022).
Stanford. I was teaching with him and developing this approach. But it was a long,
long, slow slog to put that stuff together. Again, Designing as Performance really
started happening when the three of us started to work together.
8 The Role of Embodiment and Prototyping in Designing

as Performance
Jonathan: I was working at Politecnico di Milano for years and they wanted new
cutting-edge material from Stanford. They were very encouraging and trusting, and
so we would prototype and try stuff out there often. The guys I was working with
there, Caibiro Cautela (Cautela et al., 2014, 2022) and Fabrizio Pierandrei
(Pierandrei & Marengoni, 2017), were so good and so smart too, and they agreed
on all these foundational principles. I remember the first time, running Medgi, was in
Politecnico di Milano in a class where we—and this is like the micro MEDGI where
we had people in four chairs.13 Four chairs and four students. We’d hand them an
object. It was really just like ABCs. A: Say what it is. B: Disrupt it. C: Gestalt it. D:
Integrate it. And we’d have them do it again and again. We had people just give the
team in the chairs artifacts and prompts to perform the steps with, and then we would
bring a new team up and do it again and again. It was remarkable how quickly they
got good at it. At first it was, “I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do,” but then it
became the thing that they did, and in a short time they did it well.
The other thing we ran with them earlier, which was just wonderful, was one of
those great moments. I wish you guys had been there, but it was before we met. It
was to prototype with your body—you become the machine. Forget the other stuff,
you become the thing. For example, we would ideate not with ideas—because you
know what I think about “ideas.” Instead, we would develop these new experiences
with the body. Because that’s where a lot of thinking is happening. For example, this
one group was stuck, and this was a point where I came in and everybody was stuck.
They were fixed on the ideas, and this was going nowhere. I said, “Stop with the
thinking. Start acting out those scenarios. Copy, extend, and combine them. Make
changes to the gestures.” One group was working on something for kids in a
wheelchair; it was an experience for kids in a wheelchair. They started by doing a
kind of wheelchair motion, and then they started changing it, extending it, doing
different things, and then they came up with this notion: What if we could get them
to fly? The prototype became a situation in which you’re in a sports stadium with the
aerial cams that follow the ball. But in the place of the camera is a user, riding this
thing, and the user can control it with their hands. Basically, they can fly around the
stadium with this. Now this is all possible, this is totally feasible. You can beef up
one of these air cams, you can put a harness on it, and you can put the controllers
13
At that point, we weren’t doing the educed step. We had it but that came out of another workshop
later in Potsdam, Germany.
here [pointing at his hands]. Of course, you put buffers on it and that kind of thing so
stupid things don’t happen. And what an amazing experience! It went from this
gesture, to rowing, to this: And it all came from noticing what they were doing with
their body. They just made moves with their bodies. Oh, it could be something like
this [gesture]. So, what they did was when they prototyped it was to take one really
big kind of magnificent guy and then they made a backpack and put me in it. They
then put the backpack on his back and then put a fan in front of me and put fake
controllers in my hands. When I did this or that with the fake controller, they’d move
the fan around and he turned this way or that way, and so he became that became the
total prototype. Another prototype we did was for elderly people who have mobility
problems. It was a machine that “stretches” them. Basically, it was a bunch of rollers
moving this way and that. This would give you mobility and flexibility. To prototype
what they did was, a whole bunch of the designers laid down on these tables and put
me on top of it them as they rolled. The whole process was absolutely physicalized,
embodied; they became the machine and gave me the experience of it. It was a
fabulous experience.
This is what I saw a designer doing in the Envision dataset. I saw a very
competent designer in Envision watching these automatic motions from other team
members, and while commenting on them, the designer was creating transforma-
tions. Our research at the R2I group meant taking all the things we’re talking about
directly out of Envision dataset. We were trying to find the meta level for it and then
applying it to different settings and domains.
Joaquin: I want to dial back to one example that we got from one of our
students in our Digital Health Design Lab14 at the Digital Health Center in Pots-
dam.15 One session was all about creating experiences, and the concept development
wasn’t really exciting. There was a moment when one of them just stood up and
started enacting the scenario. It was surprising for us, how a student could not engage
with the team in a more abstract or more contextual way. He was not forthcoming
with interesting stuff on paper, but when he performed the embodiment of the thing,
it would just really explode the whole session. That was an amazing moment. It was
like when all the lights in the house go on. It was spectacular, and at that moment, we
all looked at each other as if to say:“Oh my God!” Because it was happening. They
14
Digital Health Design Lab headed by Jonathan Antonio Edelman, PhD, focused on bringing
human-centered design to digital health scenarios. The Digital Health Design Lab was a resource for
the HPI community, serving students, researchers, and industry partners. It offered accessible, user-
friendly design analytics tools to digital experts and nonexperts to evaluate and test user experience
in interfaces, products, and services enabling rigorous, data driven insights about user experiences
and interactions across diverse design applications. The lab provided the HPI community with a
platform to leverage proven instruments, methods, and research pathways for data collection and
analysis of multimodal data and digital trace data for human-centered user experience design
(https://hpi.de/digital-health-center/members/research-group-digital-health-design-lab.html
accessed December 8, 2022).
15
HPI Digital Health Center is an open, inclusive network structure of researchers, projects, and
research institutions in order to empower patients and to transform healthcare with innovative
digital health solutions (https://hpi.de/digital-health-center/home.html accessed December 8, 2022).
were crossing the street. You know they were in their paracosmos. And it was like,
“this is incredible.” Everyone in the class saw this and the scales fell from their eyes.
Jonathan: In fact, we ran a workshop here in Palo Alto, and we had this brilliant
woman who’s trained as a dancer. She got her master’s degree in Management
Science and Engineering. I mean, she knows her stuff and her way around really
well. And she’s done lots and lots of improvements. There was one point in a
workshop where we had people get up and she was acting like she was the user.
This other guy who was the founder performed the application, which the desktop
application. She said: “Now I want a pat on the back for doing what I did. I want a
pat on the back.” And she managed to get this guy to pat her on the back. Sometimes
that’s exactly what you want. It’s related to Clifford Nass’s work—the media
equation of seeing our media as people. This is how you design this. Great moments,
when you do something and you get a pat on the back. It was that kind of
externalization in the paracosmos.
9 The Elemental Patterns of Designing as Performance
Jonathan: Whenever something came up, I would go down to Italy and try it out with
the class—and they were totally game. It was really good. So all of these things came
together. Then we started getting very serious with you guys about writing. I mean
we got very, very serious about writing. What is Medgi? What is Designing as
Performance? We were working with SAP and it became Designing for Value
Creation, and PretoVids came up for a bunch of reasons. One of them was
COVID, and then we fast forward in this way to multimodal analysis when
instrumenting teams became really important. You guys managed that and pushed
that ahead to where we had a prototype: a working prototype. Figuring out how we
would look at team interactions with COVID, we moved away from physiological
signals, such as galvanic skin response, and you guys asked what we can see on a
screen via Skype or in Zoom? What became important were gestures, body posture,
and facial action units. We were looking at these phenomena and at teams through
those lenses. This is the fast forward to multimodal analysis. The idea was if we
could teach people to do these behaviors, they would be designing.
We corroborated part of that when I was at RCA. I was working with a brilliant
PhD student Bruna Petreca,16 and she was looking at how fashion designers feel—
literally feel—with their hands and senses. How do they feel? What Bruna found out
was that in fashion, design practice is this whole notion of feeling that is different—
and she worked with top fashion designers, the very best ones. She would look very
carefully at what they were doing and film them and take notes and all of that. She
16
Bruna Beatriz Petreca, “An Understanding of Embodied Textile Selection Processes & a Toolkit
to Support Them” (Thesis, Royal College of Art, 2016), https://researchonline.rca.ac.uk/2363/. and
Dr Bruna Petreca | Royal College of Art (rca.ac.uk accessed December 8, 2022)
said they each have a signature way of feeling. How they touch something—it’s a
signature. Each of these touches, she said, is associated with what we call Level
1, Level 2, and Level 3 of the Dimensions of Engagement framework. This was a
while ago, but it was when it thought about how something draped as you moved and
how it flowed. This was about the surface of a material, etc. I don’t want to overstate
her case, which was in fact very strong, but the truly remarkable thing was her
proposition that if you taught people to feel in the way a designer felt, they would
actually feel like that designer. There was a mechanics to feeling inscribed in that
signature which let you in onto how that designer designed and what they did. Which
again is designing is a performance. Do that thing. You’ll feel like that person, and
we know that if you walk like this, you’ll feel like this. But this was really dialing it
into design choices, so all of these things you know kind of coming together brought
us to that point to theorize on Designing as Performance.
Joaquin: I think we can tie that last remark back to the idea of form of life
(Wittgenstein, 1958) and solicitations (Dreyfus & Kelly, 2007; Rietveld &
Kiverstein, 2014; Rietveld et al., 2018) and also communities of practice (Wenger,
1998). How communities of practice develop all these rituals and gestures and
vocabulary, the way they refer to things, so members of a community see and feel
things in similar ways.
10 Elaborating on Bridging the Research-to-Practice Gap
Joaquin: We were reflecting a bit more on this description of how the different
modules of Designing as Performance were born. I really enjoy and have always
been fascinated by the idea of how starting from research material and content, the
Designing as Performance approach, is applied in practice. And then from practice,
going back into research to crystallize it, make it explicit, or verbalize it in a way that
has not been communicated yet (see Fig. 3). This means making the research
accessible in a way that can be taught, that can be trained, and which is in the end
one of the main purposes behind the performative pattern and Designing as
Performance.
Can we elaborate a bit more on this idea from research to practice but then also on
practice to research and then back to practice. This was, I think, a foundational aspect
of our Research 2 Impact group.
Jonathan: As I said, after talking to Bill Burnett, it became quite clear that you
have to bring this to practice in a really clear way, but of course when we start
bringing it to practice, we get new insights about it. We get to tweak it up, so it’s a
whole lovely cycle; it’s kind of a gain loop of understanding. There was also the
notion of translational research, which was a big thing we did in our
Research2Impact group. It was really important for us to translate the cutting-edge
research already being done and bring it to the community. It fit really well at the
Digital Health Center because of the Dimensions of Engagement framework, which
became really clear with the mechanics and the framework we had for designing
Fig. 3 An overview of the

