Maximizing the ROI of Design Thinking
![Maximizing the ROI of Design Thinking Maximizing the ROI of Design Thinking](/pic/maximizing_the_roi_of_design_thinking/aGJ4WHVOQXJvNTg_.jpeg)
Welcome. To, our latest live, stream for mural imagine, with, our very, special guest. Jinguk. Ax of the University. Of Virginia's, Darden, Braddock, School of Business. Is. Their forth discussion with Jean as, she shares her research. Into, innovation teams how, design thinking, and help us as, a social technology, changes, imagination. Workers understand. And solve, problems, as. You've done in the last three episodes which. I recommend you rewatch, will. Enjoy Dean's presentation. But, most importantly, we. Spend time going through your questions, she. Likes controversy. So please ask along, in the Q&A panel and. I create the best questions, to. Ask Jean later so, welcome Bob Dean. Anke, Mariano, it is fantastic. To be here I always love talking to the mural audience, of thoughtful, people who are out there in the trenches getting, these important. Work done so today, I want to talk about maximizing. The ROI of Design Thinking which. You might think would take us immediately, to talking about financial, measures and things but, it doesn't because what, our research, tells, us is. That, maximizing. The value of Design Thinking is, really. About understanding its. Social, technology. And in, particular. Understanding. How, it shapes those, of us who, use it in the. Process, of helping, us shape designs, for. The people we're using it for all, right so that's that's gonna be my focus today I wanted to talk a little bit about our agenda I'll move quickly through a couple of topics because as Mariano, said we've. Already done, some presentations, for the mural audience really, unpacking. Deeply, how, we measure, the. Outcomes associated with, design thinking so, I'll talk quickly about that and then, what I really want to zero in on is this. Question of understanding, the way design, shapes, us because. Our belief is that the, only way, we, reach the. Transformational. Potential. Of design thinking is by. Understanding, what. It has to trigger in the, human being who, use it, in. Order to accomplish that so that's a lot of what I'd like to talk about today I also want to just. Introduce, the subject of, some new research we're doing which suggests, that there are some pretty pronounced. Differences. According. To personality, types of how, we progress, through. The, design thinking process and, achieve that. Real. Change in, who we are as innovators and. Then finally, I just want to share with you for fun some, late-breaking news that, we've seen comparing. Our classes, that we've been, offering. Online and, what. That process has been experienced, by, versus. The ones that we traditionally do face to face so Kovan, 19 of course has given all of us a new experiment. That we didn't really plan for but. Which there's a lot to learn from as, we look about at how to help people be more effective. Virtually, in the process so, let's, jump into the agenda so.
Talking About the ROI of design we'll just start by saying the obvious of course, we. Produce better solutions. Right and that's, the reason why most of us approach, design thinking in the first place and our. Research suggests that the reason, why we produce those, better, solutions. Is again. The human element it's because people are able to reframe problems. They're, able to become more engaged they're, able to include, input. From their users right, they're able to do a whole set, of things that in turn trigger. Our ability, to come up with better ideas an, important. Corollary, to that though, is that not. Only do we come up with better ideas we. Have a higher, likelihood, of, actually. Implementing. Those ideas, and. So in that way Design Thinking is almost a form of change management and, involvement. In aspects, like prototyping. And testing, build. Ownership they, build commitment, and enthusiasm they. Motivate, people to keep, going through the hard work of iteration, and what. We find is they increase, the likelihood, of successful, implementation. Of these better ideas, that we've come up with significantly. And that really, matters, there's. Also a set though a very important, relationship. Building. Impacts, we see from design thinking a lot. Of this has to do with building. Capabilities. Both locally. And again, design. Has the power to give us tools, instead. Of rules, what. Those tools allow us to do is to adapt to local conditions and take advantage of local intelligence which, then feeds into the better solutions, right, they. Also allow, us to build common, purpose and, collaborate. More effectively with partners, which, in turn allows. Us to. Pool, share. And look, for new resources. Right so the resources, available to, move, forward with ideas, increases. As Design, Thinking allows, us to work with a broader network of stakeholders, and bring, all their capabilities. And resources into, the situation, with us, finally. Related. To relationships, we, see a huge, impact. On trust building right. Here. At Darden one of my favorite, colleagues who teaches a lot of change management basically says Trust is the currency of change we. Live in a world where organizations. And individuals. Ability, to adapt, and change quickly, is absolutely. Critical we. Do that best and most, efficiently. And effectively, in, an environment, where, we trust the people that, we're working with and again. The ability of Design Thinking conversations. To create, trust, both, within teams and between. Teams and their important shareholders, stakeholders. Is really, critical, final. ROI, point, that I'd want to matter mention, is we, see a lot of powerful, impacts, of design thinking at a very personal level and that's really where I'm going to spend a lot of my time today looking. At how. Immersion. In the design thinking process shifts. Innovators. And imagination. Workers mindsets. And beliefs, as well as, their skill sets it, builds. Their creative confidence it offers. Them psychological. Safety it. It. Creates, an openness, and a willingness, to try, new things all of, which are absolutely. Critical in engaging. As broad, a group of people as we can in the challenges, of adapting, to this, increasingly. Crazy world we're all living in. So. What's intrigued us is how, does. Design, Thinking produce. All of these various. And, multi-layered. Outcomes. Well, our so, our belief there is that. It does this by providing a social. Technology. Now let's talk about that that seems a strange phrase, at some level social technology.
