Design Thinking Methods And Tools

The Design Thinking Toolkit: 100+ Method Cards to Create Innovative Products

Do you know that companies in the top-quartile of Mckinsey Design Index score experienced 32% higher revenue growth and 56% higher total returns to shareholders than their counterparts over a 5-year period according to a Mckinsey Report published in October 2018? Being a design-centric company pays off as evidenced by the likes of Apple, Facebook, Airbnb and Google, and other design-driven organizations that made design thinking a core business strategy. For example, A.G Lafly, the former CEO of P&G, was able to turnaround the company in the early 2000's by placing design thinking at the core of his innovation strategy. The successful launch of new design-oriented products such as MagicReach and Kando and the revival of Herbal Essences shampoo line through 'Clay Street' were all the result of this user-centric design strategy.

"I want P&G to become the number-one consumer-design company in the world, so we need to be able to make it part of our strategy. We need to make it part of our innovation process."

– A.G. Lafley (Lafely), Chairman & CEO, Procter and Gamble Co (P&G)"

So what is Design Thinking? Design Thinking is a human-centered, iterative, and collaborative approach for creatively solving real-world, wicked problems and building solutions that are desirable by customers, technically feasible and viable over time. Design Thinking, which was popularized by IDEO and Standford, is a 5-step process that starts with the understanding of customer needs and defining the problem to solve before moving to the ideation phase where we try to brainstorm as many solutions as possible before prototyping and testing our ideas with end-users.

In this post, I share with you more than 100 design thinking tools that can help you drive innovation in your organization and design better products and services. Whether you are an entrepreneur, designer, product manager, builder, freelancer or consultant, these tools will help you run better design thinking sessions and become more user-centric.

1-UNDERSTAND CUSTOMER NEEDS (EMPATHY)

The first stage of design thinking is empathy. But then, what does being empathetic mean? The notion seems difficult to define as we are not in the realm of exact sciences when we explore the environment of our users. The tools that follow provide a framework that can help you navigate through both the divergence and convergence phases. They will help you to better organize the qualitative data you need to collect in order to draw relevant insights and learnings.

1.2-Design Research

Design research is useful to not only understand individuals but also
frame individual behaviors in the context of the community that surrounds
them. Therefore, it will be important to employ many methods of research.

The Field Guide to Human-Centered Design: IDEO.org

3-BRAINSTORM TO GENERATE SOLUTIONS TO YOUR CHALLENGE

This is the creative stage of the design thinking process in the true sense of the word, so take advantage of it! Go for quantity as this a pre-requisite of quality, defer judgment, be visual, build on the ideas of others, stay focused on the topic, one conversation at a time and encourage wild ideas! Don't hesitate to pace the sequence of tools according to the energy in the group, make sure to open as many doors as possible.

4-PROTOTYPE AND FAIL FAST

Design Thinking is about making things and the whole point of prototyping is to fail early, so make your idea concrete as fast as possible as it will eventually give you a better understanding of how to improve it. Even if you still have doubts about what you're trying to achieve, your best bet is to do something about it. Don't spend too much on it as you will get attached to your prototype and won't be able to be objective during user interviews in the test phase! We have compiled a list of tools that can help you and your team embody the maker posture. Don't forget: everything can be prototyped.

5- TEST YOUR PROTOTYPES AND ITERATE

Finally, I am sharing with you a list of icebreakers and checking-in games that you can use in your design thinking sessions.

6-CHECK-IN ACTIVITIES

These tools will allow you at the beginning of the workshop to know how the group feels, what are its expectations, any obstacles that might impede the success of your session so you can address them head-on and adjust the agenda accordingly if needed.

Tool 93: ESVP

Tool 94: Code of Conduct

Tool 95: Rollercoaster

Tool 96: Wishes

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