research-to-practice loops
that gave form to Designing
as Performance
digital products and services in the context of healthcare. Because when you have
radical breaks, it happens on the core of the systems you are redesigning. Then you
have to put it into scenarios with functions and to have the touch points and the
usability right, and that’s basically the road map for translational research. In digital
health, we’ve got this core shift: How do we get the scenarios and then the touch
points right? Putting it all together: How do we get Level 3 [core-network] to Level
2 [function-use-case scenarios] to Level 1 [touchpoints-usability] in Dimensions of
Engagement? It was a really nice fit, and also it was a place where unfortunately a lot
of bad design was being done—really fundamentally bad design—but we made and
are making a huge difference.
A lot of what we were doing was testing new Designing as Performance material
out, like in the workshops that the three of us did repeatedly. It was like OK, how do
we do this? How do we create new exercises and frameworks? Let’s get feedback on
it. Let’s iterate on it because we would do one after the other. I remember, for
example, with Medgi Star and Medgi Chain, and we had different names for them at
the time, but it was basically the same thing. In the workshop we did, it was a train
the trainer workshop. When we said OK, let’s do MEDGI Chain—we called it
MEDGI Snake at the time—and it was an epiphany for people, with the comments
beyond my expectation. I don’t know about you guys, but I was like “wow, this is
great.” I remember the example we used, just what was at hand—a whiteboard
eraser, which would go through the chain again and again and again and again. It
finally became something extremely different. In concept generation, the comments
were “Wow! I had no attachment to that concept. I can’t take responsibility because
everybody did a little part of it” or “We got to a place we never thought we would get
to.” We were practicing very extended cognition and very distributed cognition.
Both of these practices were for us the explicit reason why we do this kind of
research in the first place: extended and distributed cognition in design practices.
And the participants figured it out right there, in the doing that it was a big benefit for
them. First of all, you’re not getting stuck on your idea and fighting for your idea.
That the thinking was utterly and radically distributed. Which is what we were going
for. It was kind of like a team. Getting the ball at their goal and moving it down the
field by passing it and then scoring again and again. Now the other thing was because
it kept on going: The beginning of the chain to the end of the chain became the
beginning of the chain. And the end of the chain became the beginning of the chain.
It took them to places they didn’t think they’d go.
The story was different with MEDGI Star (a star-shaped sequence of MEDGI for
concept development). With MEDGI Star, they were anchored back into the original
prompt (at the center of the star shape). We got to see this happening in action and
sharpen up the practice and sharpen our theories and frameworks about it. This
research-practice-research cycle kind of pulled out some things that were explicit
and some things that were implicit about what our new approach, Designing as
Performance, was.
And then there was Barry Berkus and us doing Barry Berkus exercises, and we
were able to workshop those until we figured out how it works. And then other
people started using this approach too. Or I remember a workshop we did with
metaphors. Do you remember the metaphor workshop? That was with Jana Fuchs.17
We prompted participants with metaphors: It’s a butterfly. It’s a rifle. It’s a this or
that. I remember working with Joaquin and we said, what happens if the camera was
a gun and we got really deep into it: If a camera becomes a gun, then you can hurt
people with it. How do you hurt people with it? In fact, you do hurt people with
photos. If you send nasty photos about someone or you post something that’s
uncomfortable. And this gives you a whole different way of looking at objects and
meanings. Working through those things brought depth to both practice and theory.
It was and remains a great cycle.
11 The Role of Metaphors and Values in Designing

