Last year, I wrote a post about Design Thinking in response to an article in Brandweek that I felt was misleading on the topic. In it, I pointed to Roger Martin’s work as some of the very best at describing what Design Thinking actually means. Last week I got into a Twitter discussion with Steve Finikiotis after he pointed me to a Harvard Business Ideacast featuring Roger and his ideas on Design Thinking. I agree with Roger’s views, however I have noticed some unintended consequences as the terms are put into practice. I boiled down these issues to three main points that I would like to discuss.
First, I philosophically agree with Roger regarding the need for contextual research, abductive reasoning, and problem posing. However, what I find in practice is that the term Design Thinking can be potentially problematic in its interpretation. This is because design is a functional discipline in most organizations, just like marketing, engineering, or finance. Most design education focuses on teaching the fundamentals of honing the craft and developing tangible design skills. The work Roger describes of creating plausible hypotheses and solutions based on contextual research is often done by people who do not have traditional design backgrounds. As a result, I have seen the term create some organizational confusion regarding work that I have found to be discipline agnostic.
My second point is related to the first. Roger talks about how designers and business people need each other in a way that should break down silos to allow the necessary connections between their disciplines to be made. Again, I agree wholeheartedly, yet in practice, the term Design Thinking can cause the unintended consequence within an organization to segregate, rather then integrate the disciplines. Richard Farson, a psychologist who has written quite a bit about design, discusses the need to focus on the “meta” level of all functional disciplines as a way to rise above the executional level within a functional discipline and frame the common problem at hand. When I’ve presented the “meta” idea to client organizations, it tends to help to philosophically integrate the disciplines within a team, and resolve the terminology issue. It is something to think about.
Finally, Roger very eloquently speaks of the need to integrate creative and analytical thought. (see abductive and adductive reasoning) Amen to that! However, I find the integration of these two types of reasoning to get us part of the way there, but in order to accurately connect seemingly unrelated concepts we need a different type of cognitive skill. For example, we certainly need to integrate creative and analytical reasoning to hypothesize a consumer’s motivation behind what they say, and to develop new solutions to satisfy those motivations. However, the ability to accurately translate from a specific plausible hypothesis to a related plausible solution appears to be a different type of cognitive skill that is employed in addition to the integration of the types of reasoning. In the work I’ve been doing, we’re just beginning to scratch the surface of what that is. When I have something concrete, I’ll be sure to share it.
I’ll end by saying that I’m certainly not intending to criticize Roger Martin’s work. On the contrary, from what I’ve seen he has done a better job than anyone in terms of creating awareness of the need to integrate creative and analytical thought processes and solutions. For that, he has earned my heartfelt gratitude. However, we cannot expect him to do everything alone, or to have every answer. It is our responsibility as practitioners to raise the issue when we sense inconsistency between theory and practice, and continue to work together to hone these concepts.
It is interesting that Roger Martin is such a champion of design in the context of his background as a b-schooler. Whatever the reason he is an inspiration to many and innovator at the leading edge of business intelligence.
I imagine the functional meta level of a given discipline is really all that Roger is concerned with. In other text he speak of the dichotomy of validity and reliability (http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/sep2005/id20050929_872877.htm ) … and I think this is his preface to other dualities like creative vs. analytical. You mention this idea of migrating specific plausible hypothesis to a related plausible solution and I think Rogers thoughts associated with validity open the door to many competencies missing from the higher levels of business management and this is possibly the bridge you are looking for.
The designers skill at juggling a very wide assortment of variables and fuzzy concepts is critical at the start of any initiative and can work at the functional level as well as at a meta level. And in the meta level any person can fulfill the core competency because it is immediately contextual, active and inclusive some things specialized organizational functions work against providing. It seems to me that functional disciplines mainly become siloed in the middle or at the back of an project. If we can reach further into the to the front of an endeavor where everything is fuzzy meta or unsiloed skills become inherently unleashed across the board.
Thanks Christopher, and I agree with you that Rogers’s work certainly does open the door to competencies that are missing from higher levels of business management. He does a great job of making these different competencies relevant to business management.
What I’m not sure about is that anyone can fulfill the core competencies required to work at the meta level. I do think that some people can function well at both the meta and execution levels, many have difficulty doing so. The tough part is assessing this competency because, as you point out, it is much more fuzzy.
