Analysis of Challenges in Implementing Design Thinking Techniques

This essay discusses the challenges faced in implementing design thinking techniques in both organizational and personal contexts. It summarizes various design thinking techniques, including visualization, journey mapping, rapid concept development, assumption testing, storytelling, and customer co-creation, while assessing their general drawbacks. The paper highlights issues such as misinterpretation in visualization, emotional influences in journey mapping, impurities in rapid concept development, uncertainty in assumption testing due to data limitations, and interpretation problems in storytelling. The essay also addresses the challenge of differing customer preferences in customer co-creation. It concludes that design thinking techniques, despite their challenges, can be valuable in various settings, including education, where they can enhance critical thinking skills, although non-verbal techniques may face resistance in organizational environments.

Running head: DESIGN THINKING TECHNIQUES
Design Thinking Techniques
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Executive Summary:
The paper intends to discuss the challenges faced in the implementation of the design
thinking techniques on the organization and personal context. The paper summarizes various
design thinking techniques and is able to assess the general drawbacks as well. The impact of
the design thinking techniques on the individuals of the educational sector is also described in
the paper.

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Table of Contents
Introduction:...............................................................................................................................3
Visualization:.............................................................................................................................3
Journey Mapping:.......................................................................................................................3
Rapid Concept Development:....................................................................................................4
Assumption Testing:..................................................................................................................4
Storytelling:................................................................................................................................5
Customer Co-Creation:..............................................................................................................5
Conclusion:................................................................................................................................6
References:.................................................................................................................................8

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Introduction:
The concept of design thinking generally relates to the creation and development of
the idea and designs in order to counter certain problematic issues on the organizational
context (Johansson‐Sköldberg, Woodilla & Çetinkaya, 2013). The procedure generally lays
the foundation for a systematic creation of the method of dealing with the problems which are
generally ill defined (Glen, Suciu & Baughn, 2014). It will be controversial to comment that
the success of the design thinking is limited to only in the organizational context as it can also
be implemented in order to solve the issues which belong personal and social context. The
procedure includes several steps like describing the issue, researching, formation of the ideas,
prototyping and the process of testing (Kolko, 2015). The paper will analyse different design
thinking techniques and will assess the challenges in the implementation of the techniques.
Visualization:
The issue that is associated with the visualization is the inappropriate interpretation of
the message. The visualization is a process of non-verbal communication where the images
are implemented for the transfer of the message (Scott, 2015). It enables the people to unlock
the required part of the brain which will help them to get the message even without
communicating verbally. But as it is non-verbal communication, the issue for different
individuals taking the visuals in different ways is significantly possible which creates the gap
in the message meant to be transferred and message received. The communication gap is the
major barrier in this case.
Journey Mapping:
The assessment of the customer journey mapping from the group’s point of view is
significantly easy as the group believes the mapping includes four simple stages which are

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inquiry or awareness, comparison, consideration, purchase, installation, retention and
advocacy (Lemon & Verhoef, 2016). But the general barriers that the real life organizations
feel is significantly different from the assessment of the group. The mapping is a method of
evaluating the journey of the customer in interaction with the organization. But the method is
observed to be subjected to significant amount of uncertainty when the customer’s emotion
takes better of him or her. The conceptual calculation in the journey mapping is observed to
be significantly influenced by the emotional variations of the customers which seems to pose
significant barrier in the implementation of the design thinking.
Rapid Concept Development:
The process has three different stages where the first stage incorporates the valuable
customer demands along with the value chain insights and the research results in the creation
of exciting ideas (Prakash, Sridhar & Annamalai, 2014). In the next stage the ideas are
converted into practicable number of interesting concepts. In the final stage the elaboration of
the business design for the generated new concepts will be prepared (Prakash, Sridhar &
Annamalai, 2014). The issue in implementing the process is that the process involves faster
assessment of the customer demand and the formation of the business concepts and design on
the assessment and at times the assessment includes significant amount of impurity in
gathering the information regarding the market insights and customer demands due to the
increased speed.
Assumption Testing:
According to Liedtka (2015), the process of assumption analysis includes the
identification of the assumptions that are responsible for the attractiveness of a new business
ideas. The process also involves the assessment of the available data in order to figure out the
possibility of the assumptions in turning out to becoming true. The general shortcomings in

