Design Thinking Techniques

This paper discusses different design thinking techniques that organizations can use to develop competitive advantages. It covers customer journey mapping, assumption testing, visualization, storytelling, rapid concept development, and customer co-creation. The paper also analyzes the hindrances that come across while implementing these techniques.

Running Head: DESIGN THINKING TECHNIQUES
Design Thinking Techniques
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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Customer Journey Mapping.............................................................................................................2
Assumption Testing.........................................................................................................................3
Visualization....................................................................................................................................3
Storytelling......................................................................................................................................4
Rapid Concept Development...........................................................................................................4
Customer Co-Creation.....................................................................................................................5
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................5
Reference and Bibliography............................................................................................................7

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Introduction
Design thinking is a process by which organizations solve their organizational problems
using various design thinking principles. It benefits the organizations in identifying the
opportunities, enhancing innovation and advancing their business operations (Liedtka, 2015).
Market giants such as IBM, Apple, Nike, Kaiser Permanenete have used design thinking in their
organizations to gain a competitive advantage over their rivals and create innovative products
and services. The design thinking also helps to unlock cultural change. The companies which
design thinking tool and techniques are more responsive to their customers and subsequently
more successful (Keshavarz & Mazé, 2013). The fundament elements of design thinking are
researching, ideating, defining the problem, prototyping and iterating. This paper will
demonstrate different design thinking techniques applying which an organization can develop
their competitive advantages. The paper will also analyze the hindrances that come across while
implementing these techniques.
Customer Journey Mapping
A customer journey map is the single diagram consisting of different diagrams that
display the phases of interaction between the company and the customer. Customer mapping is
important for gauging how the customers are engaging with the company. The journey maps
help to get the detailed information about what kind of outlets the customers are using the most.
The companies can work accordingly to provide better services to the customers in their own
preferred way (Fay et al., 2015). There are four stages of creating a customer journey map. These
are inquiry, comparison, purchase and installation. There is a variety of tools to create customer
journey maps but the organizations face difficulty in design thinking when customer emotion

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barriers pose remarkable barriers. It become truly difficult for the organization to implement
design thinking in such situations.
Assumption Testing
Assumption testing helps an organization to ensure that they are not drawing wrong
conclusions from the data analysis. When an organization prepares to conduct their statistics, it is
essential to check whether the assumption is going completely with the analysis. The primary
difficulty that the companies face while implementing this kind of design thinking emerges from
the data testing method. After the confirmation of which assumption is accurate and critical, the
collected information become subjected to a remarkable amount of susceptibility (Biggs, 2015).
It happens because the data collection constitutes of three different parts including what is
known, what is not known and can never be known and what is not known but can be known
somehow. The confusion occurs with the second and last part because that data which is
unknown cannot be used for further assessment of the assumptions. At this point the
organizations actually face difficulty in implementing design thinking as the absence of enough
data increases the uncertainty levels.
Visualization
The visualization process is the non-verbal technique of delivering some specific
messages. However, this is certainly not the end of the story. A good communication also
includes the way of transfer of the messages and exact comprehension of the messages. The
organizations sometimes use images to deliver messages without being verbal. This is on one
hand a good process which adds extra flavor of intelligence to the communication. Since
visualization is a non-verbal process, there is a huge chance that different individual interprets

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the message in a different way. This can disrupt the purpose of delivering the message its
reception. A huge communication gap is created due to this and disturbs the design
implementation within an organization.
Storytelling
Storytelling is another essential human activity used for sharing experiences, values and
solutions using verbal or non-verbal tools. A range of questions are generated by storytelling
which provides room for in-depth analysis and also makes a particular information more
authentic. The audience become bound to believe the analysis as it is presented in such a realistic
manner by concocting stories. However, it is also true that a story can never be baseless. It has to
be reliable ad logical. The quality and standard of the story has to be maintained. The problem
which arises from this design technique is regarding the appropriateness of the story told. The
story can either make or break the context. The standard of storytelling highly depends on the
person who is telling the story. Proper audio and visual supports along with the story
accentuates the authenticity. Hence, it is a major concern to maintain the quality of the story.
Rapid Concept Development
This is another process where having three different stages. In the first stage the
customer demands and preferences are recorded along with special consideration to the value
chain. This record helps to act according to the preferences of the customer. The next level
consists of evaluating the demands of the customers and build exciting and interesting concepts.
In the last step these exciting concepts are used to develop future business designs and strategies

