The Challenges of Using Design Thinking in Industry – Experiences from Five Large Firms

Abstract

Design Thinking (DT) is advocated as a user‐centred approach to innovation, based on the way designers think and work. Despite being increasingly promoted as an approach to innovation, there is still little evidence of successful impact. Rather, indications suggest that firms find implementation challenging. The purpose of this paper is to analyse challenges of using DT in light of literature on innovation barriers, in order to discuss whether there is something unique about DT as a concept that makes it particularly challenging to use. The paper is based on an interview study of five large firms that all have at least five years of experience of using DT. The analysis shows that several of the perceived challenges can be linked to known barriers to innovation. However, other challenges have not previously been described in the innovation literature, and the paper suggests that there are some unique aspects of DT that makes it particularly challenging for firms to integrate it in innovation work. These are related to its core themes: user focus, problem framing, experimentation, visualization and diversity. Additionally, the paper contributes with an empirically based categorization of challenges that managers will find useful if they want to implement design thinking in their organizations.

Measuring Design Thinking Mindset

“…All of these items derive from an accurate analysis of the different elements found in the selected literature, where there authors independently clustered the 34 elements and then agreed on a final list of constructs. As an example, both Carlgren et al (2016b) and Schweitzer et al (2016) describe items related to concept of embracing risk and of ambiguity tolerance: Carlgren et al refer to the initial problem re-formulation and Schweitzer et al refer in particular to the process, namely to the risk of failure, to be open to accept the ambiguity in the outcome. Both of them include the aspect of using a holistic approach, which we considered as a separated item.…”

“…In every paper authors are mentioning the central role of the users but some of them express this focus in term of empathy and deep user understanding (e.g. Carlgren et al, 2016b) while someone else only in one of the two terms (e.g. Schweitzer et al, 2016).…”

“…Embracing risk includes "risking failure and failing fast" (Carlgren et al, 2016b, p.51) and the inclination to take risks in term of process (energy, time, …) that allow a deep exploration of the context and of new solutions, however crazy/foolish/mad and unconventional. In fact, designers are aware of exploration (Carlgren et al, 2016b) and expansion of the design knowledge are not able to leave risk taking out of consideration/ cannot ignore the risk taking. It is a necessary condition for the design (Fraser, 2007), for the innovation and for receiving a subsequent reward (Davis, 2010).…”

The process of creation in creative industries

“…For example, in a world where creation, and more specifically innovation, is ever more crucial (Lampel & Germain, 2016), other sectors now turn to creative industries as a key source of inspiration and promising solutions. Many businesses that do not belong to the creative sector per se are progressively integrating design and design thinking into their NPD, innovation and project management processes (Ben Mahmoud-Jouini, Midler, & Silberzahn, 2016;Brown, 2008;Carlgren, Elmquist, & Rauth, 2016;Schmiedgen, Rhinow, Köppen, & Meinel, 2015). Moreover, recent work on creative industries (Cohendet & Simon, 2016;Dempster, 2006;Round & Styhre, 2017) and on NPD (Bogers & Horst, 2014;Ries, 2011) shows intriguing and surprising similarities between the two research streams, which both emphasize the necessity for iteration, prototyping and experimentation.…”

Designers as the determinants of design innovations

“…So far, research has focused on understanding how scientists and engineers lead to patent applications (technological innovations) (Agarwal et al, ; Almeida & Kogut, ; Gruber et al, ; Hoisl, ); we build on this and contribute by exploring both another type of human capital, namely, the one of designers, and another type of innovation, namely, design innovations. Second, design thinking and designers' contributions to new design innovations have been a core point of discussion in the design innovation literature (Carlgren, Elmquist, & Rauth, ; Johansson‐Skoeldberg, Woodilla, & Cetinkaya, ; Landoni et al, ). We contribute to this literature by presenting thorough evidence of designers' contributions, as well as presenting the condition prior experience with design innovation capabilities, which moderates the contribution that a designer can have on design innovation.…”