as Performance
Baba: When we embedded it in the Digital Health Center, metaphors were the most
powerful way to have a good entry into unpacking values or value sensitive design.
Or when reflecting on privacy and data security. If we start with the value itself, the
room is defensive, but when we go the metaphor route and we just talk about guns
and then we say what the metaphors have to do with healthcare, we end up bringing
it to data privacy. In this way, metaphors work more like a movie script that you
don’t know how it’s really going to end. You have the title, and you get a context and
who is part of it. But then it can always go the way you would enjoy the most and
that’s what I think metaphors really bring in. This happens in terms of the culture
17
Dr. Jana Fuchs is an urbanist and historian and is a former program lead at the HPI Academy.
around health innovation and design. Along with PretoVids, it applies for sure in
terms of making a video. I’ll make something imperfect, and what metaphors do you
use to talk about it? How do you create something that other people don’t have to get
too attached to. You don’t have to like or hate guns to use gun metaphors to design
for healthcare.
Jonathan: I agree with you, and one of your tremendous, continual, and continu-
ing contributions was “let’s talk about values and meaning.” Let’s talk about values
and meaning and also the gift you are giving to users? We were very informed by
Roberto Verganti and the design driven innovation (Verganti, 2009). You made that
really accessible to us, and in fact I have to say that in my professional work now I’m
doing a lot of work with startups and VCs and founders. One of the most important
parts of what I do is saying, “OK, so let’s talk about value creation.” “Let’s talk about
meaning.” We are pushing those all together with the Dimensions of Engagement
framework, media models, and PretoVids.
12 How Does Designing as Performance Address the Need

for Value Creation?
Jonathan: The PretoVids—as a communication prototyping technique—is a place

