The document describes several tools used in design thinking including visualization, journey mapping, value chain analysis, mind mapping, rapid concept development, assumption testing, prototyping, customer co-creation, learning launches, and storytelling. For each tool, it provides a brief definition and discusses how the tool is used in the design thinking process to generate ideas, gather customer insights, test assumptions, and refine concepts.
2. Visualization
-It is about using images. It’s not about drawing; it’s about visual thinking. It pushes
us beyond using words or language alone. It is a way of unlocking a different part of
our brains that allows us to think nonverbally and that managers might not
normally use.
-Making your work visible reduces project risk substantially (and is especially
important for effective cross-disciplinary collaboration) because words are much
more open to interpretation than pictures
-Visualization is the “mother of all design tools”—the common denominator across
all stages of design thinking
-To visualize we: Make our visual representations as simple as possible.Use
photographs.Learn to think in metaphors and analogies
3. Journey mapping
-It is an ethnographic research method that focuses on tracing the customer’s “journey” as he or
she interacts with an organization while in the process of receiving a service, with special
attention to emotional highs and lows. Experience mapping is used with the objective of
identifying needs that customers are often unable to articulate.
-The number one reason for the failure of new growth ideas is that we misjudge what customers
really want, so the surest way to de-risk a project is to develop a deeper understanding of what
they want
-During the exploration phase of a growth process, as we have noted, journey maps help
generate ideas. During concept development, it can be useful to develop maps based not on the
actual experiences of customers but on what they would consider ideal. During the later phases
of the growth process, we can create journey maps that act as low-fidelity prototypes of our
proposed new customer experiences.
4. Value chain analysis
-It examines how an organization interacts with value chain partners to produce, market, and
distribute new offerings. Analysis of the value chain offers ways to create better value for
customers along the chain and uncovers important clues about partners’ capabilities and
intentions.
-Creating value for customers is only part of the equation for achieving business success. To be
sustainable and attractive, new businesses have to create value for the organization (usually in
the form of profits) as well as for customers.
-Conducting an end-to-end value chain analysis is an important part of the exploration phase as
we seek to understand the current reality of our business model in the search for profitable
growth opportunities.
-Value chain analysis begins by working backward from value creation for the ultimate end
customer and then adding the capabilities and bargaining power of other key suppliers.
5. Mind mapping
-Mind mapping is used to represent how ideas or other items are linked to a central idea and to
each other. Mind maps are used to generate, visualize, structure, and classify ideas to look for
patterns and insights that provide key design criteria.
-We come out of the exploration process having gathered a mountain of data. The first
challenge is processing all this information in a systematic way so that we can actually use it to
generate better ideas than we would have otherwise. We use mind mapping for this.
-We move into the mind mapping process when we feel like we have collected “enough” data.
-Mind mapping begins with laying out the data we have collected for everybody to see.Pick out
the good data. Cluster the good data. Identify the insights related to each cluster and look for
connections between clusters. Translate insights and connections into design criteria.Create a
list of common criteria
6. Rapid concept development
-Rapid concept development assists us in generating hypotheses about potential new
business opportunities.
-It is a tool for using the insights and design criteria we have generated to develop new
business opportunities.
-You can’t have innovation without new ideas. Real innovation is about more than just
fixing problems; it’s about inventing something new.
-In the brainstorming model, the modus operandi is often to come up with an interesting
idea or two and then launch them as new products and see if they sell.
-To develop concepts we: Ask questions of ‘how?’ And ‘Why?’; Question how things are
usually done.Envision how a negative could become a positive in your daily life.Try to
imagine problems from some one elses perspective.When you think you have exhausted
every idea imaginable, challenge yourself to come up with two more. Go back to the
design criteria you created and search for ideas you haven’t mentioned yet about how to
meet them
7. Assumption testing
- Assumption testing focuses on identifying assumptions underlying the attractiveness of a new
business idea and using available data to assess the likelihood that these assumptions will turn
out to be true. These assumptions are then tested through thought experiments, followed by
field experiments, which subject new concepts to four tests: value creation, execution,
scalability, and defensibility.
