INNOVATION MANAGEMENT & ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Subject Code: 107758(Open to all branches)

UNIT-III : Design Thinking CO3

CO3: Explain the diverse methods employed in design thinking, establish a workable design
thinking framework and demonstrate the critical theories of design, systems thinking,
and design methodologies

Syllabus: UNIT-III : Design Thinking

Basics of Design Thinking, Why Design Thinking, Design Thinking Mindset (Inspiration, Ideation and
Implementation) Design thinking process, (Empathy, Define, Ideate, Prototype, Test).
Design team-Team formation, Conceptualization- Visual thinking, Drawing/sketching, New concept
thinking, Concept Generation Methodologies, Concept Selection, Concept Testing, Opportunity
identification
Prototyping- Principles of prototyping, Prototyping technologies.
 Definition of Design Thinking

• Design thinking is a non-linear, iterative process that teams use to understand users,
challenge assumptions, redefine problems and create innovative solutions to prototype
and test.

• It involves five phases:

 Empathize

 Define

 Ideate

 Prototype and

 Test

It is most useful to tackle problems that are ill-defined or unknown

Fig-1: Phases of Design Thinking

Fig-2: Design Thinking –A Five stage Process

• Stage 1: Emphasize—Research Your Users' Needs

o This phase is basically the Information Gathering phase.

o Business-related information gathered by searching and understanding the customer’s views.
o It is done by interviews, group discussions, and most of the observations.
o Along with this the questions related to What, How, Why take into consideration.

• Stage 2: Define—State Your Users' Needs and Problems

o In this phase, we focus on the collection and classification of the information from the empathize
phase.
o The information gets categorized according to ideal customers, their problems, the solution to
their problems and needs, and fears of users that we have to consider.

• Stage 3: Ideate—Challenge Assumptions and Create Ideas

o In this phase, we give an optimized and real-time solution to the problems.
o No irrespective and illogical thinking accepted.
o These solutions are raised by Sketching and Prototyping.

• Stage 4: Prototype—Start to Create Solutions

o This is an experimental phase.
o The aim is to identify the best possible solution for each problem found.
o The team should produce some inexpensive, scaled-down versions of the product (or specific
features found within the product) to investigate the ideas you’ve generated.
o In the prototyping phase, the basic implementation of the design thinking solution is used to
verify the solution in real life.
o During prototyping it finally takes our idea in real life.
o The prototype must be less expensive and the very first version of the ideal solution.

• Stage 5: Test—Try Your Solutions Out

o After the above phases finally, it is time to verify the product in real life.
o Customers are able to use it and give feedback for their personal experience.
o Also, the designer can ask questions on how to improve such products for better usage.
o Teams often use the results to redefine one or more further problems.
o So, you can return to previous stages to make further iterations, alterations and refinements –
to find or rule out alternative solutions.
BASICS OF DESIGN THINKING

o Design thinking is a methodology that designers use to brainstorm and solve complex problems
related to designing and design engineering.
o It is also beneficial for designers to find innovative, desirable and never-thought-before solutions
for customers and clients.
o Design thinking is used extensively in the area of healthcare and wellness, agriculture, food
security, education, financial services, and environmental sustainability, to name a few.
o Design thinking has helped in the digital space, contributed to the development of physical
products, spurred social innovation projects and much more.
o The iterative design process helps the designers to involve clients and customers in meaningful
ways.
o It is not just a strategy to come up with feasible solutions to a problem, but also a method to
think of unimaginable solutions and then trying to make them not just feasible, but also viable.
o Design thinking is a blend of logic, powerful imagination, systematic reasoning and intuition to
bring to the table the ideas that promise to solve the problems of the clients with desirable
outcomes.
o It helps to bring creativity with business insights.
o Design thinking is a methodology that designers use to brainstorm and solve complex problems
related to designing and design engineering.
o It is also beneficial for designers to find innovative, desirable and never-thought before solutions
for customers and clients.
o Brainstorm: to try to solve a problem by talking with other people : to discuss a problem and
suggest solutions as in figure:
o

• Examples:

 Mind Mapping.
 Brainwriting.
 SWOT Analysis.
 Role Storming.
 Step Ladder Brainstorming.
 Design Charrette.
Mind Mapping

• A mind map is an image that contains any sort of graphical element to express an idea as in
figure given below:

Brain writing
• 6-3-5 means Six people sit in a table to write 3 ideas in 5 minutes.