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implementation of the design will arise from the data testing procedure. Once the
confirmation of which assumption is critical is made, the gathering of the information
regarding the assumption will be subjected to significant amount vulnerability as the data
collection will incorporate three different segments which are what is known, what is not or
cannot be known and the last one will be what is not known but can be known. The second
and the third segment in the data collection is posing significant amount of uncertainty as the
data which is not known cannot be used for the fruitful assessment of the criticalness of the
assumption. This is a significant issue in implementing the design as the most crucial
assumption will also be subjected to incredible amount uncertainty resulting from the absence
of sufficient data.
Storytelling:
The concept of the storytelling is close to the concept of visualization. According to
the study of Keshavarz & Mazé (2013), the storytelling enables the audience to have a better
and interactive presentation of the series of points. The method has the advantage to make the
analysis significantly realistic to the audience. The storytelling will be of significant quality if
it identifies the audience in the perfect manner. The formation of the storyboard and the flow
of the logic is a much needed aspect in providing a quality storytelling. The major problem in
the implementation of the mentioned design technique will again be issue of correct
interpretation. The expression of the information in the storytelling significantly depends on
the communicator as the information can be twisted during the presentation. This becomes a
major concern for the audience in getting the proper assessment and visuals regarding the
topic of the story.

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Customer Co-Creation:
The mentioned method of design thinking incorporates the customers along with the
managers in a mutual communication regarding the generation and development of the new
and innovative business ideas. This is significantly helpful for the organizations as it enables
the respective organizations to follow the customer demand and trends in a considerably easy
manner. The mutual engagement from the part of the customers is also highly encouraging
for them as their needs will be followed with a lot more significance by the organization. This
is also helpful for the organization as they will be able to spread a sense of belief to their
customers that the organization thinks for them and that will be significantly interesting for
the organization as that will increase the trust of the customers towards the organization and
increase the customer loyalty. The challenges in the implementation will be the difference in
the choices of the customers. As the mutual engagement between the customers and the
managers will be on the topic of generating and developing new business ideas, the
requirement of the services and the products will be different for different individuals. The
criteria and the preferences of the customers in choosing the suitable business idea for the
recommendation to the managers can be different as well. Rihova et al. (2015), commented
that it will be a major concern for the organization in accumulating the different preferences
and choices of the customers and can pose significant dilemma in choosing the correct
business idea for the organization.
Conclusion:
On a concluding note it can be said that the design thinking techniques can be
implemented in various formations with the desired degree of perfection may that be the in
education sector, in case of personal context or in organizational context. The methods will
be significantly interesting for the students in the education sector as the development in
quality thinking will be generated among the students. The design thinking techniques will

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also describe lateral, scenario and systems thinking. On the organizational context the non-
verbal forms of the design thinking is not so appreciated by the managers and the top level
employees. But having said that the form of the non-verbal communication increases the
speed in the thought process which is also much needed in order to increase the productivity
of any organization. The visualization or the storytelling are observed to enhance the speed of
exchanging the thoughts which adds into the list of benefits for any organization in taking
critical decisions.

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References:
Glen, R., Suciu, C., & Baughn, C. (2014). The need for design thinking in business schools.
Academy of Management Learning & Education, 13(4), 653-667.
Johansson‐Sköldberg, U., Woodilla, J., & Çetinkaya, M. (2013). Design thinking: past,
present and possible futures. Creativity and innovation management, 22(2), 121-146.
Keshavarz, M., & Mazé, R. (2013). Design and dissensus: framing and staging participation
in design research. Design Philosophy Papers, 11(1), 7-29.
Kolko, J. (2015). Design thinking comes of age.
Lemon, K. N., & Verhoef, P. C. (2016). Understanding customer experience throughout the
customer journey. Journal of Marketing, 80(6), 69-96.
Liedtka, J. (2015). Perspective: Linking design thinking with innovation outcomes through
cognitive bias reduction. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 32(6), 925-938.
Prakash, W. N., Sridhar, V. G., & Annamalai, K. (2014). New product development by
DFMA and rapid prototyping. ARPN J Eng Appl Sci, 9(3), 274-279.
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.
Scott, D. W. (2015). Multivariate density estimation: theory, practice, and visualization. John
Wiley & Sons.

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