-Launching new concepts to see if they sell is a risky and potentially expensive approach that we
want to avoid for all but the most attractive concepts. We minimize risk and expenditure by
market testing only those concepts that pass this first set of thought tests.
-Assumption testing is useful at multiple stages in the innovation process. It is a valuable
exercise to undertake even before you go into the field to do ethnography. Uncovering our own
assumptions about customers and their preferences makes us more alert as observers—and
more cognizant of our biases.
-The goal in assumption testing is to wade through all the uncertainties associated with a new
business concept and drill down to the core assumptions on which it depends.
8. Prototyping
-Prototyping techniques allow us to make abstract new ideas tangible to potential partners and
customers. These include storyboarding, user scenarios, experience journeys, and business
concept illustrations—all of which encourage deep involvement by important stakeholders to
provide feedback.
-The cost of a simple 2-D prototype could be as low as a pen and some paper. Such minimization
of costs allows you to do a lot more testing of different variations of concepts, bringing more of
what designers call “optionality” into the design process. You can afford to do lots of 2-D
prototypes—and to prototype individual parts of a concept as well as the whole thing.
-We prototype to learn rather than to “test” a theoretically finished offering. We want the
process to be simple and fast so that we can “make mistakes faster,” identifying areas that can
be improved while agreeing on areas that are working effectively.
-Architects create blueprints and models; product designers build physical prototypes in
addition to those things. Business concept prototypes generally take visual and narrative forms:
images and stories
9. Customer co-creation
-Customer co-creation incorporates techniques that allow managers to engage a customer
while in the process of generating and developing new business ideas of mutual interest. They
are among the most value-enhancing, risk-reducing approaches to growth and innovation.
-Customer co-creation is among the most value-enhancing, risk-reducing approaches to growth
and innovation that we have discovered
-Customer co-creation engages a potential customer as a partner in the development of new
business ideas. Using the prototypes described in Tool of prototyping, customers explore
alternative futures and actively shape win-win propositions. We want to put some small
experiments in front of potential customers, get their quick reactions, and iterate our way to an
improved offering.
-There is no rocket science to effective customer co-creation—just a few simple principles.
These have to do with picking the right customers to invite to our group, giving them something
worth with, and listening attentively to their feedback.
10. Learning launches
-Learning launches are designed to test the key underlying value-generating assumptions of a
potential new-growth initiative in the marketplace. In contrast to a full new-product rollout, a
learning launch is a learning experiment conducted quickly and inexpensively to gather market-
driven data.
-Learning launches are experiments conducted in the marketplace quickly and inexpensively. In
contrast to a full new-product rollout, a learning launch’s success is not about how much you
sell but how much you learn.
-Learning launches are designed to test the key underlying assumptions of a potential new
growth concept. As we have discussed before, using historical data to predict how an offering
will actually perform in the marketplace has some severe limitations
-Designing the launch itself is straightforward. First, you need a working prototype in hand—to
move from 2-D to 3-D.
11. Storytelling
- Storytelling is exactly how it sounds: weaving together a story rather than just making a series
of points. It is a close relative of visualization—another way to make new ideas feel real and
compelling. Visual storytelling is actually the most compelling type of story.
-Like images, stories allow us to access emotions and emphasize experiences. They add the
richness of context and allow us to “sell” a problem as well as its solution. Stories build
identification and empathy with their characters and help managers to develop a personal
investment in their welfare.
-Stories are everywhere in the design process. They are critical to helping us explore customers’
deeper needs when we start out, develop ideas about how to meet those needs as we develop
concepts, solicit feedback about our prototypes as we iterate our way to a better solution, and
convince others of the value of our solutions when we feel good about having reached one.