Designers think they can teach MBAs and philanthropists a thing or two
TIM BROWN, the boss of IDEO, a consultancy that helped shape Apple’s
first mouse, does not have solutions to daunting global problems such
as climate change, epidemics and persistent poverty. But he believes he
knows how to find them: with “design thinking”.
By design thinking, Mr Brown means the open-minded, no-holds-barred
approach that designers bring to their work, rather than the narrow,
technical view of innovation traditionally taught at many business and
engineering schools. Firms that think like designers, he claims in a
new book, “Change by Design”,
stand to win huge new markets and profits. The concept may sound pat
and woolly, encompassing everything from savvier marketing to radical
technological leaps. Yet design thinking is winning many converts in
both industry and philanthropy.
Herman Miller
The chair that saved the world
Mr Brown argues that a holistic approach to tackling problems
produces more breakthroughs than the MBA’s traditional urge to make
incremental improvements to existing products or processes. He says the
uncompromising focus on predictability and quality-control exemplified
by Six Sigma (see article),
a form of statistical analysis popular with manufacturers, can lead to
“analysis paralysis” by discouraging sweeping changes that may cause
disruptions in the short term but yield big benefits in the long run.
In contrast, design is often a “Trojan horse” for momentous ideas,
maintains John Kao, a former academic, since it marries rigorous
methods with more empathetic and intuitive ones, from lengthy
anthropological studies of consumers to the production of experimental
prototypes. With funding from Deloitte, a consultancy, he has set up
the Institute for Large Scale Innovation, an outfit dedicated to
“building the new innovation agenda necessary for tackling wicked
global problems”.
Roger Martin, head of the Rotman School of Management at the
University of Toronto and a pioneer in this field, says that true
“design thinking” involves a deep understanding of people’s habits and
preferences. As evidence, he points to the expensive Aeron chair
(pictured), which Herman Miller designed based on lengthy observation,
not just answers given in focus groups. The firm mimicked some elements
of the lawn chairs that consumers seemed to find particularly
comfortable, and the result was a blockbuster. IDEO applied a similar
approach in a campaign it devised for Bank of America. Its researchers
noted that consumers feel empowered by saving even trivial sums of
money, such a collections of pennies in a jar. So they came up with a
scheme called “Keep the Change”, in which the bank automatically rounds
up deposits to the nearest dollar—a huge hit with customers.
Philanthropists are beginning to bring similar methods to bear on
big social problems. The Gates Foundation has worked with IDEO to
develop a “human-centred design toolkit” to help charities develop new
programmes in collaboration with locals. VisionSpring, an American
charity that sells inexpensive reading glasses to the poor, used the
toolkit to make its vision tests less intimidating to children, and
thus reach more of those in need.