An Analysis of Design Thinking in Addressing Corporate Culture Issues

This report provides an in-depth analysis of how design thinking can be applied to address corporate culture issues, specifically focusing on solving implicit gender biases in the workplace. The report utilizes various design thinking tools and techniques, including journey mapping, brainstorming, visualization, mind mapping, value chain analysis, rapid prototyping, personas, concept development, assumption testing, and learning launch. Each tool is described, and its outcomes are evaluated, offering insights into its effectiveness in the context of the problem. The report concludes with a discussion on the organizational testing and the next steps for implementing innovation, providing a comprehensive overview of the design thinking process and its potential to improve organizational culture. The assignment references key academic sources to support its findings.

HOW DESIGN
THINKING HELPS IN
SOLVING ISSUES OF
CORPORATE CULTURE
Student’s name:

What is
design
thinking?
 Design thinking is a process of understanding the
problems and producing some innovative and
compelling solutions (Sniukas, Lee & Morasky, 2016).
It is often considered to be the key of improving
organisational culture. It is customer centric and
human centred process that leads to creative and
profitable solutions (Bardach & Patashnik, 2015).

The
problem:
Solving Implicit Gender Biases In The
Workplace with Design Thinking tools and
techniques

Tool 1:
Journey Mapping
“This tool teaches us how to follow customers
home and develop a deep understanding of
their lives and the problems they struggle
with” (Dove, Reinach & Kwan, 2016).
Outcomes-
It is useful for seeing the path but it does not
build much empathy as we thought it would.
At this stage we have made a journey
mapping for our entire process of solving the
use (Bardach & Patashnik, 2015).

Tool 2:
 Brainstorming
“Storming a problem in a commando fashion” (Varma, 2015)
Outcomes-
In the process of collaboration with the important users and
the other inclusive perspectives, the whole team brainstorms
a wide range of possible yet effective solutions. By now, we
have worked towards decreasing the identified challenges
like the potentially biased programs, decision process and
policies (Dove, Reinach & Kwan, 2016).

Tool 3:
 Visualisation
“Visualisation brings in ideas to life” (Hassan et al.,
2016)
Outcomes:
Although it helps in using the imageries to envision
possibilities and to bring them into life, it did not
bring as much idea as we thought (Garrette, Phelps &
Sibony, 2018).

Tool 4:
 Mind mapping
“Mind mapping is a great tool that lays out the thoughts
and brainstorms ne ideas”. (Liedtka, 2015)
Outcomes:
it helped us to think creatively in order to solve the
problem
We have used mind mapping to link our ideas in different
ways

Tool 5:
 Value chain analysis
“This tool of design thinking assess the current
value chain that supports the customer’s
journey” (Ojasalo & Ojasalo, 2015)
Outcomes:
Although it is a very significant design thinking
tool, still it did not laid the thought result as the
outcome (Hassan et al., 2016).

Tool 6:
 Rapid prototyping
“Rapid prototyping tool is necessary for improving the
efficiency of the prototypes”. (Lee, Wei & Chung, 2014)
Outcomes:
The pilots depicts how every solution works or would work in
order to mitigate the bias in the real life situations (Mihailidis
et al., 2016.
The solutions are tested and are prototyped by making use of
pilot programs with an inclusive employee participation and
feedback (Lee & Benza, 2015).

Tool 7:
 Personas
“Personas helps you to understand your users during the
design without necessarily having to keep every person in
mind.” (Garrette, Phelps & Sibony, 2018)
Outcomes:
It helped us in getting a clear understanding of the women who
experienced gender biases in the workplace.
By now we have collected several personas on different women
employees (Mihailidis et al., 2016)

Tool 8:
 Concept development
“Concept development is a process of developing ideas to solve
specified design problems.” (Oinas-Kukkonen & Harjumaa, 2018)
Outcomes:
It helped in assembling the innovative elements into a coherent
alternative solution which could be both explored as well as
evaluated.
With the help of this, we have developed a concept on how to
address the issue in efficient manner (Ojasalo & Ojasalo, 2015)

Tool 9:
 Assumption testing
“Assumption testing is a tool for surfacing the
key assumptions underlying the attractiveness of a new service
concept and using data to assess the likelihood that
these assumptions are true” (Liedtka, 2015)
Outcomes:
It helped in isolating as well as testing the significant assumptions
which would drive the success and failure of the concept. This has
not helped us to that extent which we thought it would be doing.
We could not assume anything before receiving the feedbacks
(Sniukas, Lee & Morasky, 2016).