The Use of Design Thinking To Enable Human Centred Innovation Within The Organisation
The Use of Design Thinking To Enable Human Centred Innovation Within The Organisation
The Use of Design Thinking To Enable Human Centred Innovation Within The Organisation
Lorenz Herfurth
Abstract: Scholars and researchers are currently looking into the ways in which design thinking
and design methods serve the organisation in reorienting and changing itself around the needs of
the people they serve [1,2,3,4]. However, there are still few examples that allow us to gain insights
of how this works in practice.
This paper explores how design thinking can enable and contribute to the process of change
implementation throughout the organisation building on insights and lessons learned from a recent
project, in which design in the organisation was a core focus.
Key words: Design Management, Design in the Organisation, Product Development, Design
Thinking, Human-Centred Design, Innovation.
1. Introduction
Scholars and researchers are currently looking into the ways in which design thinking and design methods serve
the organisation in reorienting and changing itself around the needs of the people they serve [1,2,3,4]. However,
there are still few examples that allow us to gain insights of how this works in practice.
This paper explores how design thinking can enable and contribute to the process of change implementation
throughout the organisation building on insights and lessons learned from a recent project, in which design in the
organisation was a core focus.
While cost control and other regulatives are used by many managerial models like the Taylorist scientific
management paradigm [5] to reduce uncertainty and to produce the same product more efficiently, innovation is
needed today to meet the fast changing demands of markets and users [6]. On the other hand, because innovation
is characterised by unpredictable outcomes it is closely related to creativity and hard to control in a classical
sense.
The author reviews the historical developments in management and design management to explore the way in
which the tasks that managerial roles in the organisation face today share characteristics with the tasks, designers
deal with on a daily basis. This part concludes the identification of comparable attributes of design management
and models of management.
The second part focuses on the role of human-centred design in this context. This section argues that a human-
centred design approach can contribute to the effective implementation of innovation inside and outside the
organisation. A human-centred design approach that investigates the individual user‘s pathway to find
opportunities, and issues related to an organisation‘s products and structures is able to increase the possibility
that an organisation can meet users’ needs more effectively by identifying potential for improvement [3].
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2. Design Management and the Organisation
In the 1960 a management model called “structural analysis” was developed that focused on the structure of an
organisation and its relation to the environment [5]. This time is interesting for the transformation of managerial
models from a closed structure, a system that was unable to adapt to its environment (I.e. scientific management,
human relations) to an open, adaptable structure [5]. Michael Farr [7] wrote the first definition of design
management at that time. He delineated design management as a function within an organisation that was
restricted to the planning, control, and execution of design tasks like other tasks that were managed within an
organisation [7]. By this definition design is regarded as a tool that helps the organisation to develop product and
processes and design management is the function that is regulating and controlling this activity to achieve aims
effectively and to stay in the organisation‘s boundaries of assumptions, values, and beliefs. Design is a closed
system in itself, appending value to the process of product development and organisational processes. Design
can be and is still used this way. It can be very effective in generating solutions that are feasible and suitable. On
an imaginary innovation-scale though, the outcomes will possibly remain at an incremental and evolutionary
level.
Oakley [8] appended the dimension of different roles and places within an organisational structure to the
function of design management. Still, Oakley defines design management as the part of a company that is
integrated in the operational tasks and uses design thinking to improve processes, production methods, and the
use of material to gain efficiency in what the organisation is already doing. With this structure, attainable change
can vary between incremental and radical. Design is still not regarded as a tool to be used on a strategic level to
create a vision and enable innovation to change the organisation and its structures fundamentally and to enable it
to innovate continuously.