In Our world we've been trained to think that technology, is about digitisation, right. And that, really, technical. Is the, only aspect, of technology, but. If we go back to the actual origin and the meaning of the word technology. Technologies. Allow. Us to, turn knowledge, into, practical, outcomes. For. Design thinking, I think, it's important to add the, social aspect. To the, technology. Right so it is a set of socially. Oriented, tools, and methods that allow us to gather knowledge and then turn that knowledge, into, improved outcomes, for the people we're designing for I. Always. Think, it's intriguing to, think of the advances, we've made in, digital, technology, even. Over the last ten to twenty years right they are constantly, telling us how, many stories, and how many city blocks it. Would have taken even, 15, years ago to give us the capacity that we now hold in our hand with our iPhone but. Let's ask a question about the. Social. Technology, and how much that is helping us move forward I think, some of us would argue that aspects, of social media Twitter. For instance. Have. Not helped, us to advance and improve people's, lives, they've further, polarized. Us and made it more difficult to work across difference, what. We urgently need is, a social, technology. That, allows us to deal with the diverse kind of wicked challenges, we've got today and that, social, technology, has to be more than software, as wonderful. As mural. Software, is and it, has to be more than simple rules like turn-taking. It. Has to be an entire, approach, that, lets us harness. Whatever, it takes for you beings to have better conversations that. Allow them to work together to produce better outcomes so. Let. Me talk a little bit again unpack, that, what, does, design thinking social, technology, consist, of starting. With the obvious, I mean we all know the Design Thinking gives. Us a set of activities to do right, so we start by gathering data using, ethnographic method, then. We mined that data for new and deeper insights, based. On those insights, we create, design, criteria. Or points, of view, that help us design by identifying and prioritizing what. Really matters, to the people we're serving we. Then pull those criteria. Into an. Ideation, process that. Allows us to generate ideas we. Make those ideas, concrete. Through prototyping, and then we take them back to our users that we've designed for and we test them obvious. We all know this what. Intrigues, us is that, underneath. Those. That. Set of activities is a, sequence. Of personal. Experiences. That, the, innovator, or the imagination, worker is having. Themselves, as, they, use, the, Design Thinking tools, and activities, so, for instance while, we're out there gathering, data what's. Happening on the personal, side is we are immersing. Ourselves in, someone. Else's lived experience, that. Is creating, an emotional commitment, it's. Shifting, our perspective it's. Showing us new ways of, interacting, with the world gathering, data when.
We Identify, insights, what happens, is in the background we're engaged in sense making that. Is we're trying to make sense of this large amount of qualitative, data we're trying to look for patterns and when, we stay with it out, of that sense-making process we. Gain inspiration, and, confidence. Because, we begin to identify a, set of unmet needs that set our agenda. With. In establishing, design, criteria, we have a powerful. Experience. Usually of alignment. That, is teams. And groups of stakeholders, come, together to, share a collective understanding. Of what needs to be done and that collective understanding is, what, sets the stage for. Me. What is still one of the least understood but, most critical, aspects of Design Thinking which is this amazing, phenomena, of emergence. Where. We come together with, this collective, understanding and, we. See, things, that, we, could not see before, we. See together with the diverse group of people what, none of us could see, individually. Right and, that is a powerful, experience. That is transformational. For many people, finally. In. Visualizations. Things. Begun, begin, to feel, real, to us and that feeling, real gives, us something to move into learning in action and again learning in action it's, a term we toss around as that we're obvious, it easy to do learning. In action I think is the last frontier of capability, building in the, area of design thinking we too often fall in love with the front-end of design and the. Immersion, pieces, and ethnography. And the brainstorming. And all the fun stuff right and. Haven't. Really built the, skill set we need to around the important, work of, detaching. Emotionally. From, our babies, our creations, and subjecting. Them to testing, and really. Being able to listen, to. Sometimes, harsh critique, for the people we're designing for and, what. Happens, is when, we have those experiences. We, become. Someone. New it's. This cycle, of doing. Experiencing. Becoming. That. Is the, root of the power of design thinking. So. Immersion. Changes, us into people who are more empathetic, and also more curious. Sense-making. Helps, us become more confident, and inspired alignment. Makes us collaborative, and user driven, simultaneously. In emergence. We get comfortable with co-creation. And with, the important, work of leveraging, difference to create higher order solutions, and then. As we move into testing, we learn sometimes. How, to let go of ideas, that make sense to us and don't succeed when we test them off' users and we, begin to address the deeply, you fear. Of failure, that, makes many of us not very good at the experimentation. Process, so. What we want, to argue is that to really get the transformational. Effects of design thinking. Innovators. Themselves. Have to progress through, these stages of doing. Experiencing. And becoming. It's. Kind of critical to what happens. So. One, of the questions this raises, is how, much Design Thinking expertise.
