Design Mindset: Encouraging Innovation through Design Thinking

Design Mindset is a skill that enables individuals to represent and develop tasks and work processes for desired outcomes. Design Thinking, a user-centered and flexible process, contributes remarkably towards innovation. Having a Design Mindset is extremely important in business as it enables individuals to plan their environments, which would result in favorable outcomes that interest them the most. The five stages of Design Thinking leading to innovation are Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, and Test.

THE
AGE
OF
Design
Mindset
Innovation through decision-making
Design thinking also helps decision-makers in
any field to limit cognitive biases thus paving the
way for innovation. The reason is that with a
structured approach focusing on designs rather
than abstract thoughts, the mind becomes
creative and encourages innovation.
References:
•Carlgren, L. (2013). Design thinking as an enabler of
innovation: Exploring the concept and its relation to building
innovation capabilities. Chalmers University of Technology.
•Carlgren, L., Elmquist, M., & Rauth, I. (2014).
Design thinking: Exploring values and effects from an innovation
capability perspective. The Design Journal, 17(3), 403-423.
•Chasanidou, D., Gasparini, A., & Lee, E. (2014,
October). Design thinking methods and tools for innovation in
multidisciplinary teams. In Workshop Innovation in HCI. Helsinki,
Finland: NordiCHI (Vol. 14, No. 2014, pp. 27-30).
•Iftf.org. (2018). IFTF: Future Work Skills 2020.
Retrieved from http://www.iftf.org/futureworkskills/
•Liedtka, J. (2015). Perspective: Linking design
thinking with innovation outcomes through cognitive bias
reduction. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 32(6), 925-
938.
What is it?
Design Mindset was first
used in the Future Work
Skills 2020 Report produced
by the Institute For The
Future (IFTF) in 2011(Iftf.org,
2018). It is one of the skills
listed in the Future Work
Skills. The report defines
Design Mindset as “the
ability to represent and
develop tasks and work
processes for desired
outcomes”.
How it encourages
innovation?
In terms of innovation, having a
Design Mindset is extremely
important because it would
enable individuals to take a
design approach to work. This
would further enable them to
plan their environments, which
would result in favorable
outcomes that interest them the
most (Carlgren, Elmquist &
Rauth, 2014). Without this skill, it
is not possible to think about
innovation. Design mindset helps
enhance ‘design thinking’, which
in turn fuels innovation.
Design Thinking
Design thinking or DT emerged
during the 2000s as an approach to
innovation (Carlgren, 2013, p. 3). It
attracted the attention of individuals
across different working fields within
years of its inception. The
proponents of DT claimed that if
people developed a mindset to work
like designers, they would learn the
techniques to solve complex issues
with ease.
How is it different?
Design thinking is
different from other form
of thinking in the sense
that it is user-centered
(Liedtka, 2015). The
process is flexible and
hence, it contributes
remarkable towards
innovation because it is
applicable in any setting.
It does not follow any fixed
set of steps rather requires
the individuals to explore
their mind’s potential.
However, it presents a
structured framework for
understanding and
pursuing innovation.
According to (Carlgren,
2013), design thinking is
“not just an innovation
process” but also a
problem-solving process.
Design mindset can be
linked to growth mindset
as well. It is well known
that without a growth
mindset, innovative
thinking cannot be
processed.
DT in business
In the field of business,
innovation is the most
important aspect that
ensures advantage over
others and subsequent
success. Design thinking
not only emphasizes on
removing constraints or
solving problems, it is also
about discovering and
implementing new ideas.
The stages of DT
Five stages of design thinking
have been categorized as
leading to innovation.
Empathize – Finding an
empathetic solution to the
problem at hand through
observation, engagement to
understand experiences and
motivations of the people
Define – Putting the information
together and defining the core
problem in a human-centered
way
Ideate – Generating ideas to
solve the core problem and
using different ideation
techniques like Brainstorming
and Worst Possible Idea etc
Prototype – Developing an
inexpensive version of the
problem
Test – Evaluating the prototype
by putting it on trial
Interpreting DT
Chasanidou, Gasparini, and Lee (2014) provide a clear idea about
how design thinking is essential to innovation. According to the
authors, DT is considered a “system of overlapping spaces of
viability, desirability and feasibility”. Innovation receives a boost
when people address these three perceptions. The three
perspectives also help define the different interpretations of
design thinking. While viability implies the business perspective,
desirability refers to the user’s perspective and feasibility reflects
the perspective of technology.