• To write down their ideas about a particular question or problem on sheets, as in figure given
below:

SWOT Analysis

• SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats, and so a SWOT Analysis
is a technique for assessing these four aspects of your business
Role storming

• Jane and Bob are sales managers who rarely interact personally with clients.

• In Role storming, they interact as Client and Sales Person.

• Jane asks for detailed information about the product before she makes a purchase, and the sales
person realizes he has almost no details available.

Step Ladder Brainstorming

• Developed in 1992, this style of brainstorming encourages every member in the team to
contribute individually before being influenced by everyone else.

• Once the topic is shared, everyone leaves the room except two members of the team.

• These two members will then discuss the topic and their ideas.

Design Charrette

A Design Charrette is a type participatory planning process that assembles an interdisciplinary team -
typically consisting of planners, citizens, city officials, architects, landscape architects, transportation
engineers, parks and recreation officials, and other stakeholders - to create a design and implementation
plan for a specific area.
WHY DESIGN THINKING

What is the main reason for Design Thinking?

• Design thinking is an extension of innovation that allows you to design solutions for end users with a
single problem statement in mind.
• It not only imparts valuable skills but can help advance your career.
• It's also a collaborative endeavor that can only be mastered through practice with peers.
• Design thinking puts understanding context and continuous engagement with people at the heart of
the practice for determining what problem to solve, what metrics drive success, and what business
will emerge from solving the problem.
• Design thinking enables organizations to create lasting value for consumers.
• The process is useful in any complex system (not just design systems) because it:
• Aims to solve a concrete human need
• Tackles problems that are ambiguous or difficult to define
• Leads to more innovative solutions
• Makes organizations run faster and more efficiently
What industries and roles can benefit from design thinking?
• While design thinking originated with designers, it is now widely used by peple from all disciplines.
• Even among design agencies the work is famously cross-functional: IDEO and similar agencies hire
non-designers—chefs, engineers, social scientists, biologists—and integrate them into their project
teams to add perspective.
• One reason for the proliferation of design thinking in industries is that it’s useful to break down
problems in any complex system, be it business, government, or social organizations.
• It can be used to explore big questions about how to respond to the growth of technology and
globalization, how to pivot in response to rapid change, and how to support individuals while catering
to larger organizations.
• Design thinking can be used by all departments in a business.
• It can be fostered by bright, airy physical workspaces that cater to the way employees prefer to work.
• To employ design thinking in all projects, managers should first define the consumers they’re trying to
help and then employ the five stages of design thinking to define and tackle the identified problems.
• Employing a design-thinking process makes it more likely a business will be innovative, creative, and
ultimately more human.
DESIGN THINKING MINDSET (INSPIRATION, IDEATION AND IMPLEMENTATION)

• DT often articulates a mix of elements, tools and approaches required to see DT realized in
individuals and organizations.

• It is not easy to refine an exact understanding of the complete elements that can be considered a
DT mindset.

• However, elements of the DT mindset are described in many ways throughout the literature,
often based on circumstantial evidence rather than empirical research.

The most important foundational piece of design thinking is integrating the end users’ needs before you
begin creating, so time isn’t wasted solving the wrong problems.

It’s a mindset of relentlessly trying to understand the user and problem at hand.