Is Enough, as, people. Move into, the experiencing. And becoming, they. Practice. A much, deeper and more sophisticated version, of Design Thinking than, those of us who are new to it there's. Been controversy for many many years over, teaching. Design thinking. Skills to non designers, of course with, one group of people anchored. On the end, that says everybody, should learn design thinking, let's democratize. Design let's, teach this as a basic. Toolkit. To, everyone. In the world at every level of the organization to, use both, in their personal lives as well, as in, their work life. Needless. To say as, a, person who makes their living teaching, other people Design Thinking that's. Pretty much where I come out on this more. Design, is, always. Better but. There's been at the other end the controversy. Often, coming from skilled. Well-trained, designers to say well I'm not so sure about that a little, design can be a very dangerous thing the. The, analogy they always offer to me is uh well would, you want. To visit a physician who's, practicing, medicine without, a license, and without training right, so, how do we figure out who's, right here is it, the design. Is for everybody or is it, let's leave design to the experts, well. We've got some recent research that I'm excited to share with you and what that research suggests. Is that both parties are wrong, hmm. But also a little bit right in, fact. Just, a little bit of design thinking doesn't. Get you very far right, the one-day hackathons, that we love for building enthusiasm. And energy if that's, all you do you, we're not going to see the transformational. Effects I started this presentation talking, about right you're, not going to see um better. Ideas. Implemented. With higher likelihood you're, not going to see relationship. Building you're, not going to see trust building you're not going to see psychological. Safety and creative. Confidence right on the, other hand, we, find that those who argue that only trained designers do, it are wrong. As well that. In fact while you need to move people from novice, as we indicate, here. Into. Some kind of intermediate, set of skills you do not have, to move them all the way to, expert, status to see the, effects, our. Research. Suggests, that. Performance. Improvements, associated. With Design Thinking come. In thresholds. Right so, as we move people from. Knowing. No Design Thinking to knowing limited Design Thinking we. Improve performance, the. Big kick is when we move people from having limited. Exposure. And training. And Design Thinking to, intermediate. Status, we. Do not find, an additional kick, as we move people from intermediate, to, expert status. I think. That's an important finding because what it suggests to us is that we need to, think carefully about. How. We equip, people with design, skills the quick and dirty couple of our workshop, is simply, not enough to shift day-to-day practice and to help them to, become someone. New on the. Other hand it, also doesn't. Take four years of design school as part. Of this research we've tried then to begin to think about, what. Has, to happen what. Experience. Does an innovator, or imagination, worker have, to have at these different, stages of immersion and sense making and alignment, and emergence, and visualization and finally. Learning in action in order. To get to that threshold. That. Allows us to, maximize, the. Positive impact, of design thinking and here. Again. This is a full slide I won't, spend a lot of time going in detail but for, instance at.
Some Level data. Gathering, can be as simple as going out and doing a few ethnographic, interviews right, that does, not trigger. The kind of personal transformation we're, talking about in. Order, for immersion, to, help us really reap the full benefits of Design Thinking it. Has to be a perform that builds emotional. Engagement with the people we're designing for it. Has to give people a deep sense, and awareness, of their own biases. And blinders. And, it. Has to come with an ability, to, listen to, understand. And to recognize, opportunities, rather. Than. Listening. Specifically. Through the lens of identifying, solutions or even, worse testing. A solution I've already got in mind. Similarly. When we go into sense, making that, kind of pattern finding, we have to be able to get, to. Tacit. Unarticulated. Needs right. We. Have to have people who recognize, the difference between something, that is an observation and something. That they have layered interpretation. On and. We, have to get to the point that we can generate insights, that are deep, and fresh. And actionable. Because. Common. Obvious, insights. Translate. Into, common, obvious. New, ideas, right if, we, want to have a different idea that, is novel, and original, we have to first have an insight, about our users that is novel and original. Alignment. We can talk about the need to actually, achieve a shared and prioritized. Understanding. And this, kind of willingness to let go of our own perspective, and be open, to adopting, the perspective, of someone else I, think, this idea of getting. Skilled. At leveraging diversity, to find higher-order solutions. Rather, than allowing. Diverse. Viewpoints. To. Water down our solutions, to the lowest common denominator, compromises. Is one. Of the most critical, skills to develop and what, I think is one, of the most important things design brings, to this world of ours. We. Live in a world of increasing polarization. And difference how. Do we talk across those differences. In ways that allow us to build something better because. We come together across, our differences. Big. Question, and I think achieving. That level of competency, is critically, critical. Prototyping. How do we build a truly immersive experience. I think that's a challenge how, do we have clarity, of purpose as we develop our prototypes, because, prototypes, we know are not ends. In and of themselves, their. Provocations to. Test our ideas and then. Finally, in learning. And action. Our. People really equipped, to invite, and listen non defensively. To the critique of their ideas by stakeholders are they able to, isolate. And. Design. Experiments. To test the critical, make-or-break, assumptions. Underneath their ideas, rather. Than going immediately to test to, test, the ideas themselves so, again this, is just the beginning I, think of the next important, generation, of work around building, design thinking skills how do we isolate. What. The activities. And behaviors look like as we. Try and move people from, novice to intermediate. Status. And beyond, in our design thinking work well. What's, interesting to. Us is, our latest research suggests that this journey to becoming, that I've argued feature so, prominently in. Maximizing, the Iowa Design, Thinking is not, a one size fits all, not. Surprisingly. People, experience. Very. Different. Journeys. On the path to learning design thinking what is interesting to us though is our research finds, that there are some predictable. Pathways. For. Different personality, types and for. Those of us interested then, in. Facilitating. Both our own journey, and the. Journey of others. Understanding. The differences, between individuals. As they move through the design process is, absolutely. Critical. To, helping. Them become. The, different. Person that we know Design Thinking can, help us become. So let's let's talk a little bit about how we've operationalize, that idea, in our research. We, use an, instrument called the disc which I'm sure many of you are familiar with it's a. Well-loved. Business, personality. Indicator, in, organizations. Probably second, only to the myers-briggs. Throughout. Our research for, basically, over. Ten years we. Have used. The disc because. It has proven to have. Very. High levels of statistical, significance in helping. Us identify, the different behavior patterns so.
