What came before design thinking?
There were two main approaches: brainstorm then project manage, and creative problem solving.
Brainstorm then project manage
This primitive approach was widely employed until the turn of the millennium, even in otherwise sophisticated organisations, and I understand it’s still commonplace. Sometimes the brainstorming part is nothing more than meeting participants putting forward their pre-baked ideas, as seen on the TV show The Apprentice.
Since the 1960s some businesses and nonprofits have employed a method called Synectics as a more fruitful alternative to Osborn-style brainstorming. Today, little is heard of the method.
Synectics is more demanding of the subject than brainstorming, as the steps involved imply that the process is more complicated and requires more time and effort. The success of the Synectics methodology depends highly on the skill of a trained facilitator.
Wikipedia – Synectics
Creative problem solving
Osborn Parnes Creative Problem Solving Process
Alex Osborn and Sid Parnes introduced their Creative Problem Solving (CPS) Process in the 1960s.
Originally it consisted of five steps:
- Fact-finding
- Problem-finding
- Idea-finding
- Solution-finding
- Acceptance-finding
The approach was popularised by The Creative Problem Solving Group, Inc. Founded by Isaksen and better known as known as Creative Problem Solving Buffalo or CPSB, the company developed a proprietary version of the CPS process, the popularity of which led to a licensing arrangement with the auditing and consulting firm Coopers & Lybrand (now PricewaterhouseCoopers).
Design thinking in brief
In the 1990s, David Kelley and Tim Brown of the global design and innovation company IDEO brought together principles, concepts and methods that had been brewing for many years and distilled them into a unified concept they named design thinking.
Later they adapted the approach for business management and organisational change applications, working in partnership with renowned strategy practitioner Roger Martin.
Design thinking consists of five non-linear, iterative phases (or kinds of work):
Empathise (empathising)
Define (defining)
Ideate (ideating)
Prototype (prototyping)
Test (testing)
Nielsen Norman Group adds a sixth phase, Implement (implementing).
Others use different labels, or include additional phases, or both.
In 2022, IDEO adopted a six-aspect design thinking process: Frame a question; Gather inspiration; Generate ideas; Make ideas tangible; Test to learn; Share the story. The firm also talks about “the three core activities of design thinking: Inspiration, Ideation and Implementation”.
Design thinking is a broad approach, not a codified method
Although each entrepreneur, corporate team or consulting firm will practise design thinking in its own way, using methods of its own choosing, a design thinking project generally displays the following characteristics:Design thinking is both an ideology and a process that seeks to solve complex problems in a user-centric way.
It focuses on achieving practical results and solutions that are:
- Technically feasible: They can be developed into functional products or processes;
- Economically viable: The business can afford to implement them;
- Desirable for the user: They meet a real human need.
Source: What is Design Thinking Process? by Nasir Ahmed
Jump ahead to read more
The needs and concerns of the intended customers or users are kept to the fore.
Work is undertaken by a multidisciplinary team.
Work is iterative.
Experimentation is encouraged. Testing and prototyping begin early.
There are multiple periods of diverge-converge work. Some practitioners refer to each period as a diamond — see for example the Design Council’s Double Diamond framework.
The primary method for producing ideas is brainstorming or one of its derivatives.
The Now-to-New philosophy and practice in brief
As a species, our common purpose is transcending the mundane, imagining what could be, bringing it into being and realising its value generation potential.
We are fully equipped in mind, body and spirit for doing this work.
The crux of a successful Now-to-New (innovation, change or problem solving) project is a high potential idea derived from a vision of realised potential.
The vision of realised potential and high potential idea are brought forth by natural imagining (an activity), and not by synthetic imagination (an abstraction). Brainstorming and other contrived methods employ synthetic imagination.
A high potential idea is conceived in the psyche of a single individual, not in some fanciful group mind.
Downstream value is generated through the interaction between the value beneficiary (such as a customer or user) and the value generator (product, service, facility etc).
Not only are upstream imagination and downstream value realisation equally important – they are inseparable.
Now-to-New projects are designed to generate value that is extensive (widespread) or exceptional (hard or impossible to acquire by other means).
And now in more detail
Our common purpose is transcending the mundane, imagining what could be, bringing it into being and realising its value generation potential.
The human being is fully equipped in mind, body and spirit for doing Now-to-New work.
The Now-to-New wayfinder’s embodied model
Dual torus image sourced from Michael C Grasso and decoloured | View source and read about Grasso’s Menorah Matrix
Read more about the embodied Now-to-New modelThe crux of a successful Now-to-New (innovation, change or problem solving) project is a high potential idea derived from a vision of realised potential.
A high potential idea is one that’s both potent and fitting.
