Design Thinking

Change the world through subtraction: New research examines subtraction neglect — the human inclination to improve by adding to what exists, rather than to subtract and simplify. Here’s advice on how to add subtraction to your cognitive toolkit, which can have distinct benefits in work and life.

Professor Jeanne Liedtka calls out 10 specific biases that cause especially serious problems for innovators. Design Thinking’s ability to fight these common biases accounts for its ability to help us test our ideas successfully.

In a recent episode, Professor Freeman talks to Professor Jeanne Liedtka about her most recent book, Experiencing Design: The Innovators Journey.

Too often, well-meaning aid programs meet bare-minimum standards of quality — just “good enough” for the world’s poorest people. But by addressing “wicked problems” through the lens of design thinking and a social business model, one public-private partnership has been able to improve the health and livelihood of residents in eastern Congo.

This article, adapted from Professor Jeanne Liedtka and Timothy Ogilvie’s "10 Tools for Design Thinking," includes steps managers can use to identify and execute opportunities for growth and innovation.

The crux of design thinking is that it embraces both creativity and analytical thinking to solve problems; two sides of the design thinking coin, both are essential to the design thinking process.

Even large bureaucracies like the Veterans Administration and IBM now use design thinking principals to explore the experiences of key stakeholders searching for insights into better client service.