Design your Thinking

 

 

Design your Thinking -  Pavan Soni (IIM Bangalore prof.)

 It’s a book on the mindsets, toolsets and skillsets needed for creative problem solving.

 The Prefrontal cortex of our brain is responsible for the cognitive functions like planning, decision making and controlling impulsive reactions. The Amygdala is primarily responsible for processing emotions like fear and aggression often triggering immediate reactions to perceived threats in the surrounding. The prefrontal cortex acts as a brake on amygdala’s emotional reactions.

The book provides means and ways to fertilize the prefrontal cortex.

 Although Design thinking is interesting, it is a bit challenging because it is a nonlinear thinking process and has iterative approach to problem solving. Nonlinear growth necessitates non-linear ways of thinking. It’s like Steve Jobs dictum, “Connecting the dots looking ahead” where we apply our knowledge, instincts and experiences knowingly or unknowingly. So it’s important to apply the observations of the experiences through reflections. Any ways, we don’t learn from experiences we learn from reflection of those experiences.

 The design thinking model

Stanford design school says,” Design thinking relies on the natural and coachable human abilities to be intuitive, to recognize patterns and to construct ideas that are emotionally meaningful as well as functional.”

For each of the above five stages, the relevant mindsets, toolsets and skill sets can be identified and can guide us to how design thinking could be brought into action to solve specific real world problems.

Things beyond Stage –Gate Process.

The only problem with innovation is that it needs to happen periodically. One idea can’t work forever. Most of the companies have been using the traditional model of innovation that looks inadequate now.

 What’s stage Gate process?

The stage gate process chain of problem solving or new product development has five gates and a screen before each gate.

Some of the history’s most glorious product failures have all allegedly gone through the grind of the stage gate process. Impeccably executed with no dearth of funds, products like Apple Newton, Sony Betamax, Microsoft Zune, Iridium satellite phone, Segway, Toshiba HD DVD, Google Glass, Amazon fire phone and Samsung galaxy note-7, all failed miserably.

The problem was not in execution, but lay somewhere outside the zone of control of innovating organization: Customers, stakeholders, ecosystem, timing, regulators etc.

In India, too, we have products with lot of heart and money pumped on to them, that couldn’t excite customers. Tata Nano, Mahindra two wheelers, Maruti Suzuki Kizashi, Godrej chotukool compact fridge, Akash Tablet etc.

Nothing wrong with the approach of the product development, except that it was perhaps, too insular, which means they were ignorant or uninterested in cultures, perceptions of people beyond the seemingly obvious.

 Problem 1: These products started with ideas. Ideas for whom? For what? What problem does it address?

Ideas look good when they come later after clearly understanding the problem

Secondly the testing and validation happens late in the stage gate process. By then lot of money gets pumped in and there is less scope of dropping the idea. Good money gets thrown behind bad money, especially if the idea is a brainchild of a senior executive.

 Type A Error vs Type B Error:

Once an idea is out, it is out forever but does not stay effective forever. Being complacent kills us. The process after the idea generation looks linear and this process works well for efficiency and at the cost of effectiveness. A joke cracked once will not give the same effectiveness the second time even if the listeners are different. Using the process in linear way has less scope for iterations. The type A error, Failed innovation at the cost of type B error, missed innovation. Type B errors are costlier and very difficult to ascertain.

Type B error occurs when you miss an opportunity and your competitor laps it up. As a case in point, Bill Gates call missing out on Android as his careers’ biggest mistake. Ironically, it turns out that the only way to contain type B error is to allow type A errors, which is to say, “Fail faster to succeed sooner.”

 Design thinking matrix

   

The four quadrant model leads us from known problem and known solution to unknown problem to unknown solution. As we move from the known-known to unknown-unknown the degree of ambiguity increases and hence the diagonal denotes discovery.

 Lean Thinking: This quadrant is of well-articulated problem and a known solution. For instance the traffic problems in Nasik. This problem will fall under lean thinking quadrant. The root cause is well known. Too many cars for the available road sizes, unorganized parking and lack of discipline are the major reasons. As for the solutions, these have also been well-adopted elsewhere, such as multilevel parking in Mumbai, Taxes on driving in peak hours in Bangalore, Odd number plates on odd dates and even on even dates rule in Delhi. It would be relatively easy to solve problem with well tested solutions.

 Critical Thinking: Critical thinking aims at getting to the root cause of a situation and then solving constraints. Picking up from the previous case of Nasik Traffic issues, the core concern on addressing the issue of ‘discipline’ can be the domain of critical thinking. Why is discipline missing at large?  Thorough investigation and some introspection can lead us to the causes such as improper law enforcement, lack of role models, inadequate monitoring and corruption.

