Design Thinker Blog

Four Strategies for Increasing Empathy

Recently, I was asked the question, how can we increase the use of empathy? It is exciting to see the growing interest in developing empathy. It seems empathy is finally being recognized for the important role it plays in our social and organizational interactions. Empathy is a foundational principle of Design Thinking. Without empathy, it is impossible…

Empathy: Why It Needs To Be Part Of Your Competitive Strategy

Lately, terms like “human-centered” and “customer-centric” are becoming part of business lingo. These terms call for companies to examine their business from the perspective of their customers, to understand the challenges of the people they serve, to see the world through the eyes of their customers. In other words, there is a growing call for…

Failed? Why you need to share your failure story

Design thinking encourages failure because failure is a critical step on the road to success. Most of our lives, we have been trained to believe that failing is bad. We have been conditioned to avoid failure and somewhere along the way we have learned to associate failing at something to mean the same thing as…

Design Thinking vs Design Thinkers: What is the difference?

Over the past decade or so, the concept of Design Thinking has become a popular approach to problem solving. In some circles, Design Thinking is viewed as a methodology with several different process models (see IDEO, Hasso Plattner Institut, as examples) that provide guidance on how to engage in this process. In other circles, Design…

Design Thinking Process Models: Which Process Model Should I Use?

A question that emerges when discussing adopting a design thinking approach is, which process model should we use. Several different process models are available (see IDEO’s HCD Process, d.school’s 5 Stage Process, the Double Diamond Process from the UK Design Council) and it can be confusing trying to figure out which process to follow. So,…

Design Thinking is NOT…Three Misconceptions Addressed

Design thinking has become a familiar concept in the business world with more and more companies adopting this approach to improve innovation and drive change. Yet, there appear to be some misconceptions about design thinking. So, let’s clear up a few misconceptions about design thinking. 1. Design thinking is NOT about artistic skills. When…

What is Design Thinking?: A Brief Introduction

What is Design Thinking? One of the challenges with introducing the concept of design thinking is that this concept does not have one agreed upon definition. Depending on the source you consult the definition defers slightly and the concept can be a bit elusive to understand. In an attempt to address this, I consulted 164 pieces…