The figure provides an overview of the eleven different design mindsets:

 1. Empathetic towards people’s needs and context

2. Collaboratively geared and embracing diversity

3. Inquisitive and open to new perspectives and learning

4. Mindful of process and thinking modes

5. Experiential intelligence

6. Taking action deliberately and overtime

7. Consciously creative

8. Accepting of uncertainty and open to risk

9. Modeling behavior

10. Desire and determination to make a difference

11. Critically questioning

Design Mindset - Actionable design thinking steps

• Four key ways that benefits an organization by implementing design thinking are :

 Focus on the problem

 Develop design thinking skills on your team

 Have (or start having) more debriefs

 Embrace the feedback loop

 Focus on the problem

 Companies often fail at effectively solving problems or meeting goals because they don’t
correctly identify the user or problem initially.
 To identify your problem, you can:
a. Listen. Put yourself in users’ shoes and think through their lenses.
b. Ask questions. Who encounters the problem and why? Why did past attempts to solve it
fail?
c. Have collaborative conversations. Working in silos is a trap. Engage with everyone, not
just your team.
Stay unbiased. Should not assume that the problem is immediately understood or the solution is
found. By being open-minded might find something that weren’t expecting.

 Develop design thinking skills on your team

 Traditionally, project managers or engineers handle the ideation phase of the design thinking
process.
 But it’s not limited to those functions.
 Everyone can and should participate by asking questions, understanding and testing.
 To develop the team’s design thinking skills:
a. Practice the mindset.
i. Start implementing the process in your role whenever you can.
ii. For example, if you oversee onboarding, think about ways you can test a new
approach or understand the new employee mentality by gathering feedback
through a survey.
iii. Remain open to new outcomes.
 b. Foster interest.
i. If you have team members who want to take initiative and expand their skill sets, make
sure to nurture that — by encouraging experimentation or perhaps reimbursing costs for
design thinking classes.
 Have (or start having) more debriefs
 This is a continuous process.
 It’s a process of iterating on previous experiments so the product or outcome can improve.
 However, learning’s can’t be implemented if there’s no feedback.
 To create a learning culture through gathering feedback, you can:
a. Be open about what went wrong.
i. Set an example by demonstrating failure is an expected part of design thinking.
ii. Openly discuss which tests failed and why.
b. View failure as learning.
i. Trying and failing a new approach serves the crucial function of narrowing the list
of possible processes.
ii. This gets you and your team closer to the best approach. Encourage failure.

 Embrace the feedback loop

 The goal of design thinking isn’t perfection but finding the best answer possible.
 And the best answer likely won’t be the first answer.
 A constant feedback loop is essential.
 To implement a feedback loop:
a. Test and iterate as much as possible.
i. Find new ways and angles to try out your assumptions.
ii. You might come across something you would’ve never thought of otherwise.
b. Have feedback sessions often.
i. When you embrace feedback, it creates a safe space to innovate and prevents the
same mistakes from happening again.
 So to be relevant, a person will need design principles.

• Design thinking can help you and your teams identify and solve meaningful problems. The
process is like a muscle you build and use.
• With a design thinking mindset, you can spend time effectively solving the right problems and
building processes that will impact your organization’s success.
DESIGN TEAM-TEAM FORMATION
 To create a strong team it should be ensured that all team members get united in a project
completely, should also gather the team and discuss the team values, principles and strategies
together. Should share ideas and try to make a version that meets the need of different members.
 There are 5 stages commonly known as:
 Forming – getting projects started
 Storming – it’s inevitable, there’s going to be a conflict
 Norming- finding the rythm
 Performing – High performance is the name of the game and
 Adjourning-Success! You made it
 As a way to improve teamwork and help companies become more efficient, researcher Bruce Wayne,
talked about the four stages of development all teams move through over time: forming, storming,
norming, and performing.
 Tuckman and doctoral student Mary Ann Jensen added a fifth stage called adjourning to make it the
“five stages of team development.”