 Lateral Thinking: Here the problem is clear but the solutions are not. Lateral thinking coined by Edward de Bono has come to stand for all those techniques that suspend logic momentarily to get an inspiration that could solve a problem in ingenious ways. Some well-known techniques are ‘Six Thinking Hats’, “SCAMPER’ technique. These methods are used for the problems that call for non-linear ways of thinking. An example of this quadrant is the problem of people not wearing Helmets while driving two wheelers. Why? The major reasons could be, Discomfort of carrying the helmets, Getting uncomfortable while the helmet is worn, Youngsters worried about the hairstyle getting spoiled for the entire day, not getting the style and fun of riding. An experiment after some lateral thinking was tried in Nasik. It was “No Helmet – No Petrol”. It did disturb the riders who did not wear helmets, but the rule failed to create a permanent solution. The city admin should continue to think laterally for few more options because this is the most effective way of solving low-hanging problems.

 Design Thinking: This is the quadrant where neither the problems nor the solutions are known to us. The approach of Design thinking assumes that the first set of problems that meet the eyes are no more than symptoms and that it is critical to delve deeper into people’s mindsets and contexts to get better understanding of the real issues. The element of discovery, led by empathy is the cornerstone of design thinking. 

Consider a case of women safety in India. No Indian city is immune to this problem. The fact that women feel and are unsafe with strangers is a cause of great concern and embarrassment for all of us. Instead of decreasing, the crime here is increasing by the inclusion of kids becoming the victims.

The core cause can range from trivial reason like improper street lightning to serious issues like lack of gender sensitization. It is difficult to nail down specific reasons, as they mostly work in concert and in unpredictable ways. What Design thinking says is that there won’t be a single silver bullet addressing the challenge. Multiplicity of ideas must be generated, prototyped, tested and then scaled for an effective redressal.

 Why design thinking now?

The changes in customers, consumers and clients are happening fast and unknowingly. Products and services are now getting attractive because of the associated experiences. Movies can be seen sitting at home, but people prefer spending money for the experience. People take loans to celebrate the wedding events simply to make the experiences memorable.

 Need for constant Innovations:

In 2005 survey of world’s most innovative companies by the BCG mentioned these as the names Apple,3M, GE Microsoft, Sony, Dell, IBM, Google, Nokia and P & G. In 2019 BCG found the top ten most innovative companies as Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Samsung, Netflix, IBM, Facebook, Alphabet/Google, Tesla and Adidas. Only four names remained in the top. Satya Nadella the CEO of Microsoft says, “Our industry does not respect Tradition – it only respects innovation.”

Design thinking is important to be in pace with the changes in customer needs and the demands. It does not happen all of a sudden, but the changes are tough to predict. Take two wheeler industry in India for example.

For a long time the dominant parameter of interest and hence competitive differentiation was mileage. The likes of Hero Honda, Bajaj and TVS were in the arms race to offer mileage and styling for the bikes. And in 2001, came Honda Activa that threw the caution of mileage to the wind and offered an entirely new parameter of interest: Convenience.  

What worked in favor of Honda Activa? The incumbents defined the problem too narrowly, as a technical in nature, while Honda Activa managed to disrupt the very framing. That necessitates the design of thinking (and not the product), which the rival bike manufacturer learnt the hard way.

Almost similar case study can be seen in the case of four wheelers. The sedan cars were dominating the markets initially because the SUVs were considered passenger vehicles and not personal luxury. Now the tide has changed and new entrants like Korean KIA and Chinese MG have shown high focus on SUVs in India to join Hyundai, M & M, Tata and few more dominant players in India. In 2019 fifteen out of twenty new cars launched were SUVs. Design thinking offers some space to notice such changes in the form of innovations.

 Customers looks for the experience and not just the product or the service at basic functionality.

Business model is superior to the product appeal these days. Business model is the way in which the Business creates, delivers and captures value. The first movers can be dislodged by the new entrants, provided the latter spin a new business model, as shown by Netflix over Blockbuster or Ola over Meru cabs. 

One can watch movie in multiplex, at no-frills theatre, on TV, buy it on you tube, buy or rent a DVD, on Netflix, on Amazon prime or some other content streaming application. The product is the same –the movie - but the way it is rendered is entirely different. The customer not differentiates between what (is offered) to How it is consumed). A good business wins by empathizing the customer smartly and correctly.

To understand and react to such market changes we need to have a relook at the way the problems are framed, communicated and solved. Design thinking with its principles, methods, tools, frameworks and temperaments could offer a panacea.

 Key Tenets of Design Thinking. Focus on customers not on competitors.

