What is Design Thinking?

Whether you are new or "used to" Design Thinking, there is value in understanding the model taught at Stanford and designed by David Kelly and Tim Brown. If you only have 5 minutes, watch the video above, read below and click on the blog article link. If you have more time and are ready to go deeper - skip to the end of this article for a link to the free Stanford design thinking virtual crash course through the dschool. 

Here is a useful blog post by neo mobile and introductory material describing design thinking.

Are you ready to learn more? 

Here is a free design thinking virtual crash course on design thinking through Stanford University's dschool. Thnaks for sharing this! 

And now ... my 2cents. Why is this important? 

For career creatives and innovative teams, the flow of "Design Thinking" will seem familiar. Parts of the mindfulness and the experimentation loop (empathize, define ideate, prototype, test) may be built into your work without realizing it. Even if part or all of these activities have become built in, exploring each part has value because we can investigate our mindset and improve. We often skip important activities or go through them so rapidly that we can easily miss their value. For example, it's most important to really *listen* and empathize to understand the audience you're solving for - but that step is frequently skipped in cases where we assume we know the audience based on our prior experience. 

I also think it's cool that design thinking is an innovation in itself because it moves us beyond our early understanding of creative thought. Almost 100 years ago Graham Wallas created a simple model describing the "stages" of creativity. Take a look at the model described below and see the intersection and how design thinking goes beyond the creative process described. 

1. Preparation (an individual assesses his desire, creatively using appropriate tools from the appropriate field of study)
2. Incubation (an individual disengages from the creative process; Wallas believed that detachment from the creative objective, "taking a break," stimulates thought)
3. Illumination (the discovery of the idea; according to Wallas, illumination is characterized by the sudden realization of the idea—"Eureka!")
4. Verification (the successful application of the idea).

While there are similarities, Design thinking moves us to a new and stronger place by incorporating empathy, prototyping and feedback.