Why should this be achieved one could ask for good reason. Why should design become a part of managerial
thinking and organisational behaviour? Is there a need for that or is it just the wish of designers to gain
reputation and credit within the organisation? Except for the fact that usually, at least as I can judge from
experiences in product design, the innovative multilayered power, and ability of design are used only to a limited
amount, changing circumstances in which organisations operate today call for new answers to new, fast changing
challenges [6]. Different factors stress the importance of innovation in the organisation, like competition, and the
uniqueness of organisational structure as the last part of a company that cannot be copied by competitors as fast
as technology or products can [9].
These factors and the fact, that management in the classical sense is not delivering the right answers, made
managerial scientists compare the way that designers think to managers [1, 4].
Lately, also designers and design researchers discovered this new product called the organisation that is in
desperate need for design [10]. Most likely for effective and revolutionary redesign. And they had to realise, that
managers can write very well about design, and help design to understand itself. Still, they are not familiar with
the way designers tick. A good example for that is the way how managers try to take design thinking and turn it
into a new management paradigm - one best solution by developing behavioural standards and structural models
which are influenced by design thinking like the „design shop“ firm [6] or the „circular organisation“ [4]. In
contrast, designers take every problem for new and unique. The quest for designers is to be aware that every
problem calls for a unique solution in order to be addressed effectively. This makes change a natural part of
every designer’s practice.
The problem is regarded as an opportunity to change the world, to create a desired, better reality. Freedom
therefore is cherished over control [6, 11].
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3. A Human-Centred Design Approach
Regarding different definitions of innovation, discrepancies and similarities become obvious. For example the
notion of the new in form of an idea is mentioned as the basis of invention and innovation [12]. While invention
is adverted to by some experts as the creation of a new caprice without relevance to business or society,
innovation is characterised as the process of making an invention relevant to business or society in form of a new
product or process of different kinds [12, 13].
Lastly, innovation requires a new idea in the first place that is created in a creative process. The exploitation and
realisation of innovation depend on a structure in which interactions happen - a social context like an
organisation ([14], Henry, 1991, cited in [14], p.119). Further, the implementation of a new idea evokes change
(an interpretation of the definition to be found in [15]).
A core contribution that design can make to the process of innovation and change in the organisation is the
collaboration with the stakeholders of an organisation. Characteristics of design include participation [11],
collaboration [6] and pragmatism [4]. By using creative methods to create manifestations of ideas and thoughts,
design mediates between strategic and operational thinking. Its solution focused approach [4] can make
processes effective and suitable. The close collaboration with the people who are exposed to changes as a result
of a development process is a way to make solutions effective by being appropriate to the stakeholders’ needs.
Participation is a tool to create solutions which are more likely to be accepted because stakeholders can have a
say by being involved in the development process.
The belief that design is grounded in human dignity [16] is critical for raising the awareness of responsibilities
that are inherent to every process of creating artificial realities i.e. in form of products, organisations or
documents. A human-centred approach can make human longings, demands and rights a central part in the
organisational process of developing effective and profitable offers. It inherits almost unlimited opportunities for
invention, and a large amount of user focused solution propositions as demonstrated by Eric von Hippels “Lead
User Studies” [17].
The people are what makes an organisation. They decide whether an offer will succeed or fail or if a structure
will help to accomplish its aim. In a way one can probably say, people and their complex and individual differing
personalities are the critical mass in an organisations culture and behaviour.
To begin with the stakeholders of an organisation therefore represents an approach that perceives humans as the
most valuable and powerful source in the process of change. Effectiveness can be achieved by many sorts of
improvements, by studying processes related to the supply chain for example. Still, changes that were developed
using a participatory approach, like the circular organisational design [4] which values participation of different
stakeholders from within the organisation in the decision making process as a core asset are more likely to be
human-centred and effective.
Design management has engaged itself with applying such design thinking dominated approaches like the
human-centred to the development of new products for organisation, but it has failed to see the organisation as a
product itself in the past. The described project shows that a holistic approach to developing new products can
lead to innovation within the organisation itself. It is shown, that design can close the gap between the offer of an
organisation, its structures, its purposes, and its core values, and beliefs.