In Its purest, form we, can identify four. Different types, of people and I'll. Invite you as I. Go through them quickly to think about where, you would fit and where. Your colleagues, would fit because that's important, working, across diverse types turns, out to be absolutely critical which I'll talk about in a moment but, we have our drivers, right our drivers are people. Who are dominant, in, the disc type they are forceful, they are results oriented they are naturally. Confident. And one, of their key, strengths. In the innovation, process is that they are comfortable acting with. Relatively, little data right. The downside, is they're, kind of loners and they pretty much prefer working alone or it's, not working alone being the boss and having their own way, quite. Different our people will call the influencers. These are the people people, right the ones who are socially, oriented who, love the human interaction, part they love the front end of Design Thinking they're. Willing to build trust with relative strangers, and they, are naturally. Possibility. Driven and oriented. Towards trying to achieve consensus. Supporters. On the other hand are lower key team, players I like. To joke that these are the people who bring cookies to the meetings right they're friendly, they're supportive. There's a glue that holds team together. However. They. Are conflict. Of winked and, that can sometimes be a real downside, of the design thinking process where, we're trying to surface, and acknowledge. And work across difference, which, can often be full, of conflict, and be uncomfortable either so. Finally. We, have the the fourth group the controllers. Right the, controllers, are people who are rational. Objective and. Natural. Skeptical right, these, are people who, can create a lot, of angst and conflict, in a design team at the front end but, these are the people that are your friend when, you're designing expand. Executing, experiments, in the marketplace, the. Downside, of course is that they are almost the opposite of the driver and that they are very, uncomfortable. Acting. In the face of a, scant, amount of information and often when we work with senior groups who, call us in to say can. You help me I ask my people for innovation, and they don't give it to me you, look at the profile and the entire senior leadership team of a company. Is controllers, right, people. Are trying to innovate but. The people trying to innovate never.
Have Enough data, to, prove. To. Their leadership that, they should be allowed to act and move into the marketplace which is Lisl they, are the problem not the people who work for them so, let's look at just for a minute quickly, and again this is something I think that. That. There's lots of opportunities, to talk more about and, in particular, to make practical, for facilitators. But. What we find then as we go back and we look at the design thinking journey across, the pieces we, have dramatically. Different levels, of comfort, in that, journey so, for instance not surprisingly. Once. The design process is up and running influencers. The people oriented people love. It and remain. Uniformly. More, enthusiastic. And more, comfortable, at every, single step of the process than, other types on, the. Other hand we can look at the controller's people. Who need a lot of data to act naturally, skeptical they, tend, to remain. Below, everyone. Else and struggle, most with the design thinking process particularly. Areas like sense making and somewhere. In the middle are drivers, and supporters, so. Look at let's look at each individually. For a moment but but first talk about why diversity matters. We. Have some interesting outcomes. From our research that suggests that, having, diverse, personality. Profiles, on an. Innovation, team is absolutely. Critical to maximizing its performance, so, here we have two slides on my, left we're, looking at the level of come, of teens based, on whether they have two different types three, different types or four different types and we. Can see that generally, the. Three, personality. Type teams are the, most comfortable, and interestingly. The. Two personality. Type teams are the least comfortable they. Probably don't have enough of the mediators, of the third and fourth types to, to, reduce the conflict when. We look instead, at the quality of project outcomes, though we, see a very, dramatic, significant. Step, progression. Teams. That have two types. Within. Their teams do not perform, as well as teams that have three types and teams, that have three types do, not perform, as well as teams that have four times for. Us this ups the ante on understanding. The composition, of our teams not just in terms of, technical. Abilities. And background. And functions, but. Instead, understanding. In terms of the personality, or the set, of profiles or preferences, they bring to the design thinking process, well. Let's look quickly, at some of them the drivers, what, we find is the highpoint is often, for, the driver sense, making these, are people who love the challenge, of finding patterns and making sense working with other people they're, willing to challenge other members of the team to make their reasoning, explicit. They're willing to be challenged, and they really thrive on that and since, we know that digging. Deep, into, ethnographic. Data really. Requires. A willingness of, each, team member to bring their own perspective, and to use differences. To challenge, each other to go deeper, and think. More and more deeply about the insights that they're trying to generate together, what. The drivers, don't like so much is the startup because. They're very impatient, with it they're impatient with the team process, they're impatient with all of this notion of dwelling and the problem, right they want to get to the solution and so they, really, struggle, in that early, period where, we hold them in the problem, we've. Collected, some of the some of the phrases that people use frequently, and for us. We. Were always amused by the drivers, who say things like I have difficulty sticking, with the pace of the team it's just way too slow for them and I, need to be more page, when people require additional time so patience. Is something, that we work hard to help drivers, develop. As part of the process. Controllers. On the other hand love, the testing part right they love it when we finally get to ideas, and we, begin to bring data to bear on those their, low point is often, that same, sense making that the driver loved and why. Is that because. Controllers. In their emotional, detachment find. It much, more difficult to engage emotionally and, in, fact to do the kind of level of intuiting. That, identifying, and articulate, needs, really takes and they, say things like I tend to be good and analyzing, checking but maybe I'm a bit of a perfectionist and I'm kind, of reluctant to act without complete, information, when.