where the rubber meets the road in value creation. It assumes being very clear about
what you’re doing. What I’m finding now is people tend to be very reductive about
value creation. I’ll give you an example. I’m working with one startup. These are
incredibly bright people. It’s a really interesting project and team innovating in
healthcare. The founder was being very reductive about what value was about: price
and speed. However, when he was talking to his prospective clients and current
clients, and his customers, they were talking much more broadly about what value
was to them. It had to do with reliability. It had to do with quality because it was
medicine. It had to do with transparency because they were afraid if it’s just cheaper,
the customer asks, “Are you giving me crappy stuff?” Really understanding what
their values are and designing for their values became part of the conversation
(Fig. 4).
All those really important things that happened in that conversation happen again
and again. We talked about Ferraris and how touchpoints create value. A Ferrari is
all about touchpoints. So, if you’re in a certain user group and you are selling just
5 of them, or 100 of them, rather than 50,000 or 500,000 or 5,000,000 of them, this
becomes a viable business model. Using Dimensions of Engagement is a way of
creating value in unexpected ways. All of these things come together in different
ways. I had another encounter with startups when we discussed pleasure points, as
opposed to pain points. The founder couldn’t find any pleasure points. I said, there’s
got to be pleasure points, somewhere. You’re not looking long enough, hard enough,
or whatever enough because there’s always joy somewhere. Even in breaking rocks,
Fig. 4 A diagram of the Designing for Value Creation core idea, of how a data input can create
value for other stakeholders inside or outside the organization, beyond the original user. The new
use cases and scenarios are the new starting point for Designing for Value Creation
there might be satisfaction because I broke that rock. You got to find out those
pleasurable moments or aspects because you’ve got to amplify them.
Another example, a Stanford graduate doing very interesting work in industry,
thought design was just about problem solving because they had read “that book.”
This is a tremendously able and bright person. They read this book and it said, “find a
problem and solve it”. I said, “No. Problem solving is one thing; design is something
bigger. Design is problem solving and creating new wonderful experiences, new
meanings, new opportunities, new values, new all this other stuff. And you look for
that. Because if you’re just solving a problem, it’s just OK. But if you’re designing
something, it becomes something totally different, and that’s what it’s all about—
you’re actually creating experiences.” This is a huge thing that we, the three of us,
came to realize. You’re not making a thing. You’re making an experience, and the
thing you’re creating is an object of behavior in a narrative. No matter what. Or it’s a
whole series of experiences, you’re creating—a meaningful experience. That’s the
important part. You’re creating usability, you’re creating scenarios, and it’s much
more than problem solving. So that’s part of the meaning. Instead of just fixing pain,
you’re creating pleasure and meaning, too.
13 Sketching in the Designing as Performance Process?
Jonathan: Remember when we were working on the medical devices with Charité?
There were different groups, and one group was hitting, like firing, on all pistons
here because they put the bogus interfaces on the wall, so everybody had something
to talk about and the other group was really stuck in an idea, an abstract world. Well,
we’re making it this device in this way. Well, what does that look like? What button
do they push? We were kind of getting to the point where we said, Oh OK, I have to
draw this out. That’s where it actually happens. It’s not about an abstract idea. It’s
about sketching it out. It became very much like an art studio, or charrette. Calling
out, you need a step here. OK, that’s not clear. So, what are you doing here? The real
clarity about that resulted in PretoFaces (Edelman et al., 2021a).
Joaquin: You touched upon the two points that I wanted to address. One, the
importance of sketching by hand and not using the virtual media tablet iPad; that’s
the first one. The second one is the role and importance of critique in design, which is
often overlooked, misunderstood or devalued. The importance of having strong,
honest, and constructive critique that will move your work forward. So the designer
can move forward too. You already talked about them briefly, but could you explore
both of them? The most important part of sketching—hand sketching— and then
critique in design practice.
Jonathan: Let me say that when we use hand look-like sketches in Miro; it’s for
people who have little or no bandwidth for that. It’s like for these executive meetings
where they just don’t have the time or inclination or anything for developing the
skills and sensibilities to create meaningful sketches, and we have got to meet our
audience at a certain point. I’m never comfortable about it, but it kind of goes
one-third of the way because at least it gives you a rough-looking thing. We know
that rough-looking things are pluripotent and allow you to think differently about
possible instantiations and interactions. You’re thinking about functionality, major
form factors, and scenarios as opposed to having exactly the right thing that it’s
supposed to be. Or making judgments like, “Oh, that’ll never work.”
But what a digital prototype doesn’t do is have you think through the act of
drawing a line to feel the experiences in the room. The line is conjuring and finding
those rich moments. Drawing the line is an affordance to consider where a moment
lies. In drawing a line, there’s all this mental processing going on that’s facilitated by
off-loading a lot of the cognition into the media and into your body. When really
good architects draw a line, they are feeling what it’s like to be in that space. As
opposed to making perfect boxes and squares. For me, I always prefer to do hand
drawings, and I’m not a great draft person at all, but so much of the thinking happens
in making a line, stepping back, making a line, stepping back, and continually
repeating this process. Because so much of our thinking actually happens in our
hands and body and the media we are creating for exploration. Again, Barbara
Tversky has looked at this stuff in great detail, with great clarity and great rigor
(Tversky, 2019).
Back to the theoretical level, in many other fields, there’s a lot of beautiful
rigorous hardcore research that just isn’t being applied in design—and this just
doesn’t make sense. Why not use that knowledge. We don’t need to invent the
wagon all over again. There’s some great wagons and great vehicles out there that we
can build on if we understand these principles. When drawing and sketching by
hand, the rough sketching is super important for really placing stuff in understanding
mechanics; because when we do that, it turns out that we’re actually kind of
unfolding the story. We’re putting ourselves in this place. Depending on the
perspective, for example, there’s research that tells us that brain imaging is different
if you hear a story from the third-person or the first-person point of view. The
translation of words into the images in your mind is different, or the images you
“hear” are different than those you see. And for us we always want to get someone
into the first-person perspective. And that’s why we say “so, you’re walking down
the street” as opposed to “I walk down the street”. Because you’re not seeing from
that same point of view. Somehow that narrative view is very powerful in creating a
common paracosmos and empathy.
When you sketch, I think it puts you into the narrative. I’m seeing this and here it
is, and you’re unfolding this thing and giving a chance for all these cycles to work.
It’s also really important because it takes people on the journey of sharing some-
thing. It’s not just popping up full born, but you’re watching and saying, “Oh, right,
that’s this.” People feel because it’s unfolding that they can participate with the other
people on the team. This is a far cry from putting Post-its on the white board. Post-its
tend to be good for some things, but they tend to be very abstract and idea-focused,
working with words and descriptions rather than experiences. This is another place
where there is confusion in the design world, particularly in design thinking and
other marketing-based approaches (Edelman et al., 2022b).
14 The Importance of Critique in the Designing

