Design 전략 - Critical and Design Thinking

Critical and Design Thinking

source : http://www.zurb.com/blog/topic/design-strategy?page=2

Building on my post from yesterday, Is, Will and Should, let's dissect Peter Drucker's Paradigm of Change Model to understand the unique advantages of critical thinking and design thinking in an organization.

Critical thinking is frequently used to solve business problems (an example of an operational role that uses critical thinking is accounting). Looking at the Venn diagram below, it makes sense that most of the IS circle falls on the left side of the chart (critical thinking). Businesses need their operations to run smoothly based on a set formula so that patterns can analyzed. If businesses continually "iterated" on their accounting, payments and receivables would be a mess because transactions would be too hard to track! Standardization is put in place to insure there is a high level of accuracy.

Most businesses validate their strategy through analytics (intersection of IS and SHOULD) instead of relying on tactics (WILL) to drive innovation because it's easier to stay focused on one type of thinking. The problem with this singular, critical thinking model is that strategy is never truly challenged with *innovative* thinking. Design thinking, however, allows a business to inject new ideas without being constrained by the limitations imposed by the operations (IS).

Design thinking has been touted over the last ten years as a new model for solving business problems in an organization. We think design thinking is a great compliment to critical thinking. ZURB's methodologies are heavily rooted in design thinking principles and it's no wonder our sweet spot of interaction design and design strategy fit neatly in the right side of the Venn diagram. It's also not surprising that as interaction designers we're also focused on some critical thinking tasks that overlap with the current operations in a business.

Here are some additional thoughts:

1. Design management and interaction design are both evenly divided between critical thinking and design thinking. It's difficult to find talented people that can easily switch thinking caps.
2. Most great product managers spend the majority of their time in WILL using design thinking to validate IS while challenging SHOULD. Bad product managers use critical thinking to take SHOULD ideas straight to IS.
3. Our buddy LukeW has a nice comparison of critical thinking (business approach) and design thinking (design approach). It's interesting how the business and design approaches in his chart map extremely well to each side of our split Venn diagram.

Dividing this mental framework into two halves makes it easier to visualize which thinking approach is most effective for managing change in an organization.

Is, Will and Should by Bryan

November 20, 2008 in Design Strategy with 3 comments

Peter Drucker was a master in the field of business thinking. Earlier this year I stumbled upon his Paradigm of Change Modeland I started thinking about how this applied to design.

Drucker's concept is composed of IS, WILL and SHOULD and describes the constant fluctuations of a business. These three states map to operations, tactics and strategy. In this Venn diagram the intersection of IS/WILL and WILL/SHOULD is where interaction design and design strategy emerge as critical to a business' success.

Over the course of many design strategy sessions, we've tweaked the Venn diagram to apply it to the field of interaction design to help clients build great products. I'm going to highlight a few insights from the model above:

1. Most businesses get stuck in the IS circle because a solid operation plan keeps the lights on in a business. The problem with staying focused on operations is that you forget to innovate and create new opportunities (the world market can pass you by)!
2. Most businesses do not use tactics (WILL circle) enough to test the strategy (SHOULD). Instead, businesses try to confirm the strategy with analytics (thus moving back and forth between IS and SHOULD). While this is a great opportunity, businesses miss the chance to innovate with tactics. Tactics allow a business to innovate much faster.
3. Entrepreneurs often have great vision and understand the SHOULD in start-ups, but get lost in the WILL because it takes too much detailed iteration and thinking.
4. The intersection between IS and WILL is the sweet spot for interaction design. Coincidentally, it's also the place that most businesses struggle to understand and get done.
5. WILL is usually owned by product management, but finding talented product managers to balance the business strategy with stuff that needs to get done is tough. Businesses need to allow product managers the flexibility to create value with tactics (instead of balancing the IS and SHOULD). Innovation can't happen very effectively without tactics.
6. Design strategy is the intersection of WILL and SHOULD. In our experience, if a business struggles with interaction design (the intersection of IS and WILL) then it almost always has trouble understanding the value of design strategy.
7. Design management requires a solid grasp of all the states of the business and plays a key role in making sure thatIS, WILL and SHOULD are all happening in harmony.

We believe this is a great mental framework for understanding how to use interaction design and strategy to manage change in an organization.