We Look on the other hand at the influencer. Okay. For the influencer, there are people person, it doesn't, get any better than emergent, immersion, they love at the graphic research they love talking to people and really. Going deep to understand. Their lives on the, other hand, the, beginning takes, them a while to get comfortable but once they're comfortable they, they, love the design thinking process and and, here's a quote I think that often expresses, what we find influencers say while, initially I felt the rigidly defined steps. That design think prescribed prescribes. Would be an impediment to creativity, in fact. They allowed the team to move effortlessly. Through many of the trickiest stages, of design such, as insight, generation, with minimal, frustration. The. Supporter, our team, player person, nothing. Feels better than alignment, when everyone, is getting along together. In agreement. The, supporter, is happy what, makes them uncomfortable is the ambiguity, at the beginning of the design thinking process and the level of frustration and sometimes conflict, that we see. Supporters. Say things like I view myself as being less creative but, I've learned and witnessed, that working and discussing, ideas in a team setting harnesses. Creativity. And out of every individual, so we can really see the creative confidence. Building. Throughout the design thinking process with, the supporter. So. That's kind of our teaser into different personality, types there's, actually a lot we can say to. People facilitating. This journey and to people making their own journey, there's, a lot of power in not, only being, able to identify our own natural preferences. But, in building. More effective, work habits on teams with peoples who preferences, are different so, that together we, can really leverage that difference to produce outcomes, the. Final thing that I'll just mention quickly is. We've. Been intrigued by so what happens, when a journey, that in our classrooms at least has, with. Our MBA students, largely, been face to face moves, virtual. As. I said when we started co vid has given us the chance to to, look, at that what, we find very, interestingly, is, even. The transition. From face to face to virtual, is. Mediated. By the different, personality, profiles so, for instance, when. We look at drivers.
Here. And, compare, our classes, last year that were face to face with our classes this year that we're entirely virtual, we've. Seen that they track pretty closely. Except. For, emergence. What's, interesting about drivers is in many cases they, like virtual, just, as much as face to face right they're trying to get a job done hey zoom can be very efficient, right but, what. Happens is the, whole emergence. Of new ideas it, doesn't, spike for them the way it does face-to-face, so we kind of lose a big kick in enthusiasm, on. The, other hand the supporters, are pretty much, indifferent. To virtual versus face-to-face they really enjoy it they work well in both but. Now compare, them to the people who, are our influencer. Are people, people they, have the most statistically, significant, difference, virtual. Really hits them hard and they, find it difficult not, to have the face-to-face contact, at every, single level of the process so, we see that the pattern, as they go through the process looks the same but, they are substantially. Less comfortable, in virtual at every, single stage of the process. And. And, then with controllers, similarly, we see very little difference, between them until we get to the emergence, stage in. Which they. Have. In fact, a positive. Experience almost, the opposite, of the drivers in moving. Idea generation, into the virtual space from face to face so, that's just a teaser we've, only gotten those results, last week so we haven't had a chance to really think about them and really plumb them but we think there's a lot to work with there so. Let, me just wrap up by talking about what's next that, we might do first, I have to first thank my incredible co-authors. And Co researchers here, Kristina Karen and Jessica, a. Lot, of the work that I presented to you today is work, that they've. Been the inspiration, and in many times the, major people, doing so thank, you and I hope in future webinars. We'll get to meet them. The other thing I'd like to invite you to do is to join our research there's, a link here to the survey, we use to, assess, those kinds of outcomes that, we discussed, early on in the presentation and I'd. Like to invite each of you who've not taken the survey yet perhaps work, part of the earlier webinars. That we've done from ural to, jump online it's quick it should take you no more than about 15, minutes and and. It will give you some interesting, information and food for thought I think about what. Your version, of design, thinking is and the tools you're using as well as whether or not you're really achieving, the full range of outcomes, for. Those who are interested I'd also like you to invite to. Invite you to join our classes, for. Me as an educator one of the most amazing things about design thinking is how. Well, it can be, taught virtually. And so. We teach in a very project-based. Hands-on. Way, and and. Have a certificate, program where. We feel that we can really dig deep to, get people to that important, intermediate stage. Of. The design thinking process even, for people who have no design training at all so. That's, where we are today we hope you'll stay tuned for more we hope you'll join us in our research and, and. Let us know how you're thinking and, feeling and with. That let, me turn, the floor back to, Mariana and, hopefully, we have some great questions to. Talk some more about. Thank. You so much gene. A. Definitely. A lot of new. Insights. Into your research last. Time. We talked you. Mentioned that there there was a little bit they were seeing around this question, of like getting, the.
