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Innovation by Design: How Any Organization Can Leverage Design Thinking to Produce Change, Drive New Ideas, and Deliver Meaningful Solutions
Why are some organizations more innovative than others? How can we tap into, empower, and leverage the natural innovation within our organizations that is so vital to our future success?
Now more than ever, companies and institutions of all types and sizes are determined to create more innovative organizations. In study after study, leaders say that fostering innovation and the need for transformational change are among their top priorities. But they also report struggling with how to engage their cultures to implement the changes necessary to maximize their innovative targets.
In Innovation by Design, authors Thomas Lockwood and Edgar Papke share the results of their study of some of the world’s most innovative organizations, including:
The 10 attributes leaders can use to create and develop effective cultures of innovation. How to use design thinking as a powerful method to drive employee creativity and innovation. How to leverage the natural influence of the collective imagination to produce the “pull effect” of creativity and risk taking. How leaders can take the “Fifth Step of Design” and create their ideal culture.Innovation by Design offers a powerful set of insights and practical solutions to the most important challenge for today’s businesses—the need for relevant innovation.
226 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 20, 2017
114 people are currently reading
290 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
June 20, 2018
I work with Design Thinking and think it's one of the most important frameworks for thinking in our modern world. So a lot of the information in this book was known to me. I didn't even expect to learn anything new; I just wanted to know, how one of the newest books on DT presents the subject.
I'm disappointed in this and don't think it's worth the time. There's no depth, just a lot of surface knowledge and case stories – and the latter has hints of survivorshop bias.
Design Thinking is not the savior or the solution. It's a framework and can help as a process model. It's leadership and commitment to a clear direction, that's the game changer. DT can be symbolic in that process, no doubt. But it starts with setting a direction.
I'm disappointed in this and don't think it's worth the time. There's no depth, just a lot of surface knowledge and case stories – and the latter has hints of survivorshop bias.
Design Thinking is not the savior or the solution. It's a framework and can help as a process model. It's leadership and commitment to a clear direction, that's the game changer. DT can be symbolic in that process, no doubt. But it starts with setting a direction.
August 19, 2020
Organizations can innovate through a design thinking culture, improving it’s economic, social and environmental value. Design-thinking-culture organizations identify the right problems to solve, demonstrate empathy with collaboration, utilize accelerated learning through visualization, and integrate business model innovation.
When design thinking is embedded in an organization’s culture, it creates problem-solving abilities, captures employee creativity, and improves performance.
Three driving factors of the Collective Imagination:
1. Participation (collaboration).
2. The pursuit of knowledge.
3. Free expression (engaging in unbridled creativity).
5 orders of design:
-Graphic design
-Product design
-Customer experience design
-Systems design
-Awareness (added to Richard Buchanan’s 4 orders of design): understanding the people, problems, obstacles, and options a company has.
Culture types:
1. Participation cultures (community-centric)
2. Expertise cultures (expert-centric)
3. Authenticity cultures (values-centric)
10 Attributes:
1. Design thinking at Scale: DT is applied to intentionally influence the culture, with the goal of increase innovation.
2. The Pull Factor: Some people in the organization will be drawn to design thinking, wanting to be involved in the creative process. This emotional momentum is termed the “pull factor”. Invest in the development of interpersonal communication skills (open dialogue, idea sharing, etc) that spur on DT.
3. The Right Problems: Before solving a problem, identify the right problem to solve. DT reveals root cause, looking past generalizations and assumptions, ignoring short-term/easy-fix solutions.
4. Culture Awareness: Though empathy, collaboration is increased, boundaries are broken down, and increased DT is a result.
5. Curious Confrontation: Facing different ideas with the desire to investigate and learn, specially for problem-solving. DT then opens lines of communication and out-of-the-box thinking, leads to shared understanding of different perspectives, better collaboration, and quicker conflict resolution.
6. Co-Creation: Focuses on leveraging collaborate innovation that results in jointly valued, mutually benefiting outcomes. Internally, encourage communal engagement in decision making and problem solving to benefit everyone involved. Externally, focus on customer experience participating with customers in the process.
7. Open Spaces: Creatively design the physical space/work areas that promotes creativity and collaboration. Add cultural artifacts that provide emotional reminders of the purpose and past successes.
8. Whole Communication: using communication types beyond logic and verbal communication. Instead using storytelling and visual communication.