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to provide superior service to the customers (Caniëls & Rietzschel, 2015). The main issue with
implementing this design plan is that the customer responses are supposed to be evaluated
rapidly without any delay. the quick assessment of the customer demands and developing
effective strategies can increase the chances of wrong market information and customer
preference.
Customer Co-Creation
In this design thinking process the mangers are also included with the customers. This
technique provides room for the communication between the higher executives of the company
and the customer to solve specific problems and establish proper business ideas based on those
conversations (Rihova, Buhalis, Moital & Gouthro, 2015). This is a useful process which
supports the organization to work more efficiently and effectively on the customer demands and
market trends (Coburn, Hill & Spillane, 2016). The company can elevate the quality of their
products and services by focusing on the customer feedbacks and suggestions. This mutual
engagement both from the part of the customers and the management is important because
through this the management and the company can strengthen the customer relationships. There
are certain drawbacks too of implementing this process because the topic of concern can be
different for the customers and the management. a clash can occur between the thought process
and the opinions of both the parties. Therefore, there occurs a dilemma and bewilderment
regarding the selection of the topic.
Conclusion
It can be concluded that the process of design thinking is extremely important in the
context of business as it helps in solving of very complex problems and also helps the

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organization ion developing new ideas. The idea was started from the actual process of designing
and the various principles associated with designing. However with proper study and research
the principles of designing was also adopted to the businesses and the organizations. The
thinking of the individuals are given the maximum importance in this regard and the innovative
power of the human mind is cultivated in combination with the concepts of designing which is
then utilized for complex problem solving. There are various stages, types and components of
design thinking and these are all effective in the organization problem solving and innovation.
The design thinking also helps the companies to unlock cultural change. The companies
which design thinking tool and techniques are more responsive to their customers and
subsequently more successful. The important aspects like visualization and customer co creation
are helpful for the organization to innovate and grow. Customer co creation for example is very
helpful for the organization to increase customer loyalty and to take insights from the customers
which is important for them to implement.
Design thinking was initially adopted in the companies which were more technical and
based on engineering however more recently all types of organizations are adopting the process
and growing their revenue. The important management consultants are giving lot of importance
to the process.

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Reference and Bibliography
Biggs, R. (2015). Price optimization–The power of customer-centricity in out-pricing the
competition. Credit Control Journal, 3.
Caniëls, M. C., & Rietzschel, E. F. (2015). Organizing creativity: Creativity and innovation
under constraints. Creativity and Innovation Management, 24(2), 184-196.
Coburn, C. E., Hill, H. C., & Spillane, J. P. (2016). Alignment and accountability in policy
design and implementation: The Common Core State Standards and implementation
research. Educational Researcher, 45(4), 243-251.
Fay, D., Shipton, H., West, M. A., & Patterson, M. (2015). Teamwork and organizational
innovation: The moderating role of the HRM context. Creativity and Innovation
Management, 24(2), 261-277.
Keshavarz, M., & Mazé, R. (2013). Design and dissensus: framing and staging participation in
design research. Design Philosophy Papers, 11(1), 7-29.
Larbig, C., & Storey, C. (2014). Antecedents to customer involvement in new service
development–the role of customer centricity, service newness and market uncertainty.
Liedtka, J. (2015). Perspective: Linking design thinking with innovation outcomes through
cognitive bias reduction. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 32(6), 925-938.
Merriam, S. B., & Tisdell, E. J. (2015). Qualitative research: A guide to design and
implementation. John Wiley & Sons.

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Rihova, I., Buhalis, D., Moital, M., & Gouthro, M. B. (2015). Conceptualising customer‐to‐
customer value co‐creation in tourism. International Journal of Tourism Research, 17(4),
356-363
Roth, S., Schneckenberg, D., & Tsai, C. W. (2015). The ludic drive as innovation driver:
Introduction to the gamification of innovation. Creativity and Innovation
Management, 24(2), 300-306.