The Beginners become, a, practitioners. That could play, along with. The, designers, and the engineers of, Horrible's was gonna be building some stuff and, it's. It's it's great to see that you wrapped. It full circle and now you're you're, introducing. The idea of. A. Self-awareness, and, and I'm team, empathy, also which, I think it's also very relevant. And looking forward to see what's. Next and by the way everybody, out there this was a presentation, it was Jean sharing her, findings, we, are working. On. Putting. Together a workshop. Along. The context of merely imagine where, some of you can also participate. In, in, this program, that a. Jean. And teaming are doing so, Jean besides, people going to the, Darden a online. Classes what, is other other. Advice it up for accelerating. The the path from thinking no novice. People into. Medium. Practitioners. Well. I think one, of the other things, that we find is that having. The right kind of coaching, can be absolutely, critical right so we can take a group of beginners, and we can put them together and they can struggle to learn Design Thinking together, and often. Produce good outcomes but. You can dramatically. Accelerate. That with the right kind of coaching, so, for instance one of the organizational. Practices, I like, best is where. Organizations. Set, up support. People. In the design process they, build a community, of designers right. They, bring in some of the expert, designers, not, so that the expert designers, can step in and do people's work for them right but, so that the, expert, designers, can be a coach and a support, throughout. The process and, so so, I think that, coaching. Is critical, and. Then I don't think there's any substitute. For Dewey. I. Think. To the extent that we think of design thinking less as an episodic. Thing, that when we have a big project, we use design thinking on and we. Think of it more as a day-to-day practice, as a way of being, as. A set, of tools that, that, can be decoupled, from each other and used on a day to day basis, I think, that's where we start to really increase. Our competency, there is a profound, learning curve, and things like ethnic graphic research, we know that I mean we, kind of shove our, students, out into the real world because, most. People feel intimidated, to have a much deeper different. Kind of conversation, with someone, than they're used to having when, they ask them to fill out a superficial, survey right, once. They do it however they, love it and they're dramatically. Better at their third and fourth interview, than they were at their first and second right so, again part of this is not being intimidated about, doing. It perfectly. I, like to talk about moving towards goodness, design. Thinking, almost always moves us towards goodness if we get in there and we, just do it and if we're lucky enough to have people to turn to who can help us do it better. It. Will come right because. Naturally. Most of us are design thinkers we've just had it beaten out of us many, of us by. Our career choices and by the nature of our, education. And when you free, people, to experience, it. Most people get excited and are, pretty, good at it so. Dean. You. Are, pretty. Good at a because, he said we, become someone new. So, Roy shining'. Asked, do. You see a long-term effect, on behavior. Of people when, they have had, their experience. Again. We haven't had the luxury of, studying. Long-term. Effects you know as an academic I always have to qualify any, answer I give where I've got data and I don't. But. I think if, I look at the people that I spend most time with which, are my MBA, students. And. They keep journals right so we really, I really asked them to track, personally. How they're experiencing. Learning design thinking and what it's doing for them and, many. Of them are profoundly. Changed, by it, particularly. Those of us I think come from very traditional business. Environments, I mean I was trained as an accountant.
It, Is, hardwired, into me that numbers are more real than human beings right. And, Design. Thinking is, a profound. Shift, in the way I have, been trained to see the world I think it's in part why I have so fallen, in love with it. Many. Of us in business have, been told, that we are not creative, people we're told that over and over again there are creative people and those are the ones who deserve to be called imagination, workers, and the, rest of us engineers. Accountants, whatever, we're just we're just we're, just here to serve those imagination. People right and, that. Shift, into, seeing myself as a creative person is probably. Well. It's not only the most rewarding, for an educator it's. One of the most meaningful shifts. That people have so so I do think, that we're seeing very, long-term. Impacts. On. On, people's, behaviors, and on their self-image and on how they see themselves as, well as how they see other people can we prove that with data yet from academic, research we, can't, but. I still believe it and by the way everybody. Listening, Jeanne, is, originally. Trained as an accountant. Just. For. You guys they're not in the creative. Field just know that if we, are all very. Creative, our own imagination, workers, we just forgot at school but. Everybody, can do it so Jean, in a context, so I generally say, that if. People don't practice. Right. They're, gonna be even though there's like that moment of aha they. Might, get back from a average. To, novice, or, like. That so the. Beauty about the. Situation, we are right now even, though it's a dreadful. Lowell. Pandemic, is that we are all in. A level playing field in a digital Rihanna we're working from home so have, you seen, anything. On, the. Which are the parts of the same thing in process have, had more trouble with let, alone the personality, we're going to personality again which are the things that we've seen your students or the companies you pay, attention to struggle. The most when it comes to his activities and. In particular there, are two questions and. One, by. Matt. Freer, and Maggiore Munir. That. We're asking about as not referring particular mm-hmm. I. I, have, not experienced. With people. The students that I taught ethnography. To be particularly. Difficult people, are afraid of ethnography. I will. Send students, to the supermarket, for instance just to observe and to talk to people about shopping and I always joke that our MBAs have a lot of confidence they kind of feel like they could graduate. And the next day run a major corporation, without any trouble but when I ask them to talk to other human beings in the supermarket, it freaks them out right, but, once they've done it they.