Fig:-Five stages of team formation

 Forming: This is where team members first meet. It’s important for team leaders to facilitate the
introductions and highlight each person’s skills and background. Team members are also given project
details and the opportunity to organize their responsibilities.
 Storming: At this stage, team members openly share ideas and use this as an opportunity to stand out
and be accepted by their peers. Team leaders help teams in this stage by having a plan in place to
manage competition among team members, make communication easier, and make sure projects stay
on track.
 Norming: By now, teams have figured out how to work together. There’s no more internal competition,
and responsibilities and goals are clear. Each person works more efficiently because he or she has
learned how to share their ideas and listen to feedback while working toward a common goal.
 Performing: There’s a high level of cohesion and trust between team members. Teams are functioning
at peak efficiency with less oversight from team leaders. Issues still come up, but at this point, teams
have strategies for resolving problems without compromising timelines and progress.
 Adjourning: Teams complete their project and debrief on what went well and what could be improved
for future projects. Afterwards, team members move on to new projects. Now let’s look at how to use
this model to amplify the strengths within your remote marketing team so that projects are successful
and completed on time.
IMPORTANCE OF DESIGN THINKING

• Design thinking is a blend of logic, powerful imagination, systematic reasoning and intuition to
bring to the table the ideas that promise to solve the problem desirable outcomes.
• It helps to bring creativity with business insights.

Fig: Distinctive concept of Design Thinking/Engineering Systems Thinking

CONCEPTUALIZATION
Visual Thinking is the expression of ideas or thoughts through images either drawings, pictures, and
graphs. It is a very useful tool when we work in teams, because sharing ideas using images help us to
communicate better and more efficiently than by simply talking and writing, thus we increase the group
effectiveness.

Brainstorming
Also known as mind maps or spider diagrams. They are probably the most popular form of visual
thinking, and what springs to mind when someone mentions thinking visually. Brainstorming is a way in
which we can separate ideas into themes and see connections not seen before.

Drawing/sketching
5 types of sketching techniques that can boost your design process
Sketching is a way to articulate thoughts when it comes to writing. Most of the times it is difficult to
communicate the ideas that is in the heads in a visual way.

1) Crazy 8’s
Phase of Design Process: Ideation
Crazy 8’s is an exercise used during the Sketching phase of a Design Sprint. The purpose of this
exercise is to generate a wide range of solutions in a short period of time. Basically, each person has 8
minutes to sketch out 8 ideas. Prior to sketching, all sprint participants should have a clear
understanding of what problem is and why it’s important to solve.
Technique: Start with a blank piece of paper. Fold the paper in half four times to create 8 sections. Set
eight 1-minute timers. Sketch 1 idea per minute in each section.

2) 8-4-2-1 Rapid Prototyping

Phase of Design Process: Ideation, Prototyping
This is a rapid prototyping method that I learned in my post-grad program. Practicing this exercise helps
you incorporate feedback at all stages of a design. It’s also a quick exercise to get your team involved in
at the early stages of a project -especially teams that are not familiar with UX processes.
Technique: Sketch for 8 minutes, 6 minutes, 4 minutes and 2 minutes with 2 minute feedback sessions
in between. It helps to provide the person giving you feedback with a bit of context about the problem
before you begin sketching.
3) Breadboarding Sketch
Phase of Design Process: Ideation, Prototyping
Breadboarding is a method used by electrical engineers to test out a concept using lights and
connectors before creating a physical prototype. It allows you to experiment and explore different
approaches when solving problems in circuit design. This idea was adapted in the Shape Up
process used by Basecamp as a way to quickly fit new ideas into an existing flow.

4) Fat Marker Sketches

Phase of Design Process: Ideation, Prototyping
This is another method introduced in the Shape up process where the emphasis is to communicate
ideas at the “right level of abstraction”. Using a fat marker to draw prevents you from jumping into details
too quickly. Ideas should be communicated simply by giving context to how the feature would fit into the
product as a whole.
Technique: Done with fat marker. Sketches drawn with fat marker are drawn with broad strokes. This
makes it difficult to add detail to the sketches. So it is started with the key elements and then
affordances is added as needed. The main problem, cases and constraints are identified before
sketching out the ideas.