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5. A Case Study
5.1. Introduction
In the following paragraphs, the described Library Project conducted at Lancaster University serves as an
example of a human-centred design approach with the intention to inform and provoke change at the
organisation’s core - its values and beliefs.
The overall project process follows a movement that begins with the stakeholders outside and inside the
organisation, takes design to the core of the organisation by developing a mission based on research findings,
then moves to the borders of the organisation to envision and prototype a service vision based on the mission,
and finally leads back into the organisation by envisioning and prototyping processes and structures of an
organisational design that enables the service vision.
Referring to the definitions of a product stated by Victor Margolin that a product is “the human-made material
and immaterial objects, activities, and services, and complex systems, or environments that constitute the
domain of the artificial” (Margolin, 1989, cited in [3]) the project team was aware that a human-centred
approach has to include all stakeholders of the product called Lancaster University Library.
Designing in the context of an organisation is all about people and interactions. Interaction in this context refers
to Buchanan’s definition that “...interaction design is about how people relate to other people and how products
mediate those relationships” [2]. These products can be among others computers, services, or Products, business
activities or organisational environments [2]. Still, the designer’s work takes place in a far more abstract and
intangible realm than the “classical” disciplines of design like graphic or product design which are placed in the
fist and second of Buchanan’s areas of design [18]. Structures and processes in organisations are the main
“design tools” and thereby resemble more the third and fourth area of design. An organisation is shaped by the
way people interact, by the way tasks and responsibilities are structured and by the processes that result in offers
for the users. These aspects of organisational behaviour are shaped by the culture of an organisation which is
based on the values and beliefs at the organisation's core [19].
As interactions between members of the organisation and the organisation and its users seem to play a major role
in the design of an organisation; the question was, how can the expertise of design in creating reality be applied
to an organization?
As Junginger states, products are part of interactions and can be described as mediators between people [3]. This
suggests, that a change in mediating products can lead to a change in the way people interact.
Regarding this causal chain, the first question for the design research into the organisation was: what are the
products that shape these interactions? Bearing Margolin in mind, the project team was open to all kind of
products that would come up during the research. And again talking about an organisation as a product one has
to consider the different product levels. The organisation as a product and its characteristics which are influenced
by products. And the outcome of an organisation-which again is a product - in form of a service, offer or
physical product.
The project used human-centred approaches to learn about the various kinds of interactions that the organisation
was taking part in. This included user research, research into the organisation itself, its people and participative
sessions with members of the organisation. From the beginning the focus of the research phase was the
identification of design opportunities by identifying user issues and motivations according to IDEO’s statement:
“Motivations are Design opportunities” [20]. But first, the project team had to make itself familiar with the
product. Primary research activities included content analysis of information material, observation of people
using the space, analysis of the organisational structure itself and in context of the University and, from the very
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beginning, user research. The gathered information formed the background for interviews conducted with users
and members of the organisation. With this background the group could create an understanding of the
organisation’s character, its purpose, and outside perceptions. While in the beginning of the process the aim of
the research was to gain an understanding of the organisation as wide as possible, the further progress was
characterised by a focus on the users and their demands and issues.
Following users on their way of interaction with the organisation was part of the qualitative and primary
research. Interviews and surveys conducted with different groups of users, differentiated according to their use of
the library, informed the knowledge about the pathway as well as observations on spot. The user pathway as a
research tool is powerful in unearthing the motivation of users and the purpose of their engagement with the
organisation. By discovering issues in the pathway of users who engage with the organisation and members of
the organisation who act in the structures of the organisation, designers are able to identify possibilities for
improvement that are closely linked to the very core purpose of an organisation - to meet users needs and offer a
desirable and usable offer [3].
The results of this research phase enabled the team to define user groups that represented different purposes of
use, characteristics, behaviours, issues and opportunities. For the further design process these user groups
formed the basis.