as Performance Approach
Jonathan: In design thinking, what they do is say “I like I wish” and that’s not a
critique. That’s a debriefing technique. If it’s just about I like I wish it’s very
effective. You never get to the place where you put your heart and soul into
something. You put it out. It becomes a thing that people talk about, because then
you find out if your intentions are met how other people are making meaning from
it. This is a huge gift when you can see and feel through someone—even someone
else’s heart. When you can see and feel through someone else’s eyes and heart, it is
an incredible gift. And when you say “I like I wish,” you can’t do that; there’s no
depth, no real honesty, no real vulnerability, and no real understanding of how
design actually works. I know this because I taught in art schools, like the Royal
College of Art in London, where the discourse about design is very deep and
nuanced. Critiques and the culture of critique is on steroids there, and it shows in
the goals the students reach for.
Now here’s the other problem: There is no real framework that’s taught—except
for fairly specific things, like asking “how many times did you prototype it?” But
nowhere on this cup [showing a coffee cup] or on this ball or on this pen on the
package does it say: “This was prototyped 35 times, or 600 times.” This is mean-
ingless. What is meaningful is what kind of knowledge is put into a piece of work,
whether it is a product, a service, or a system, and how that’s now realized with
critiquing. In the absence of any real frameworks or techniques, knowledge about
what makes something good—or what makes it not good—is not possible if you
don’t have good critique techniques. Part of what you learn in architecture school or
art school or in law school or in sports coaching is to understand the principles and
how things are so you can refer to the principles. Sports critique is not, “Gee, I wish
you could run faster.” It is more “OK, you’re putting your leg this way, and your arm
moves this way, etc.” You know all those bodily mechanics. Or in art it’s like
understanding contrast, understanding dominance, subdominance, and the subordi-
nate. It’s understanding line weight. It’s understanding all sorts of things. Meaning-
making is built on a foundation of understanding: When you put a piece or work on a
piece of wood and that piece of wood looks like a 2 × 4 (wood),18 people will think
about cheap 2 × 4 wood, and if you want them to think 2 × 4, that’s great. However,
this needs to be a conscious design decision that deliberately evokes something
about construction lumber. You learn specific things that you need in order to engage
audiences. Now you’re not limited to those things, but it’s the general foundation
that grows and is nuanced.
In the absence of any real rigor or competent teaching you’re left with “I like I
wish” instead of these very transformative moments of wow. “I like I wish is”
necessitated by an incomplete and quasi pedagogy that is designed to make people
feel good about their efforts without having earned it. It is all about giving a positive
experience at the expense of any real learning and results in great feedback. When
the glow wears off, people are left with not really knowing how to work through
problems and collaborate. For someone else to look at your work from a deeply
informed point of view of meaning, of feeling, of technique is a transformational gift.
Or are you working on touch points here? Or what’s happening with your functions
and your scenarios as they play out? Here in your core, what are your deepest
values? How is this permeating the whole service or product or system that you’re
creating?
Which brings me to something else, and this is Donella Meadows. Banny
Banerjee19 introduced me to Donella Meadows’ Leverage Points (Meadows,
1999), and this became one of the foundations for the kind of work we do. How
are you making big changes or little changes? Little changes matter, but they’re not
going to change the thing enormously, but little changes will impact how people
relate to it enormously, and this is significant. This brings me to the notion of
deilomena.20 You have phenomena, which are the things that come to light in the
18
2 × 4 wood refers to the measures of usually cheap wood planks used in construction.
19
Banny Banerjee is the Director of ChangeLabs at Stanford University and has worked in the field
of innovation and design for 30 years. He is well known for his pioneering work in design thinking
and more recently his advanced systems based innovation methodology and systems leadership
models for large-scale transformations in multidimensional challenges (https://hstar.stanford.edu/
team/banny-banerjee/)
20
Deilomena is a neologism put forward by Jonathan A. Edelman, “Designforum 160—Creating
Knowledge || Creating Design. Jonathan Antonio Edelman, Hasso-Plattner-Insitute, Potsdam”
(Dessau, 2018), https://www.hs-anhalt.de/en/university/aktuelles/event/event/2018/04/18/tx_cal_
phpicalendar/designforum-160-creating-knowledge-creating-design-jonathan-antonio-edelman-
hasso-plattner-in.html
world: behaviors, words, objects, and narratives. You also have noumena, which are
these constructs and the kind of knowledge we have about things. Noumena are not
unrelated to object behavior narrative, but they’re considered, more or less, a
different point of view. They’re more like regulating principles. When you create
something new, you have deilomena, which is how something in design manifests
knowledge. This can be manifest knowledge about friction or about elasticity or
about how a game is played. The great Italian designer and philosopher Enzo
Mari21—of blessed memory—talks about how designed things contain knowledge.
In his Autoprogetazzione, he really pulled out just that aspect: Here’s the table,
here’s a chair, and this is how they work. I think that part of what we do when we
create new things; they’re informed with this knowledge and understanding; and
they communicate this knowledge. Knowledge about and experience or interaction,
like an Eames chair communicates something very deep about what Charles and Ray
Eames felt how it felt to be self-actualized. You sit in this chair and it holds you and
you remember how you’re supposed to feel. This is the opposite of many places in
medicine where you go into an emergency room and it’s devoid of anything of a
manifestation of the knowledge of how a patient or family can feel on a healing
journey. The emergency room is a very uncomfortable place. This increases anxiety,
and that increases all the things that are counterproductive to feelings of well-being
and being safe. There’s a kind of knowledge that’s there, but it is not a complete
knowledge. And if you have all these frameworks that we’ve been talking about, for
example, Maslow’s pyramid, you can communicate very carefully about where you
are in that process and talk about those things in a meaningful way that allows people
to act on them. Deilomena and a deilomenized experience, shall we say, are an object
and its corresponding experience that carries this new knowledge.
15 The Key Learning Outcomes of the Designing

as Performance Approach
Jonathan: In our second-year work at the HPDTRP, we touched on Bloom’s

taxonomy (Bloom, 1956), the domains of learning—the cognitive, the affective,
and the psychomotor domain (see Fig. 5). This did not happen quite by chance
because we were working very actively in this space. We took that foundational
paper seriously. The cognitive domain could be summarized as the mode of learning
that has to do with cognitive, skills, and affective learnings and outcomes. Example
abilities relate to memorizing or reasoning the affective domain emotions, feelings
21
In April 1974, Enzo Mari presented his renewed exhibition Proposta per un’autoprogettazione
[Proposal for a Self-Design] at Galleria Milano, where he offered design drawings and instructions
for the creation of furniture intended for creativity of anyone who wanted to try to build them
independently at home. An invitation to escape the dominant, large-scale production mechanisms,
recovering the manual capacity and autonomy (https://www.autoprogettazione.com/en/
autoprogettazione-2/)
Fig. 5 An overview of Bloom’s taxonomy for learning outcomes and dimensions, cognitive,
affective, and psychomotor
we have. In the current design thinking education curricula, mostly dominant is