9. Aligned Leadership: Without leadership commitment to the cultural change of DT, the effort will fail. Empower people to learn and practice DT daily.
10. Purpose: Shared and clear sense of purpose. It engages employees in integrating both external customer-centric, and internal culture-centric actions.
When design thinking is embedded in an organization’s culture, it creates problem-solving abilities, captures employee creativity, and improves performance.
Three driving factors of the Collective Imagination:
1. Participation (collaboration).
2. The pursuit of knowledge.
3. Free expression (engaging in unbridled creativity).
5 orders of design:
-Graphic design
-Product design
-Customer experience design
-Systems design
-Awareness (added to Richard Buchanan’s 4 orders of design): understanding the people, problems, obstacles, and options a company has.
Culture types:
1. Participation cultures (community-centric)
2. Expertise cultures (expert-centric)
3. Authenticity cultures (values-centric)
10 Attributes:
1. Design thinking at Scale: DT is applied to intentionally influence the culture, with the goal of increase innovation.
2. The Pull Factor: Some people in the organization will be drawn to design thinking, wanting to be involved in the creative process. This emotional momentum is termed the “pull factor”. Invest in the development of interpersonal communication skills (open dialogue, idea sharing, etc) that spur on DT.
3. The Right Problems: Before solving a problem, identify the right problem to solve. DT reveals root cause, looking past generalizations and assumptions, ignoring short-term/easy-fix solutions.
4. Culture Awareness: Though empathy, collaboration is increased, boundaries are broken down, and increased DT is a result.
5. Curious Confrontation: Facing different ideas with the desire to investigate and learn, specially for problem-solving. DT then opens lines of communication and out-of-the-box thinking, leads to shared understanding of different perspectives, better collaboration, and quicker conflict resolution.
6. Co-Creation: Focuses on leveraging collaborate innovation that results in jointly valued, mutually benefiting outcomes. Internally, encourage communal engagement in decision making and problem solving to benefit everyone involved. Externally, focus on customer experience participating with customers in the process.
7. Open Spaces: Creatively design the physical space/work areas that promotes creativity and collaboration. Add cultural artifacts that provide emotional reminders of the purpose and past successes.
8. Whole Communication: using communication types beyond logic and verbal communication. Instead using storytelling and visual communication.
9. Aligned Leadership: Without leadership commitment to the cultural change of DT, the effort will fail. Empower people to learn and practice DT daily.
10. Purpose: Shared and clear sense of purpose. It engages employees in integrating both external customer-centric, and internal culture-centric actions.
May 29, 2021
Organizations have realized that the each customer has unique experience and need to tap this experience for developing products and services that would enhance customer experience and thereby loyalty resulting in improving business. There are various tools and techniques, which organizations adopt to map these customer experiences and thereby develop new products.
Design thinking is one such tool, where in the empathy is to map the customer journey at various touch points to drive innovations for new products and improve customer experience. Several key traits appear common in Design Thinking
1. Identifying the right problem to solve coupled with deep understanding of the user
2. Empathy coupled with collaboration both with the user & through multi-disciplinary teams
3. Accelerate learning through hands-on experimenting, visualization and creating quick rough prototypes.
Ten Attributes of design thinking
1. Design thinking at scale
2. Pull Factor
3. Right Problem
4. Cultural Awareness
5. Curious confrontation
6. Co-Creation
7. Open Spaces
8. Whole Communication
9. Aligned leadership
10. Purpose
Three driving factors of the Collective Imagination:
1. Participation (collaboration).
2. The pursuit of knowledge.
3. Free expression (engaging in unbridled creativity).
Five - orders of Design
First order – focus on graphics design & visualization
Second order – Design of products which includes feel
Third, order Design – Customer experience and application in design of service, user interface & information
Fourth Order Design – Design of system
Fifth, order design – Design of culture
12 Key cultural keys
1. Power & Influence
2. Planning & Goal setting
3. Problem Solving
4. Decision Making
5. Conflict Management
6. Incentive & Reward
7. Hiring
8. Role definition
9. Customer interface
10. Team work
11. Structure
12. Aligned Values
Aligned Design in expertise culture
1. Leverage internal competency
2. Expertise based, adhoc teaming
3. Support analytical process
4. Challenge for better and best peer competition
5. Leverage external expertise
6. Reward Conceptual thinking
7. Leverage status through and for high achievement
Bottom-line: Many use cases from various successful organizations have been presented in the book. However, complete approach and challenges that they have overcome while implementing is not provided, making this a one-time read.