Amazon way of focusing on customers is by making them happy even at the cost of selling competitors’ products on its list.  Although Amazon wants people to avoid hard copies of books and get onto the habit of using Kindle, they do go ahead to sell books on their website. Also, they don’t mind people watching Netflix using Amazon Fire TV stick. Apple on the other hand focuses on customers by making them feel great with apple product usage.

Jeff Bezos says that a competitor focused businessman has to be watchful with the competitor’s new move whereas a customer focused businessman allows you to be more pioneering.  

 Empathy vs Sympathy

 Tata Nano, the people’s car was the dream project of Ratan Tata and was built by the team that had delivered the wildly successful Tata Ace. In design thinking the starting point is always the subject, while the object stays in the background. In the case of Bulls Eye operations students is the success and the objects are material, Technology, infrastructure etc.

Before designing a pen, Design thinking will start with the question, “Why does one need pen today? The answer could be well beyond the obvious answer; for writing. Tata Nano made a mistake here. They used sympathy to make Nano which didn’t work, whereas they used empathy to make Tata Ace, which is super hit product of Tata.

 Solve the problem with the customer instead of solving it for the customer:

Firstly it gives us the exact details of the problems and secondly the customers mostly are ready with the solutions.

Giving what the customers’ demands today, will allow you to catch up with the market, if you are trailing. But working on what the customer doesn’t yet know what she wants is a strategy to lead the market by being early bird.

 Keep changing:

If the USP remains the same for long, it does not remain USP. Maruti Suzuki has 50% of the market share, not by the USP it had 50 years ago. They had 80% market share when the company was a PSUs. 2002 onwards government owns 18%, Suzuki 54%. Their USP was trust, Reliability, cheap after sales service. Now Maruti has entered into the luxury segment. From Maruti 800 in 1983 to Swift desire with a sunroof in 2024, from ordinary showroom to Nexa (2015) the changes are evident. Now Maruti not just has True value to be in the used car segment but it also has 450 driving schools (established in 2018) to tap the potential customers. Learn to compartmentalize Thinking

 Problem exploration:

Typical first reaction when a problem comes to us is to jump to a solution. For effective problem solving, it is critical to stay with the problem as long as possible. Almost always, what we see at the first is a symptom and by attacking the symptom we go nowhere. Stay on the problem, or as some say, sleep with the problem. Learn to hold on your ideas, for by offering solution we might be short-circuiting the very process of problem exploration. As the saying goes, “Give me six hours to cut a tree, I will spend four hours sharpening my axe.”

Solution Generation:

Typical first reaction when someone comes up with an idea to our problem is to dismiss the idea if the image of the person is ordinary in our experience. Only when we are not judgmental will the dots start to connect.

Solution validation:

As per Daniel Kaneman, relying on the hunch and the gut feeling is not the best approach for picking the promising ideas.

 What less? Instead of what else?

The baby incubator in its early days was very costly. The poor people could not afford baby incubators for their newly born babies. The function of an incubator is to keep the body of the baby war. After a long brainstorming and series of attempts they finally decided to cut down the unwanted parts of the incubator to make it simple and affordably for everyone.  Similarly VCRs of 1980’s were affordable to a selected few rich. The bulky VCR is now transformed into Amazon fire TV stick remote which does more than VCR with just about bare essential buttons.

Think with your hands:

We must try and retain the mind of a child in the body of an adult, because unlike adults, who think before acting, children think by acting.

 Empathy

To empathize a customer assume that the customer is hiring your product or service for you. If your offering help her achieve the desired outcome, she will continue to hire you; and if the offerings fall short of her expectations, she will fire you. This paradigm shift from a company providing goods and services to becoming one hired by a customer as a means to an end, gets us to more nuanced understanding of the customer.  A problem fully understood is half-solved.

To pick the most important problems, you need to forego your own assumptions. The problems you solve are not more important. What the customer feels with your solution or the priorities of the problems is more important.

Not every problem is worth solving; not every problem is solvable and a problem fully understood is half solved are the three mantras of design thinking.

 Framing the problems sharply

Consider the following two problem statements

(A)      How can I improve Math of my students?  (B) How can I make math more interesting?

Which of the question will yield better ideas? Possibly B. why? – Statement (B) is covering an assumption that it is Lack of interest that kills the mood of the students.

Consider the following two problem statements

(A)   How can I increase the Math scores of students in the available time?  

(B)   How can I make math more interesting?

Which of the question will yield better ideas? Possibly A. why? – Statement (A) is covering the objective. It leaves me with a better impact to think for ideas.

Equifinality: A management word, which is used to reach the same solution through different means.

One way of ensuring equifinality for a problem statement is to not put the answer or the approach right into the problem statement.

Consider the two problem statements

(A)   How can I increase the match scores by using disciplinary measures?

(B)   How can I improve the Math scores of students in the available time?

Here (B)looks better because A is locking our self to disciplinary measures as a source of idea.

                                                

 Ideate :

Imitate with grace. All innovations start with imitations. There are no original ideas; there are only original configurations of existing ideas. When you create something you are less of authors and you are more of editors. American theorist  Karl Weick defines originality ;”Putting old things in new combinations and new things in old combinations.” And yet the myth about the originality persists, perhaps because we all want to give creativity a special status in the otherwise routine life.

Wheel was invented around 3500 BCE in Mesopotamia, which is modern –say Iraq and Suitcases were invented in the late 18^th century. But when did we get the idea of having the wheels to the suitcases?

The idea of having wheels to suitcases triggered in 1970. That’s the importance of a missed idea.

Toyota revolutionized automobile manufacturing by picking up Just in Time philosophy of an American grocery store, Piggly Wiggly. Howard Shultz, former CEO of Star Bucks discovered coffee’s magic on a business trip to Italy. Kishore Biyani says, “People may say we were inspired by Wal-Marts of the world, but it was Saravana, chennai based store that Big bazar was born.

 Parachute hair oil managed to retain the dealers simply by making the container cylindrical instead of cuboid shaped. Mice could not cut the cylindrical bottles. Tanishq jewelers launched the Golden harvest scheme under which the customer pays equated sums for eleven months after which Tanishq contributes the twelfth moths sum to buy gold from the twelve months deposits. This was a path-breaking scheme.  Another breakthrough was the ‘Karameter”. The campaign was introduced nationwide with a tagline “There is a thief in the family” aimed at encouraging people to test their jewelry. (At Bulls Eye we can ask not just Bulls Eye students but also outsiders to get her/his study status known with a study plan delineated free of cost).

 What next after Santro?

A person was using Santro to reach the office and come back in the unforgiving traffic of Bangalore. This working executive got promoted after some work and decided to uplift his lifestyle. Most people would tread up to a sedan, but this man preferred not to. Instead, with this extra money he got himself a chauffeur for his santro, bought a kindle and began reading e-books. He now finishes a book per week sitting on the rear seat and can’t be more thankful to the Bangalore traffic. By the way, he also generated employment by providing job to the driver.

 Hybrid brainstorming

The blend of solo thinking and thinking in team is Hybrid Brainstorming. To get the maximum out of a brainstorming session the leader needs to make a questionnaire to be circulated well in advance. The members put in quality inputs when there is some thought given beforehand. Without prior and deep thinking some ideas impress the team members at its face value, but it can be disastrous in the long run. Demonetization is a perfect example of extempore ideation. Had there been hybrid brain storming among the selected competent people in a well handled way, the story would’ve been different.

 Pixar way of Brainstorming

The animation company adopts a technique called Plussing, where an individual can criticize an idea only by offering a better idea or by adding to the existing idea. Here the ‘Yes, but’ gets replaced by ‘Yes, and’ and enables the discussion to move forward. This way a team member gives idea without the fear of it getting declined.

Jake Knapp of Google ventures, who has for years handled design-thinking programmes for chrome, Google search, Gmail and other projects, observes, “The ideas that went on to launch and become successful were not generated in the shout-out-loud brainstorms.” When each person sketches alone, he or she will have time for deep thought. They called this method as “Work alone together.”

 Prototype and Test

A popular maxim innovative organizations is, fail often to succeed sooner.

If you don’t have a ready customer, be one.

 Scale

Jeff Bezos attributes Amazon’s success to an obsessive compulsive ‘focus’ on its customer, and not competitors or products. He says a good question is, “What’s going to change in the next 10 years?” A better question is, “What’s not going to change in the next 10 years?” The second question allows us to focus on the core competence.

 How to become a Design thinker?

Julian Treasure, in his TED talk, 5 Ways to Listen Better” offers a host of approaches for improving one’s conscious listening. One particular useful tool is RASA, which stands for Receive, Appreciate, Summarize and Ask”

Disclaimer : 

The summary is made with the intention of having an assembly of  points liked by me. In the process I have made the changes as per my convenience to make it more useful to me.

  

Nice thoughts

 

I still believe that reading book is the best way to really learn something.

-Eric Schmidt, former CEO, Google

 

If you are not prepared to be wrong, you will never come up with anything original

-          Sir Ken Robinson.

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The older I get, the more I understand that the only way to say valuable things is to lose your fear of being correct.

-          Malcom Gladwell