affect—appreciation and motivation—which is not unimportant. However, the psy-
chomotor domain of actions and doing, developing skills, and the cognitive domain
of reasoning and understanding theory are in a sorry state.
I remember exactly when you gave me that paper, which I didn’t read for lots of
reasons. The main thing was probably dyslexia. But then you printed it huge and put
it on my desk and said look at this. And I went, “Oh my God!,” you know—and of
course, that was another reminder of how far ahead you guys were than me and I
really appreciate that. I also appreciate your patience and taking the time to point my
head in a direction and go, “No, no, no. You’ve got to look at this.” I think the
awareness about this paper came out of reading Mana Taheri’s work (Taheri et al.,
2016). It was a real eye opener, and it really changed how I saw stuff and I think it
informed us deeply on how we proceeded. Again, that’s something you guys offered
that from then on had a big impact on our approach. This is because when you
evaluate affect, you’re doing self-reporting. How you measure affect is self-reporting
and surveys, and I was always uncomfortable with that being the single data point for
measuring impact and improvement. Bloom’s taxonomy gave real language to what
we were doing in Designing as Performance. For example, if you’re an athlete and
you’re diving off of a 3-meter board, just saying “You can do it! You can do it!” does
not make you into an Olympic diver. This comes through understanding body
mechanics, practicing skills and understanding theory, like physics. When you
have these pieces coming together, the result is confidence. Bloom’s taxonomy
became one of the paradigms for how we teach and how we evaluate the impact
that Designing as Performance makes. We’re looking at all three levels, and that in
one of our studies we used the same instrument that design thinkers at Stanford
d. School use in their studies. We found out without even talking about creative
confidence, that our participant scores in creative confidence were significantly
higher because we were actually giving them real evidence grounded knowledge
about design team interaction and empirically vetted behaviors or skills to get stuff
done and therefore the study participants had increased confidence.
16 The Role of Multimodality in Designing a Performance
Baba: We were trying to explore a new paradigm for understanding the performance
of design, in terms of how can we study design teams. Multimodality comes up as a
promising and rich approach (see Fig. 6). We have to look at the cognitive and the
affective and the psychomotor all at once. If we know that questions in teams happen
in parallel with sketching, then it happens in parallel using metaphors, and it happens
in parallel using Dimensions of Engagement. We don’t have this linear process
where behaviors are happening one at a time. We have all these things happening at
once. Multimodality becomes the paradigm to look at how things combine, how they
are imbricated, and how we can study them beyond the very foundational CDR
approach.
When you think about it, design itself is multimodal. It is all three of these things.
You’re not designing ideas, unless it’s philosophy, but you’re still designing in all
three objects, behaviors, and narratives. You can integrate multimodality in
unpacking design behavior, dynamics, and processes. Multimodality in design is
the new paradigm. Now understanding design, designing, design behavior, or
distributed design output can be augmented using multimodal data sources and
methods. We can look at two dimensions: analytic and generative. With the analytic
Fig. 6 A diagram of multimodal analysis in Designing as Performance modalities, visual, spatial,

gestural, linguistic, and aural
aspect, we want to unpack characteristics and mechanisms of design behavior. We

could also take the generative side of how AI new tools can augment how we ask
questions. For example, how can your tools be used in a design session when you’re
asking questions and already seeing the visualizations of what the scenario could be
in real time. You can also start to create new words in interaction with technology.
Could you share your vision for the future of the analytic, for multimodality, and for
design and maybe touch on what generative multimodality for design could be like?
What do you see as challenges for the field?
Jonathan: It’s great; it’s just another tool. It’s just another way of opening up
spaces. It’s just another way of understanding thinking. It’s a technique. One of the
things I learned about Bach was his processes and practices. He would go to these
processes and follow them deeply, no matter where they went. That’s how you get
these very uncomfortable pieces, say “The Well-Tempered Clavier.” While some of
his pieces are just utterly delightful and make sense, others are just very uncomfort-
able. But he follows the process through and they all come from the same place of:
“Let me use my processes. And I’ll see where they take me, and I’ll invest in these
processes.” I see this stuff as just another process, and it actually can give us all sorts
of knowledge and information about people and what people want underneath the
surface—and some of it can even be random. But, so what? I mean, we have random
processes all the time anyway for discovering new meanings.
17 The Envision Bootcamp and the Future Developments

