This is the second post on an article entitled Design Thinking for Social Innovation by Tim Brown and Jocelyn Wyatt, which appears in the current (Winter 2010) issue of Stanford Social Innovation Review. In design thinking, inspiration is the first step of the process. It embraces the problem or opportunity that motivates people to take action. What struck me most about this phase of design thinking was the authors’ statement that focus groups and surveys rarely yield important insights because all they do is collect data on what people want. Rather, the authors suggest a better starting point – go out into the target area and observe the actual experiences of your constituents. Observe how they move through their day and improvise their lives. Get out there, do “homestays,” and shadow locals at their jobs and in their homes. By becoming embedded in the lives of the people for whom you are designing, you have a much better chance of success.
Ideation is step two. The authors suggest a process of idea development that discourages the “devil’s advocate” and encourages vocalization of many ideas, among which the best simply rise to the top. The authors quote Linus Pauling, a two time Nobel Prize winner, who said “To have a good idea you must first have lots of ideas.” With a diverse group of people with multidisciplinary training, a strong and varied base of ideas can emerge.
Finally, implementation can occur. At the core of implementation is prototyping your designed solution. Testing, iterating, and refining.
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