A high potential idea is derived from a vision of realised potential. This is a depiction — an actual picture accompanied by a vivid and compelling synopsis — of how the world will look, sound and feel when the new creation exists in its finished state (even though you do not yet know what form it will take) and its value generation potential is being realised without constraint.
The vision of realised potential and high potential idea are brought forth by natural imagining (right hemisphere activity), not synthetic imagination (left hemisphere).
My understanding of the respective roles of the brain’s left and right hemispheres comes largely from the work of Dr Iain McGilchrist, author of The Master and His Emissary and The Matter With Things. The writings of Jill Bolte Taylor and Carlos Castaneda provided further insights.
Natural imagining is deployed when undertaking imagination work. Synthetic imagination is deployed as part of conceptualisation work to develop the embryonic idea into a fleshed-out concept.
Read more about the two forms of imagination
A high potential idea is conceived in the imagination of a single individual, not in some fanciful group mind.
A diverge-converge method such as brainstorming or one of its derivatives is not used here.
Generating 2,000 ideas is like making 2,000 keys in the hope that one of them will fit the lock.How many ideas does it actually take to arrive at a great one? In our experience, the answer is something on the order of 2,000. Yes, that’s a two with three zeros after it — 2,000-to-1. We call this the Idea Ratio.
Two Stanford Professors Explain How to Produce Hundreds of World-Changing Ideas In 1 Hour, by Jeremy Utley and Perry Klebahn, codirectors of executive education at Stanford’s Institute of Design (d-school)
The Now-to-New wayfinder understands how locks work.
Find out why I reject brainstorming
The downstream value is generated through the interaction between the value beneficiary (such as a customer or user) and the value generator (product, service, facility etc).
A value generator is something tangible or intangible that generates value when the user interacts with it.
Some examples:
A product.
A service.
A facility (this website, for instance).
An event (conference, party, festival).
An establishment (museum, theatre, restaurant).
A piece of infrastructure (bus station, railway line).
An educational programme.
An artistic work (book, song, musical composition, painting, theatrical production).
Not only are upstream imagination and downstream value realisation equally important — they are inseparable.
The Now-to-New wayfinder begins with the end in mind and ends with the beginning in mind.
Now-to-New projects are designed to generate value that is extensive (widespread) or exceptional (hard or impossible to acquire by other means).
Now-to-New wayfinders consider the needs and interests of all potential beneficiaries (or stakeholders, if you prefer this term).
Thinking about each beneficiary group in turn, they determine what new value might be generated, what existing value must be preserved, what anti-value generation must be halted, and what value must be sacrificed for the good of the whole.
Those suffering the loss of value may need some form of compensation. If nothing else, the loss must be acknowledged and the reasoning explained.
Read more: How to specify the value your new creation is meant to generate
Would design thinking generate more value if it were combined with the Now‑to‑New way of thinking, doing and being?
Design thinking is a form of human-centred design. The marriage of design thinking and Now-to-New would take human centricity onto a higher plain.
Not only would greater value be experienced by customers or users and other beneficiaries, but the wayfinders would themselves benefit, experiencing greater meaning, joy and fulfilment as they go about their work.
Plugging the gaps in the generic design thinking framework
1. Readiness work enables Now-to-New wayfinders to get upstream of the brief, immerse themselves in the project’s demands and dynamics, ensure that the project is consistent with the organisation’s purpose and strategy, and establish shared intent. This work goes far beyond empathising and defining. Read more abour Readiness work
2. Wayfinders deploy natural imagining (accessed via the brain’s right hemisphere), whereas design thinking practitioners rely on brainstorming and synthetic imagination (left hemisphere).
3. Design thinking is concerned only with the early stages of an innovation, change or problem solving project. The Now-to-New approach goes all the way through to the realisation of value generation potential.
The five tests
The global innovation firm IDEO popularised the three lenses concept represented by the orange discs. The lenses are labelled Desirability (Will people want it?), Feasibility (Can we make it and mark et it?) and Viability (Do we have a sustainable business model?).
As well as expanding the scope of desirability, I have added a two further items:
Potency
- Does it (still) display the potential to generate extensive (widespread) or exceptional (hard or impossible to acquire by other means) value?
- Is it (still) a good fit with the demands and dynamics of the project?
- Does it (still) meet the design specification?
Read more
External sources
10 Insightful Design Thinking Frameworks: A Quick Overview, by Rikke Friis Dam and Teo Yu Siang, on Interaction Design Foundation website
Design Thinking 101, by Sarah Gibbons, on Nielsen Norman Group website
Design thinking was supposed to fix the world. Where did it go wrong? by Rebecca Ackermann in MIT Technology Review
This website
Examples of actual Now-to-New projects selected from my casebook
Main shortcomings of design thinking (download pdf)
Readiness work sets the Now-to-New project in motion
Some open source and proprietary Now-to-New methods
A typical Now-to-New project from start to finish
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