of Designing as Performance
Jonathan: The Envision Bootcamp (Cwiek et al., 2022) originated with you guys and
breaks new ground for a new kind of work in design theory and methodology. At the
Envision Bootcamp, we’ve opened up a lot of questions about what kind of analytic
analysis we can do. But we also challenge design research to go beyond the status
quo. Other fields can play a big role in helping us get to new frontiers in terms of
understanding design.
For example, in sports they no longer just have coaches engaged in making teams
better. You have to draw on other fields to improve the performance of athletes,
fields like computer vision, machine learning, and psychology. You have to draw on
other fields to improve the performances of dancers too. What is the analog for the
analysis and improvement of design behavior, and where is the frontier? How does
multimodality fit in?
So that’s another thing that comes out of sports. Having worked with the national
judo team. Everything was videotaped. You’d watch videotapes and analysis. They
do that in sports all the time. We weren’t doing that in design until Larry and his
students like John Tang (Tang, 1991; Tang & Leifer, 1988) came along. Larry’s big
takeaway from the last question he asked me at my doctoral defense was, “What’s
the most important part of this work you’ve done?” I probably said, “Wayfinding,
navigation,” or whatever. And he said, “No. Using video. Period.” And that has
proven right. Video leads not only to great successes in teaching and coaching teams
but leads also to multimodal analysis.
One of the purposes of interaction analysis and video recording is that other
people can look at it again, and again, and repeatedly apply different analysis
techniques and theories. I can give you a couple of takeaways from the Envision
Bootcamp that were remarkable. One was that teams could be considered brands.
Andrea Fronzetti (Fronzetti & Grippa, 2020) said, “What if a team was the brand and
we could analyze these semantic networks and all these other things that so we could
understand how a particular team functions as a brand?”
Baba: His reflection was multilevel. The team could be a brand. The gesture could
be a brand. The question could be a brand. Media could be a brand and that opens
it up.
Jonathan: Another takeaway that I thought was spectacular came in the form of a
side comment. There was one conversation—like live back chats—when Ola
(Cwiek et al., 2022) was looking at hypo-articulation and hyper-articulation and
regular articulation. In this, hypo means when you’re very quiet in what you’re
doing, but hyper is when you are saying things in a manner that is very loud and
articulated. Ola is a phonologist. She looks at the dataset from a phonology point of
view. Talk about a solicitation. I mean, this is what you know, Joaquin. It’s all about
solicitation. Different life forms are looking at this from different point of view and
articulating it with this wonderful technical language, which is the total key going.
High-performance teams are carrying out hyper-articulation behavior. It takes a lot
of energy to do that, as Ola pointed out.
Then we noticed when designers were making good offers [to other team
members]. With a legible offer, they were going into hyper-articulation. Not only
were they doing this verbally, but we also noticed that they were also doing it
gesturally. This side comment from a phonologist that comes from her field made us
see things in a new way. Now we want to explore hyper-articulation as a modality for
performative patterns. It added a whole new insight, and there was one after the other
like that in the Envision Bootcamp. Let’s look at how they’re doing this kind of
gesture or that kind of gesture. Let’s look at how they’re doing this or that. Let’s look
at all these different things from the frameworks and ethos of these different
domains.
There’s a place for machine learning to go through all of these, and if we have
endpoints, they can characterize what is in the mix that goes to the endpoint. This is
incredibly exciting, because it means we don’t have to do all of this by hand. Of
course, I would always say let’s go back and look at it. Machine learning has the
potential to pull out patterns and connections we never saw before. So, if there’s
something we’d see in someone with kinematic details, someone doing a small
gesture we never noticed before, but it is in critical places, we would go back and see
how it works. If we can see different patterns or arcs or single things that are
significant, we can then enlist machine learning and go back and examine.
Baba: What is it that’s happening in team interactions that we wouldn’t have seen
before can be made available through machine learning and other modalities, so I
think it’s really tremendous on so many levels. That is, multimodality opens up this
huge conversation as the next frontier for understanding designing and design
behavior. There are audio, gestures, semantic networks, tone of voice, facial action
units, synchrony between eye contacts of teams, and so much more. Prosody term
checking.
Jonathan: That’s a huge contribution. First of all, I love grounded research, but
this is not purely grounded research; it’s mixed methods, taking expertise from other
fields, looking at a dataset, and creating new insights and actionable distinctions.
When Ola is looking at team interactions, she’s applying extant frameworks and
analytic techniques to this. She’s not building them up from zero. And of course, it
expands and changes up the field. The same thing through for Andrea. The same
thing is true for him. Andrea is looking at the Envision dataset and seeing through
frameworks and processes that he has applied to understanding brands. And I think
that’s great because design is multidisciplinary, and now we’re really getting very
broad multidisciplinarity on that, which makes me really happy.
In terms of closing this chapter, it’s very important to include what’s happening
today and what you guys are doing. I am fascinated by how our work is reaching into
other places where design has not been recognized, yet. Digital health or the medical
field in general is one place we have explored together. For Joaquin, it spread out
into legal design and the performance of justice, and of digital technologies, law, and
people (Santuber & Edelman, 2022; Santuber et al., 2019; Santuber & Krawietz,
2021). For Babajide, it has spread out into mapping transformative interstitiality in
organizational networks (Owoyele & Edelman, 2021; Owoyele & Hajikhani, 2022;
Owoyele, 2022) and its influence of how actors navigate sustainability transitions.
Our work in Designing as Performance didn’t stop with the text, chapters, or
dissertations, but it became a performance that’s impacting other fields.
18 Limitations and Future Research of Designing

as Performance
The shortcomings and opportunities for future research and collaboration are as
follows:
18.1 The Dynamics among Engineers and Professionals
The Designing as Performance approach has its basis in the design practice of
engineers and professionals. There is a clear, strong influence of the places it has
been developed in the context of design thinking at Stanford University and the
Hasso Plattner Institute (Arnold, 2017; Thienen et al., 2018; Auernhammer & Roth,
2023; Auernhammer et al., 2022). In this regard, it does not follow the way people
without professional training engage in team collaboration. Moreover, the applica-

tion of the Designing as Performance approach and performative patterns has so far
been in professional and educational contexts. This is a limitation, especially when it
comes to the increasingly relevant practices of codesigning, participatory design, and
designing with/from/by the user. While this is a limitation, it is also the reason to be
for performative patterns. In this sense, the Designing as Performance approach aims
at breaking down the design practices and behaviors of good designers to make them
accessible to nonexpert groups. Thus, through the performative patterns, nonexperts
can enact a manageable corpus of behaviors in a way comparable to that of good
designers. In other words, performative patterns provide the nonexperts designers
with a repertoire of action-perception to see the world as a field of possibilities for
design and acting on it with skilled action. Leveraging multimodal analysis, future
research can look at forms in which design behaviors are imbricated with other
performative patterns coming from other disciplines or the everyday practice of
non-designers. Building on Enzo Mari’s notion of autoprogettazione (Mari, 2015)
and the idea of the self-design, as well as work on personal fabrication (Baudisch &
Mueller, 2016), future research can explore the behavior modalities of non-designers
and how these are supported by digital media.
18.2 Designing Is Also Out There
In a similar spirit as the first limitation addressed in the previous paragraph, a second
limitation comes from the context from which the performative patterns were
distilled. The team dynamics recorded, observed, and coded happened in a room
equipped for that purpose, namely, the Center for Design Research, at Stanford
University—“the Design Observatory” (Carrizosa et al., 2002). While this setting
represented a significant step forward for design research, it is also expressed an
important limitation. This is because the context of designing is moving “out there,
on the field,” where the challenges emerge, communities struggle, and services are
being delivered. Future research in Designing as Performance should evaluate the
potential and impact of design in new contexts, beyond the designer’s studio. In this
direction, new research could further explore the implications of using the Designing
as Performance approach in the implementation of interdisciplinary design labs in
new contexts and in radically distributed and extended environments.
18.3 Beyond a Human-Centered Approach to Designing
The basis of the development of Designing as Performance has been human-centered

design approaches. While human-centered and user-centered design approaches
have been central to the expansion of design into other fields and disciplines, in
recent years they have been also the object of criticism. This has been the case
regarding the ontological, epistemological, and ethical considerations of user-