Your right. The shoes are hard to fill. In some way the siloing is self inflicting and protection of territories preside. In terms of a discipline or career we all pick a lane and get in it… and the education system simply works to reinforce this. It’s old school thinking and does not provide a framework for innovation… just a collection of voices in wilderness who can’t hear each other. Things like Technology, Design, and Social Sciences are evolving and can work to pull these voices together. The creative element has been held out as something different from the business culture and I would suggest that this thinking of models such as public service, instead of business models is better way to look at it. Creativity in the case of the Fire Fighter, Civil Engineer, Sanitation Expert… are just a relevant from a strategic standpoint as the Design Expert and it is the Design Expert who should embrace this. So the difficulty in doing so you mention… should be saddled to people already in traditional competencies that supposedly own creativity.
New organizations that embrace things like this spawn cultures of creativity that do away with the notion of a creative silo. It’s something many organizations are missing… where we see analytical and strategic work happening it is sometimes completely devoid of cross-discipline creative thinking. The analyst cannot pretend that the truth is only found in a chart and the creative cannot hide the crayons where others cannot find them. As if it were not hard enough to make this organization evolution happen through one person dealing with the difficulty in doing so it looks like it takes more than one to make this a reality. I have a feeling this why Martin in talking to a variety of disciplines.
I like your point about education enforcing the silo approach. I read once that our current education system was born of the necessity to train people for working during the industrial revolution. If that’s true, then it’s doing what it was designed to do. As you said, now we need to create demand for a different way. How does this work in your company?
Ellen-
In our desire to upset conventional thinking, we sometimes overlook inconsistencies in arguments. I appreciate that you point them out in Martin’s thesis.
I think that Martin uses the term ‘design’ loosely in referring to contextually-based kinds of problem-solvers like architects and set designers who approach and tackle problems differently than linear-thinking mechanical engineers and computer programmers.
He argues that design-thinking ‘masters of heuristics’ are superior to ‘managers of algorithms’ in solving the complicated problems that many practitioners face today. Generally, I think his argument is both elegant and clever.
To the extent that ‘design thinking’ connotes a particular discipline as opposed to a category of disciplines, it’s confusing.
I think you’re right about both the virtues and short-comings of Martin’s thesis. Thank you for an interesting and thought-provoking post.
Steve
Steve, I agree with Martin’s use of the term ‘design’, and you’re right, my caution is that it is not often used as he intends. Thanks for the reminder of the hurdles he is jumping in order to challenge our conventional thinking. In that sense, he has done a great job in getting us to pay attention!
First, hi there, Ellen! Fancy meeting you here! I stumbled onto your blog via a pebbly path of some of my usual digital haunts. Clearly, I’m coming to the discussion of this topic a little late, but it doesn’t seem to be going out of style anytime soon. Now onto my comment:
It would seem to me that the integrative thinking, that space in between the creative and analytical bits is what the design thinker-y types mostly refer to as synthesis, right? I suppose this is an appropriately vague word to describe an amorphous concept. Is it a process? A way of thinking or seeing? Huh?
To me, this is where shifting the focus toward that meta-level of design is most important, because synthesis (as a means of testing and validating the hypotheses from the information-gathering exercises) largely depends on the collaboration of individuals with a real diversity of skills and perspectives.
But in a design consultancy- product, digital or whathaveyou, who are the synthesizers? How do you hire folks at the functional level, but also assess their ability to be successful (or even comfortable) bringing disparate ideas and concepts together into some innovative sausage…
Is there space in an organization for someone to just be a synthesizer? Or is it that everyone in an organization could be a synthesizer if they just copped onto this whole design thinking bandwagon?
I wonder all of this because I find myself dealing with this conundrum professionally. I have a digital design background and a social science degree (and throw in a couple of years of journalism). I’ve cultivated a vertical focus on the health and wellness sectors. I can evaluate systems and programs, I can interpret and visualize data, I can facilitate contextual research studies. This all seems like a strategic asset, but where is the job description that calls to me beyond the function of interaction designer?
Hi Heather! Great to see you here! The short answer is…I’m working on that job description!! You’ve nailed a lot of the issues, and I agree that synthesizing is a different skill. And no, I don’t believe that copping onto the design thinking bandwagon will turn you into one if you’re fundamentally not – even if you are a designer. And that is where I also think you’re right on. The functional descriptions and skills are equally important, but in my experience, synthesizing is not discipline dependent.
You ask an interesting question about whether there is space for someone to just be a synthesizer. I’m not sure, and could see myself arguing on both sides which means that it would be a good topic to discuss!