5) Storyboarding with “Snapshots”

Phase of Design Process: Pitch / Solution
A twist on the traditional storyboarding is to use this method to communicate processes or interactions
that would normally be difficult to explain. This is done by creating “snapshots” of a process or
interaction and then adding annotations for further explanation.
Technique: Sketch out the first interaction, take a picture and annotate. Add in the next part of the
interaction and repeat this process to create a linear (step-by-step) story of a process.

New concept thinking & Concept Generation Methodologies

The concept of design thinking has been around since the late sixties, but over the last decade, this
approach to problem-solving has influenced business, the sciences, and technology. Defined in the
simplest terms, design thinking is a methodology for tackling complex problems using a solution-based
approach. The five basic steps of design thinking are:
Empathize: Understand how the problem you’re addressing affects people.
Define: Use your learnings from the empathize stage to define the problem as a human-centered
problem statement.
Ideate: Employ various idea-generating methods to identify possible solutions to the problem.
Prototype: Produce inexpensive, simple versions of multiple possible solutions.
Test: Test the various prototypes thoroughly to determine which is best.
Concept Selection
Concept Selection is an element of the design process. It enables to pick the idea(s) which best satisfy
the Product Design Specification (PDS). The design process should begin by firstly understanding the
customer need, developing a PDS and then generating a range of concepts to consider. Concept
selection has been shown to be the gatekeeper of the product design and development process due to
its impact on the quality, cost, and desirability of the final product, as well as its impact on the
development time and cost of later design stages.
The identification of consistent solutions and elimination of partial solutions, which do not fit together, is
only the first step during the process of concept selection.

Concept Testing,
Concept testing is defined as a research method that involves asking customers questions about your
concepts and ideas for a product or service before actually launching it. Thus, you can gauge your
customers' acceptance and their willingness to buy and therefore make critical decisions before the
launch.
Concept testing is a research method for gauging user reactions to product or design ideas. After the
ideation phase, a team creates prototypes of the frontrunners and then puts them in front of real users.
They ask them questions via a focus group, 1:1 interview, or survey to gather insights.

Opportunity identification

Opportunity identification in business refers to the process of identifying potential market opportunities
that a business can pursue to grow and expand its operations.
The steps in identification of business opportunities: Conduct market research to identify industry trends,
customer needs, and potential gaps in the market. Analyze the competition to understand their strengths
and weaknesses. Identify potential target markets and customer segments.
 PROTOTYPING

Principles of prototyping

A prototype is the transformation of the solution idea into a tangible artefact, which allows testing
and talking with end- users, in search of feedback to improve our proposal.

When facing prototyping for the first time, the aim is to build something that allows us to learn, but
without falling into the construction of a crappy version of our solution.
Prototype is a preliminary working version of an information system for demonstration and evaluation
purpose.

Prototyping is a system development method in which a prototype is built, tested and then reworked as
necessary until an acceptable prototype is finally achieved, from which the complete system can be
developed. Prototyping is the process of building an experimental system that demonstrates the features
of a proposed system by end users to evaluate by interacting with the prototype user can get better idea
of their information requirements.

10 principles of prototyping, which serve as a guide to know how to transform our idea into something
tangible that allows to talk to end-users, without falling into the most common mistakes are as follows:.

The Principles of Prototyping

Here are the main key principles for a good prototype:

 Principle 1. The objective is to learn from our user.

 Principle 2. First, define what you want to test.

 Principle 3. Set expectations.

 Principle 4. We plan less and prototype more.

 Principle 5. Start with low fidelity prototypes, iterate and refine.

 Principle 6. Draw! Learn to think with your hand.

 Principle 7. We prototype just what we need.

 Principle 8. We do not fall in love with our first ideas.

 Principle 9. Calm down! The first prototype is going to be rough.

 Principle 10. Keep track of what you have learned.

The prototype endorsed by the user can be used as a template to create the final system. It is an
iterative, trial & error process that takes place between the developers and users. There are 4 steps in
the process of prototyping.
Steps in Prototyping

Step-1: Identify the user’s basic information requirements

User articulates his or her basic needs in terms of output from the user, the designer responsibility is to
establish realistic user expectation and estimate the cost of developing an operational prototype.