Get Better at it quite dramatically, what. I personally, experienced, as the, single, most difficult place. For people with design thinking is sense making and that is identifying, insights right, we, are most, of us not trained to work with large amounts of qualitative, data and so. Getting, people. Successfully. Through the insights, process, without them feeling, overwhelmed. And kind of hopeless at the amount of work they've got to do is is. Very critical, and, it requires, a great deal of structure, so the cognitive complexity. Of looking for insights, the, layering of a, deeper, and deeper insight. Just. Requires, I think a different. A different level, of facilitation, than almost every, other aspect. Of design thinking does in our, work the. Other piece I think is very hard for people even though it's kind of surprising that should be is the design of experiments. We. Tossed, out, this, notion of designing experiments as though that was obvious, and easy and we could all do it in fact. Most of us have not trained to be have not been trained to be hypothesis, driven and until. You learn how to be hypothesis, driven it is very difficult to design good experiments, and the. Entire design, thinking, process. Ability, falls, apart, without. Experimentation. Right, the reason, why those small, ends, and all that qualitative, ethnographic. Research was, okay in the beginning was, because we were using it to inspire, better. Ideas, but. We still need to test those ideas before, we scale them right, and I. See a lot of organizations, falling, in love with the front-end of design thinking and then, kind of hey I've got my ideas I'm ready to run with them and implement them I'm not going to bother testing, them and again I think that is a mistake and teaching. People to design good tests it, requires as much creativity. As having. A great idea and I don't think we acknowledge, that. Thank. You and there's. A lot of questions, around how. Do you used your cutter, you say this, and that more, practical. Questions from the audience dice a remember, that merely margin. Is. A, series. Of events some. Of which will be more practicals this, one in particular is more around genes. Research. So. Go, to middle doc co / imagine, and stay tuned and of course we, do weekly, events. Where, we show people live, action, from mural, in, like a twitch / meetings so, gene, other, people commenting, on this right so Saturday attendees. But I'm, a little bit of all of the personalities. Or. This. Works doesn't work what. Can you tell people that. Maybe. Are not so. Fans, of personality, there are these believers in those yeah. Well. I mean. It. Always interests me you know I'm trained as an, accountant, and a strategist, I'm not a not, a psychologist, so when I for instance take the disc I'm. Always baffled, by how answering. That set of questions actually. Provides. The window, into, issues issues like level of comfort with uncertainty. But. It, does I mean all I can say is for 10 years we found statistically. Significant. Predictions. Based, on disc type so. For instance when we go out and we look at people, who, are naturally. Good at leading organic. Growth in large organizations. Right our original, work in design thinking was all around studying growth leaders in large mature, organizations. With. A high, level of statistically. Statistical. Significance they Rd is in the disc profile they, are a combination of dominance, and influence. Right. Dominance. Tends to drive too hard to be successful in, kind of large corporate settings but, influence, doesn't drive hard enough and when you bring those two together there's. Really no question so, so, you know I'm not a psychologist I can't explain why these instruments, do. Allow, us to predict all I can say is our research.
Demonstrates. That they, do predict. The, disc does we, have no research that suggests, for instance the myers-briggs, actually. Predicts but, you, know we have 10 years of data using the disk we, we know it predicts so. You. Know because, I'm not a test creator I can't really say how but. Somehow it. Detects, some, of these fundamental. Aspects, like how, we deal, with uncertainty, how. We, feel about difference. How. Inclined, we are to dialogue, versus, debate, right, it picks, up these underlying. Preferences. We have right. Which, are. Not. They're. Not immutable. Right what we know with all of these tests, is that we. Can be different than our personality, profile but only if we are aware of it and make a conscious choice to be different if we. Aren't consciously, aware of our profile, we just think it's the way we are and the way everybody is and so we just go, with the flow right with all of these personality, tests the, value, is in building and awareness, both of my own, proclivities. And the way I which I get in my own way and. Accepting. Others, not, as wrong, or damaged, because they're different than I am but, as bringing. A different perspective instead, of skills, well. I mean our, company, we. Using. A product called Prelude, so, similar. To disk senses. I think. Something that that is interesting. Besides. The result, is. Also as, you mentioned that once. You go through this. I'm thinking, six. Steps. Or the six parts, of it at least you're aware of it all right so you're aware that there's different personalities. You're aware that at least based on the replies that these, people in this moment in time replied, and, at least it's something that you can use to calibrate your conversation, and, something that I always like about your presentation. As I mentioned, the, human factors, change of, all, the same thinking, you mentioned you said quote unquote better. Conversations. To cut better outcomes right, and. Everything. And anything that we can do to build trust with our, conversations. Should. Lead to least, more. Happiness in. So. We. Have probably. Time for two, more questions and. Everybody. In the audience please. Accept. My apology because we had like literally. More than a hundred this is really hard for for, us I have a team behind me sorting. Through this but. The the other, one I wanted to ask is about a team. Composition. So you mentioned four personality, types, have, you seen anything around team sizes or anything. Else besides the type, of people, involved, in these projects, can. You recommend it, we've. Really, only studied. It from the perspective, of personality. Types, so. I don't I, don't. I don't really have data on anything else I mean you know we have preferences, of team size I mean, my preference for teams is always four to five because. I just. Think you get freeriders, otherwise, to, be one of the great strengths of the design thinking process is, you can have small, intact. Work teams that. Then reach out to. Other stakeholders, at strategic points in the process like. You, know design creating, design criteria, and use. Tools like the gallery walk to, invite a broad group of stakeholders into. The conversation. So, I tend. To think of this idea of team, as. Kind of permeable, you've, got a small, core team and I think the reality of it is, if the team gets too big people skip meetings and then you never get anywhere because you explain what everyone missed at the last meeting in the new meeting right so so, you need a team small enough of people are committed, enough to give the time to. Do the, time intensive, work of activities, like, ethnographic. Research but. Then Design Thinking really. Allows permeable. Boundaries, so, you can invite lots, of other people and we have insight sessions, with that, we invite 100 people to write, we divide them into 20 different teams and we tour galleries, with them and then, at the end we, have 20 flipcharts across there and we look for similarities right so, the, whole notion of. Team. And who's on it and who's off it I think can. Really, really. Be, challenged. By design thinking into thinking, about who's, having what, conversation. At what point in time right. And who do we need in the conversation. To, make sure that we are, able to achieve the outcomes we care about so. If, the real team is four or five and there's at least four percent of the times it's really hard to get to that diversity. At the team level right, so pretty worth a paying. Attention, to that and the, other interesting thing that you mentioned I are introducing, more people around the, team is you. Mentioned that one, of the impacts. Of the same thing is around the, likelihood. Of. A. Project. Getting, to the outcome right because people, get like. Enthusiastic. And cheering. But you, shared this in the last episode. It's, something that I I always, forward with that and, I. Don't. Have. Any.
