When I took Design Thinking over the summer, it quickly became my favorite course. While some of my friends commented that they didn’t like how open ended or ‘disorganized’ the process was, I loved it. I think a lot of people are used to a linear path for problem solving, where, even if they don’t immediately know the answer to the problem, they know what direction to head in and how to start down that path. With design thinking, instead of a corn maze with precut paths to follow, you’re put in the middle of a field with a weed whacker, (okay that might not be the best analogy but this isn’t an english class). The point is, ideation in design thinking is all about finding different solutions, and not worrying about the absurdity, feasibility, impracticality, PR-nightmare-inducing a solution might be. The process is entirely open ended, and meant to be fun, which drives creativity and takes your team in directions a ‘normal’ brainstorming session would never have.
In both cases, I’ve come away favoring the ‘worst possible ideas’ brainstorming, partially because it’s fun and is good team bonding, and partially because that’s when you can see people becoming really creative. Some of the ideas can be flipped and changed into actually good ideas, but I’ll admit that a vast majority of the post-it notes from this brainstorming usually remain in the ‘very bad, no good, horrible’ ideas category. However, I don’t think that this approach’s worth comes from the number of good ideas it produces, but rather the team building and creativity it produces, both of which are infinitely more valuable in the long run than the 20 minutes your team spends on it.
I’ve also found it very valuable to know that, the skyrocketing popularity of design thinking is reassuring. Business often seem focused on hard skills and like they have very little room for creativity outside of perhaps marketing, but the design thinking process emphasizes curiosity and ambiguity that business has often overlooked. In addition, it’s become something that every company wants to have it’s employees go to a workshop on, or be trained in, and the process can be applied across all aspects of business. In essence, design thinking has shown the importance of soft skills, like creativity and empathy, within all aspects of business.