Step-2: Develop the initial prototype system

Objective is to build a functional interactive system that meets user basic stated information
requirements.

Step-3: Use of Prototype system to refine user requirements

The initially developed prototype is delivered to the user to identify further refinements/ changes required
in the prototype.

Step-4: Revise and enhance the Prototype

Designer makes necessary changes pointed out by user-step 2 & 3 are iterative.

Operational Prototype: is the most functional kind of prototype & may evolve into the final prototype.

Identify Basic Step-1

Requirements

Develop a
Step-2
working
Prototype

Use the
Step-3
Prototype

Yes
User
Satisfied?
Operational
No
Prototype
Revise &
enhance the
Step-4
Prototype
Advantages

1. Ability to “try out” ideas without incurring large cost.

2. Lower overall development costs when requirement change frequently.
3. The ability to get functioning system into the hands of the user quickly.
4. Reduced application development time to achieve a functioning system.
5. Information system can be developed more efficiently & effectively.
6. Prototyping is especially valuable for the design of the end-user interface of an information
system.
7. Helps to determine technical feasibility.

Disadvantages

1. Iterative nature
Prototypes requires at least 2 iterations. It may become an unending processof refinement, which may
take too much time, money & effort.

2. Prototypes are usually not complete system and there is a great temptations for most developers
to create a prototype & stick to it even though it has flaws.
3. Due to frequent changes, management of the development process also becomes difficult.
4. Time consuming model & slow process.
 PROTOTYPING TECHNOLOGIES
Prototyping is a critical step in product development that allows companies to perfect their design before
bringing products to market. Although testing prototypes can take some time, new prototyping technologies
are faster and offer better results in bringing products to market.
There are several technologies for designing parts with rapid prototyping. They can be divided into three
groups. The first includes additive technologies, the second includes so-called subtractive techniques
and the final category is low-pressure injection.
1. Additive techniques
They represent a process for producing a part by the addition of material (in liquid, powder or wire form), by
successively stacking layers one on top of the other. The latter are solidified by a physical or chemical
process (laser, light, strong heat, etc.). They are opposed to subtractive techniques that work by removing
material.
Below are the principal additive technologies:
 Stereolithography or SLA: This technology works by adding epoxy resin, an equivalent material.
The part is then polymerized by means of UV light to solidify it.
 Fused deposition modeling or FDM: The plastic material is deposited in the form of wire through a
nozzle.
 Powder sintering: Layers of powder are successively added and solidified. This technique also uses
an equivalent material.
 Selective laser sintering or SLS: The material in powder form is placed in a tray. A laser is used to
sinter and solidify the part.
 3D printing: A machine deposits resin on a tray layer by layer. The material is subsequently
solidified.

2. Subtractive techniques: CNC machining

CNC machining, also called digital milling, works by removing material. A computerized milling machine mills
a block of material to shape the plastic parts. This process has the advantage of using the right material. The
characteristics of the parts are thus very close to reality.
3. Low-pressure injection: Silicone molding
Vacuum duplication works by injecting a liquid material, polyurethane (PU), into a silicone mold. The
impression of this mold corresponds to the shape of the part to be produced. The many types of PU available
make it possible to get as close as possible to the right materials. Thus, the parts are very similar to series
parts. In addition, the cost and speed of production of vacuum casting make it the most relevant technology
for small series.
Additive technologies are used primarily for projects with no functional or visual requirements. They are useful
for visualizing a part. Conversely, CNC machining makes it possible to design prototypes that are very close
to reality mechanically and visually. This process of removing material is suitable for quantities not exceeding
ten parts. Beyond this, vacuum duplication is recommended because it allows economies of scale and saves
a great deal of time. Also, discover the difference between 3D printing and rapid prototyping.
Lastly, the use of machine learning and artificial intelligence in prototyping is expected to increase in the
future. These technologies can be used to automate the prototyping process, making it faster and more
efficient.

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