centered design as the dominant paradigm in the field and its responsibility in the
current climate crisis (Tironi et al., 2022; Forlano, 2016). The emphasis of Designing
as Performance in the relation between designers and the material in use as a
constitutive element of the design practice goes in the direction of considering
seriously the agency of human and more-than-human actors in the performance of
designing. Future research in this entanglement of human and nonhuman agency
could be explored by using machine learning approaches to support the designing
process and to explore the performative qualities of algorithms and machine learning
models in the design process.
19 Conclusion
The genealogy of Designing as Performance shed light on the events that gave shape
to our approach to design. Stemming out of more than 20 years in engineering design
at the CDR, and 15 years of research and practice on design thinking through the
HPDTRP, D-a-P constitute a rich assemblage. This ensemble of disciplines, theo-
ries, and practices makes D-a-P a truly interdisciplinary contribution to the field of
design research. Specifically, it leverages approaches from art, music, and sports to
skill development, training, and education. Designing as Performance achieves a
radically novel approach by reconsidering the role of media and materials in the
practice of design, specifically the translation of information and knowledge into
different media. The relation between designers, the team, and their tool can be
characterized as a corpus of behaviors that constitutes the practice of designing,
hence its performativity. This performance of behaviors is articulated in the form of
performative patterns, as actionable micro behaviors. With an emphasis on experi-
ences, meaning, values, and metaphors, Designing as Performance has been applied
to different contexts such as healthcare, law, and sustainability transitions. Further-
more, it has contributed to value creation through design and digital prototyping. In
our most recent work, the Envision dataset has been analyzed under multimodal
approaches to data analysis with the support of machine learning models. Designing
as Performance sets fertile ground for radical interdisciplinary collaboration, open
science and research, and transformative impact by continuing to bridge the gap
between research and practice in designing.
Acknowledgments We would like to express our sincere gratitude to the Hasso Plattner Founda-
tion for their generous support through the Hasso Plattner Design Thinking Research Program.
Special thanks go to the faculty of the Design Division at Stanford University and Emeritus Prof.
Larry Leifer and his team at the CDR. We extend our acknowledgment to the Hasso Plattner
Institute in Potsdam and its director, Prof. Christoph Meinel, and our colleagues. Many thanks go
out to the teachers and researchers from institutions we have named and those who we have missed.
We have drawn the many insights that have informed our work from you. This includes colleagues
and mentors in design theory and methodology, in cognitive sciences, and in design itself. We
would like to thank our business partners who allowed us to try out our research material into their
innovation projects and practices. Our several research-to-practice loops would have not been
possible without your trust and support. We would also like to thank the many participants in our
studies, our students, and the participants of studies of other researchers who have bravely given
their time and energy so that we could observe, analyze, and learn about the mechanics of high-
performance teams. Thank you to Dr. Sharon Therese Nemeth for editorial support in this chapter.
Last, our gratitude goes to these almost 5 years of working and learning together, at the
Research2Impact group. What a journey it has been!
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Understanding Innovation

Design Thinking Research

ISSN 2197-5752 ISSN 2197-5760 (electronic)

Palo Alto, CA, USA Hasso Plattner

Part 1 Application of Design Thinking to Governance and

Assisting Learning and Insight in Design Using Embodied

Part 3 Enhancement through Design Thinking

Part 4 Design Thinking Best Practices and Strategy

Christoph Meinel and Larry Leifer

1 Fourteen Years of the HPI-Stanford Design Thinking

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 1

2 HPDTRP: First Year 2008/2009

3 HPDTRP: Second Year 2009/2010

4 HPDTRP: Third Year 2010/2011

The third volume in the series, Measuring Performance in Context focused on

5 HPDTRP: Fourth Year 2011/2012

In volume four of the Design Thinking Research, Building Innovation Eco-Systems,

6 HPDTRP: Fifth Year 2012/2013

7 HPDTRP: Sixth Year 2013/2014

science-focused part of the discipline, which is context independent, and engineering

8 HPDTRP: Seventh Year 2014/2015

Volume 7, entitled Taking Breakthrough Research Home, summarized many impor-

9 HPDTRP: Eighth Year 2015/2016

Collaboration versus cooperation was a fundamental question that our projects

10 HPDTRP: Ninth Year 2016/2017

In Volume 8, we shared information on John E. Arnold and his “creative

11 HPDTRP: Tenth Year 2017/2018

The second section of Volume 10 dedicates itself to exploring effective team

12 HPDTRP: Eleventh Year 2018/2019

13 HPDTRP: Twelfth Year 2019/2020

2021). Design thinking techniques prove to be a fruitful addition to the scrum

14 HPDTRP: Thirteenth Year 2020/2021

In Achieving Real Innovation, which is Volume 13 of the Understanding Innovation

15 HPDTRP: Fourteenth Year 2021/2022—The Recent

immediately. This is a user-centered innovation and the programmer sees immediate

Falk Uebernickel’s group concluded that companies using human-centered dig-

16 Design Thinking Today Around the World

Technology and IT Systems Engineering. Second is to explore and enhance the

Sheri D. Sheppard, Helen L. Chen, George Toye, Aya Mouallem,

S. D. Sheppard (✉) · H. L. Chen · G. Toye · L. Shluzas · T. Bunk · N. Elﬁki · J. J. L. Lamprecht ·

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 25

professional and career capabilities, particularly around innovation and entrepre-

datasets. We collectively designed these qualitative and quantitative research instru-

2 Underlying Theoretical Frameworks

2.1 Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT)

2.2 Academic-Workplace Relational (AWR) Model

Fig. 2 The academic-

3 Context for the Four Interview Studies

3.1 ME 218 and ME 310: Similarities and Differences

alumni by engaging students in teamwork, cohort collaborations, and engaging

3.2 ME 218 and ME 310 Interpreted Against

3.3 Similarities in the Career Paths of ME 218 and ME 310

Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services 16.0% 23.6%

Manufacturing 13.8% 13.8%

Information 12.1% 10.3%

Health Care and Social Assistance 9.9% 5.4%

Transportation and Warehousing 7.1% 5.4%

Educational Services 5.2% 5.9%

Management of Companies and Enterprises 4.9% 6.4%

Finance and Insurance 2.7% 2.5%