Design thinking is one such tool, where in the empathy is to map the customer journey at various touch points to drive innovations for new products and improve customer experience. Several key traits appear common in Design Thinking
1. Identifying the right problem to solve coupled with deep understanding of the user
2. Empathy coupled with collaboration both with the user & through multi-disciplinary teams
3. Accelerate learning through hands-on experimenting, visualization and creating quick rough prototypes.
Ten Attributes of design thinking
1. Design thinking at scale
2. Pull Factor
3. Right Problem
4. Cultural Awareness
5. Curious confrontation
6. Co-Creation
7. Open Spaces
8. Whole Communication
9. Aligned leadership
10. Purpose
Three driving factors of the Collective Imagination:
1. Participation (collaboration).
2. The pursuit of knowledge.
3. Free expression (engaging in unbridled creativity).
Five - orders of Design
First order – focus on graphics design & visualization
Second order – Design of products which includes feel
Third, order Design – Customer experience and application in design of service, user interface & information
Fourth Order Design – Design of system
Fifth, order design – Design of culture
12 Key cultural keys
1. Power & Influence
2. Planning & Goal setting
3. Problem Solving
4. Decision Making
5. Conflict Management
6. Incentive & Reward
7. Hiring
8. Role definition
9. Customer interface
10. Team work
11. Structure
12. Aligned Values
Aligned Design in expertise culture
1. Leverage internal competency
2. Expertise based, adhoc teaming
3. Support analytical process
4. Challenge for better and best peer competition
5. Leverage external expertise
6. Reward Conceptual thinking
7. Leverage status through and for high achievement
Bottom-line: Many use cases from various successful organizations have been presented in the book. However, complete approach and challenges that they have overcome while implementing is not provided, making this a one-time read.
October 26, 2019
This book was dreary, unoriginal and repeated so many things that I've read or listened to in just about every book on modern management I've come across, without ever really getting to the point.
I would recommend Roger Martin's "The Design of Business" before you read this, and spend a bit of time with Eric Reis and Clayton Christensen, or even classic change management texts as far back as Lewin and Kotter. Nothing new here.
I'm starting to think that all the touted-up jargon spouted by beret wearing, tattoo-painted, "creatives", still virgin to their first business failure is exactly, and only that... marketing jargon riding a wave of confusion among the leadership class.
We've been through this before, if you're not picking up at least some of this thinking from your colleagues, mentors and clients, you must surely be living in a despotic vacuum.
I would recommend Roger Martin's "The Design of Business" before you read this, and spend a bit of time with Eric Reis and Clayton Christensen, or even classic change management texts as far back as Lewin and Kotter. Nothing new here.
I'm starting to think that all the touted-up jargon spouted by beret wearing, tattoo-painted, "creatives", still virgin to their first business failure is exactly, and only that... marketing jargon riding a wave of confusion among the leadership class.
We've been through this before, if you're not picking up at least some of this thinking from your colleagues, mentors and clients, you must surely be living in a despotic vacuum.
June 19, 2019
A good descriptive analysis of design thinking success stories. Did leave me wondering if there are any well known failures of design thinking, as in bankruptcy, not product failures that provided new learning opportunities.
As with most books on high performing organisations there is a strong subplot of psychological safety and the importance of purpose.
As with most books on high performing organisations there is a strong subplot of psychological safety and the importance of purpose.
September 21, 2020
Less an explanation of Design Thinking and more a series of case studies of its success. I felt a bit misled as I was expecting more explanation of basic methods and definitions just one early chapter on that as well as more on the method's deficiencies would've benefitted this customer's experience.
September 11, 2019
An easy, general read about building an innovation culture. Doesn't go into specifics or say anything out of the obvious. No significant insights. But good for starters, if you come from a non-design background and want to understand what makes some companies more innovative than others.
October 14, 2019
I don’t think innovation comes from design. Then again, I don’t believe the way I think about design and the way Innovation by Design: How Any Organization Can Leverage Design Thinking to Produce Change, Drive New Ideas, and Deliver Meaningful Solutions discusses it are the same. I believe that experiences matter, but I also believe that too many people who call themselves designers are out to gratify their egos rather than put the effort in to listen to the pains of the user and create solutions that solve real problems.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews