What is the key to success in the Design Thinking process? The key to success is not simply a focus on the customer or end user, but a radial desire to solve their problems in a manner that would engage them, delight them and make them feel grateful for the solution you have provided. Without this drive you are unlikely to get to real insights about the problems that users face when trying to engage with your product/service or experience.

Secondly,an important key to success in the design thinking process also lies in its ability to add new ideas to the process that the team can work with to arrive at new better solutions to the customers problem. Unless new ideas are added to the process, there is not much chance of making any sort of breakthrough from the existing pool of predictable options the team already has or knows. Creative thinking as enabled by the design thinking process is required in order to arrive at new ideas. Most corporations are focused on decision making and critical thinking (reducing options). Creative thinking tries to create something new, while critical thinking seeks to assess worth or validity of something that already exists. Creative thinking is generative, while critical thinking is analytical. The most important key to success in the design thinking process is to improve the use of creative thinking throughout the project, not just in the ideation phase, but also in the refinement and testing phase in order to keep improving the quality of the solution.

The term Design Thinking is an attempt to describe the ideology and methodology that designers use when seeking a solution to a problem.

Here are some additional guides or keys to success, commonly referred to in the design thinking methodology, that will help stimulate creative thinking during the project:

1. Create a focus on the end user,
2. Create a collaborative environment, drawing in all members of the team who will have to execute the project
3. Be prepared to  fail fast and rethink the solution on the fly,
4. Make use of quick and dirty iterative prototyping 
5. Refine the ideas based on user input and feedback early on and throughout in the project.

The idea of Design Thinking caught on like wildfire among business people because it offers the promise of a much more effective and reliable means to resolve problems than traditional logical/engineering/development processes in organizations. These more logical processes tend to resolve all the problems in isolation from the user and arrive at a fully engineered and developed product/service/experience without actually knowing if this is the right and desirable solution for users, or whether or not they can understand the idea and how to use it until after most of the projects resources have already been committed to create the solution. This means there is little chance to iterate the idea and ensure that it is right for the end users. Early collaboration between all team members including the continuous exposure of the idea to the end user to gain feedback are the keys to success in the Design Thinking process.

The promise of more effectively solving users problems through Design Thinking is real, but the hype far exceeds the way that design thinking is presented as a simple 5 step process that you just need to follow to reach world changing solutions.

The key to success in Design Thinking lies not in the [design thinking] process steps, but rather in the approach to problem solving and the skills required to be effective in executing that process. In order to deliver great solutions, it is important to understand what the process descriptions role is. For comparison, here is the process for winning the 100 meters at the olympics.

1. Put one foot in front of the other
2. Repeat this procedure while rapidly increasing your speed until it is faster than anybody else's speed
3. Practice your starting technique until it is faster than anybody else's
4. Practice your finish technique until it is faster than anybody else's
5. Practice all three until you are running the 100 meters faster than any other human has run before

The process is not complicated. In fact, running is a simple process. Putting the process into practice though as we know is the really difficult part. Success depends on many factors. Understanding how to increase speed, having knowledge of training techniques, physical limitations, stamina, food, running techniques, motivation, stress control etc. All of these things are needed to make someone going through the process successful. Note, they are not described in the process.

So, what is the key to succeeding in any design thinking process?

The key is to recognize that it is not the process that makes you successful. In any Design Thinking project it is the skills, knowledge, expertise and intuition that the participants bring into the process that will determine the success of the project. Just following the process steps will not produce world winning results.

For the purpose of simplicity, I will use the well referenced Stanford d.school process for illustration. They describe the Design Thinking process as having 5 steps.

1. Empathize
2. Define
3. Ideate
4. Prototype
5. Test

The way that their diagram is presented implies that the process is a set of linear steps from a problem to a solution. Nothing could be further from the truth as anyone who has tried to use the Design Thinking process knows.

Key 1: The design thinking process is not linear, it is more like a maze.

A maze that you are trying to blindly (at first) navigate. It is full of dead-ends, complicated twists and turns and many moments where you find yourself completely disoriented and lost. That is the nature of searching for a solution as opposed to the illusion of a simple 5 step process. If you are prepared for this experience, you can better understand where you are in the process and how you are doing. Sometimes when you hit a dead end, you have to retrace your steps, observe and empathize more and look harder for the insight that might give you a better, clearer path forward. Elon Musk said last week that he believes in management by rhyming! The example he gave was

"If it is taking too long, the design must be wrong"

If you are feeling lost ask yourself if you really have a clear understanding of the problem and the user yet. Don't kid yourself, getting too that point can take a lot of time. Sometimes years. However, if you do not have that clarity the rest of your efforts will be applied to the wrong insight and be wasted in the end.

Key 2: Arriving at the Right redefinition to the problem.

In hindsight, every example given about design thinking seems really quite logical when you see it described after the fact. However, when you are in the process it can be incredibly difficult to arrive at the correct redefinition of the problem. I remember from my own experience around 1999 when we were looking at creating MP3 (solid state devices to replace Portable CD players that we had defined the problem as

"How to create a portable solid state-device for $99"

This definition was in response to the retail buyers (our first line customer) demands that a solid-state player that can play 3-10 CD's was not worth much more than double what a Portable CD player could be bought for. Toshiba was doing the rounds of all the audio and computer companies trying to sell us a miniature hard drive (a new technology enabler) that could store hundreds of CD's, but its cost would mean that it could not be sold for less than $300 at retail. On the other side of the world, Steve Jobs saw the same presentation from Toshiba and wondered if consumers would "like an infinite choice of music on the go". And would they pay over $300 for infinite choice?

This example shows how with the exact same starting point you can arrive at completely opposite conclusions. Only one was the right answer and it was not the one that most people in the industry thought as they were constrained by their own knowledge of what they believed people want from a portable device based on the market over the past 20 years.

This however was not the end of this example and it highlights another very important key to succeeding with Design Thinking. 

Key 3: New ideas need new thinking about the nature of the problem you are trying to solve.

It is all too easy to forget this when you are trying to follow a simple linear process. It requires some deep thinking about what you are changing and even more thought about how to solve the new set of "problems" your new "definition" has set up.

When we produced a prototype of a portable solid-state device in 1999 the thinking was that it was basically the same as a portable CD player, except it had 3 times the amount of songs in it. We did not think that the interface needed to change and so the same approach to finding and playing songs was used. It resulted in a rather clumsy and not very intuitive interface as the task had become a more complex for the old interface. That does not make for a great experience.

Apple on the other hand realized that you could not use an up and down button to scroll through hundreds or even thousands of songs to find the one you wanted to play and so had to develop a new interface; the original iPod scroll wheel. This simplified the process of choosing your music even if you were looking through just 5 songs! That meant a better experience for the user than any other brands similar product and that translated into delivering on Apples promise to make using their devices simple, easy and enjoyable.

Key 4: The 5 step Design Thinking process only delivers a new (tested) idea, not a complete solution ready to sell to a consumer.

At the time that Apple was thinking about creating the iPod, there were over 500 companies in Hong Kong and China producing solid state audio devices all looking for distribution through the mass market retailers. 499 of them were based on the insight that they needed to get to a price point of about $99 and offer the capability to store 10 CD's worth of music. About 100 songs. One was based on the insight that people would find an infinite choice of your music library on the go appealing and would pay more for that capability. That one believed that your product had to be excellent, easy to use and a delight to own - Apple.

If anyone else, Sony, Panasonic, Philips or any of the the other 496 unknown brands had come up with the same idea, it would not have worked. Why? Apple had spent 20 years building a consistent set of brand values and ways of thinking and working within the corporation, honing their design skills, software abilities, logistics and production to create excellent products. 

Don't under estimate the ability to take an idea and craft it into a product/service/business solution. To quote Elon Musk again. He said last week that "to design a spaceship is now relatively easy for SpaceX, however, to put it into production is at least 1,000 times more difficult." Quite possibly the most important key to success from the Design Thinking process is the ability to execute the idea that comes out of the process flawlessly and at a very high level of skill. That certainly does not come from a week long certification course on Design Thinking. It comes from professional designers who have spent years honing their practice running the process and implementing ideas. I.e. it is going to require the real skills of designers, developers, production, logistics, etc. to make the output of your Design Thinking project really disruptive and world class. This is the elephant in the room and the true key to success in the Design Thinking process. It is seldom discussed in most of the literature on Design Thinking.

Key 5: New ideas require a lot of nurturing and support to become complete delivered solutions

You might have a great (and well tested) idea as a conclusion to the design thinking process, but now still you will still have to nurture it into reality and deliver it to the people who need it. Perhaps the biggest lesson in the Apple iPod example though lies outside of the design thinking process. If we stopped the example right now, it would read as a classic case of how Design Thinking delivered a world changing idea. I'd like to stress that last word - IDEA.

Even if we add the 6th step that many include in the Design Thinking process - Implement - we do not yet get the full story. Please note, that this is not a case study but rather a visualization of the key steps in any design thinking process.

Having implemented the product, i.e. produced it, Apples design problem was definitely not over because remember that the retail buyers were not prepared to put a solid state product on their shelves for much over $99. This meant that even though Apple had a product that they knew the consumer would want, they had no distribution to get it to the consumers. I doubt this was the only reason the Apple Store was born, but without it the iPod would not have got to the 10% market penetration needed to get it into mass retail and out to the mass market (remember that Apples share of the computer market at the time was well under 5%), knowing that they wanted the consumer to be able to try out the Apple experience and that that would require their own stores, but it is true that at first you could not buy the iPod at your local Best Buy, Target, WalMart or Incredible Universe!

Concluding Insight

There are many more keys to success in the Design Thinking process than just arriving at a really groundbreaking idea, I hope this example demonstrated that creating new solutions to problems requires a lot more than simply following a process. It has in fact much more to do with strong principled leadership, judgement, skill, experience, knowledge and tenacity than it has to do with following the process itself. Yes, the promise is there, but world changing solutions will not be realized as easily as simply following a 5 step process.

Invest your time and energy into growing your Design Thinking skills into lifelong competences. Be patient and tenacious. Bring in the skills that your team does not have and remain user centered. Good luck and let us know what you learn about the Keys to success in the Design Thinking Process. Post your comments below.