Particular, Questions gene so what's, next for you, in. Your research tell me about your book that you're, writing what's. Going on there so I, think what what, myself, and my, my, co-authors, are really excited, about now is it a very practical level how do, we help people move. Through this. Doing. Experiencing. Becoming cycle. What, what has to happen for. Instance in immersion, to move someone from a novice, in. Into. Someone who's emotionally, engaged listening. Differently, all of the kind of things that have to happen so. I think the next stage for us is we've. We've gathered. A lot of data over a long period, of time and we've, begun to develop, advice. For. People and for for, facilitators. To, help them move because I think one of the challenges in design thinking is we. Just talk about design, thinking I, mean even the term it's, a bundle, of different. Activities, that are dramatically, different from each other right so, not only we don't even unpack the big term Design Thinking much. Less unpacked, for instance at, the sense-making, stage. Of Design Thinking the insight finding, what, are the critical set, of. Behaviors. That, we need to get people good. At in, order to believe that they're truly competent and could truly maximize that that so, I think, the next stage of work is practical, for us it's, really mining. What, we're learning about how these different personality. Types are going through the process in order, to understand. How. To, better achieve. Success. We because, I think one of the things I worry about with design thinking and I'm sure it's something we all worry, about is that. Organizations. Think the one-day hackathon, is all you need to do, people. Aren't properly trained they go off and do it they don't do it well and everyone says see I could. Have told you that Design Thinking wouldn't, work look at it you know I mean the next it makes me scream when I read articles about how Design Thinking doesn't. Work and then, you look at the level of training they gave people and it, was a couple of our workshop, I mean what did people really expect if, we look at things. Like total, quality management I mean, in the days when TQM, was starting up I mean they had very strict guidelines about, how you ramped, people up to competency, levels we. Have lacked that in design thinking and I, think that's the next stage of work we have to do because. If we don't do that the. Superficial, work, will, make it more difficult. For. People doing. Quality deep. Design, work to. Make a compelling, case for why they need to do more of it in their organizations. For. That one invention. Facilitators. And facilitation, I believe, it's a core, competency. For designers. And leaders. To, work on, I wonder. There's any correlation between mean. Personalities. Of facilitators. In these groups or not will with seen another episode but we have things like a. Tours and we're seeing in our clients people being hired as full, time facilitators. In enlarge of Commons at USAA, for example the Holika a role they, do a project, management, - but facilitator, same thing it was the teachers oh. I'm. Very curious, to see there and by the way everybody, still listening we're introducing a feature, in one week or two maybe three called. Celebration. It'll be able to celebrate inside. A mural, with. Your team, which again it's, one of the things that maybe, it's not listening, your parts, of discoloration. Jing which is. It. Is fun and and, it's a moment of celebration when. You come up with something new when you solve someone's problem and of course when you get the business. Or, organizations. Out, come out of that I so. Very. Glad. To to, see more customers and shake more user centric design, coming. Into more people out there and. Of course as. We get better this also the next layer which is facilitation. And systems thinking and, so on so.
Thank You so much, Jean for spending the time with us today, sharing. Your research always, a pleasure to to. Listen to you and I, mean. I've, been using, your phrases as the same thing as a social technology, so, apologies, for for, stealing buddy, they're, very steal it all you want Mariano, I approve of that kind of depth and. Everybody else if. You want to follow Jean. You. Know to find her and don't worry we'll be following up with a recording, for, you guys to share with. Everybody else in your teams and, your companies, and, as I said before I recommend. One in time a little bit and see how how. Gene has progressed, her, understanding. Last couple years of, the, social, technology, that we all love I'll go care about thank you so much and, see you next time alright, thank, you very much goodbye everybody.
2020-07-24 05:41