The issues identified can be interpreted as gaps in the experience of interaction with the organisation [3].
As members of staff participated in team sessions and work group meetings, the team could inform the
organisation about current findings and receive immediate feedback from “inside experts.” This feedback
informed the further process. The involvement of members of the organisation also became an effective means in
promoting the project throughout the organisation - after a short period the team was able to talk to the leader
himself.
As design strives for a systemic approach to phenomena that derive from individual user research, results from
the qualitative user research informed the team’s cognition about the general system of interactions between the
organisation and the user. Conducting further interviews with members of staff, enabled the team to accumulate
additional knowledge of the library’s hierarchical structure that incorporated the unofficial interactions and paths
of communication between members which are not described by the official relation map. They have to be
unearthed with patience, empathy, sensitiveness, and respect. This relates to the way that designers are devoted
to the “improvement of the world in its details (Die Verbesserung der Welt in ihren Details)” [21]. Small nuances
are relevant and can sometimes make the decisive distinction.
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grown up immersed in the use of and dependence upon information technology” [23], have? People who take the
internet and Google search for granted and who are used to non scientific information like Wikipedia? How can
a development be initiated that incorporates new technologies and enables students to navigate through the vast
amount of information available?
And related to the main offer of the organisation - its services:
How does the service structure of the library of the future has to look like to meet the changes in user behaviour
and technology?
These questions call for a strategic approach that allows the organisation to act beyond its operational
boundaries. While other institutions like the U.S. Air Force are aware of the challenges they face in relation to
recruiting and training the millennial generation alongside an exponential growth of information“ [24], Lancaster
University as an organisation has not developed an information strategy that is about this problem, as we found
out during the research. The library is neither mentioned in the University‘s „Strategic Plan
2006-2011“ (Lancaster University, 2006), nor has it developed its own strategy. This situation made me realise
the lack of awareness, and the minor role the library plays within the university - although it is a core part of it as
it provides the main resources for the students’ learning experience and success.
These observations were pieces of a puzzle that made up a comprehensive picture of the library as an
organisation and of its interaction with other organisations within the university. An organisation that is
characterised by an unofficial but effective internal communication which fails to successfully interact with other
departments and the user. Further more, operational consequences for the users were caused by the lack of
strategic collaboration between the departments as described in the following.
The IT department’s responsibility for the equipment in the library entailed that librarians had no access to the
printers. Further, IT staff did not work on weekends which resulted in problems with a printer that had run out of
paper on weekends. No one could maintain it, and the students had to wait until Monday. This became a main
user issue.
All these observations and findings characterise the culture of the library as an organisation. As its head puts it in
an interview, its main objective is to react to demands and to best maintain the standard with the financial
resources at hand. An operational point of view rather than a strategic plan of action.
As stated before, the gathered information called for a shift from operational to strategic thinking and passive
reaction to active action.
How can design help an organisation to enable that shift and create appropriate offers?
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The knowledge about the right and required information, the easy and fast accessibility of appropriate
information and the precise use of this information to be able to process it into useful knowledge.
A user-centred approach to the study environment therefore should consider the universities structure as it is
characterised by a division into resources (library), information technology (ISS) and learning techniques
(CELT-Centre for Learning and Teaching).
The services of these different departments heavily depend on each other to create a consistent learning
experience; i.e. the ISS maintains the equipment that makes the information accessible, the library submits the
knowledge about the appropriate information and acquires resources while the CELT is involved in the
development of effective ways to make use of the information (like e-learning).
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for brainstorming is wide and the search for ideas open. The results are more likely to be unexpected because
they will not be influenced by existing constraints and opportunities or available resources. This process
incorporates a major characteristic of design thinking - a solution focused approach that generates an answer to a
question from the perspective of a desirable solution [Fig. 1].
digital native
research behaviour demands
future user digital literacy
2nd „Step-Stone“ - Implication
Future User?
information overflow guidance vision
future trends opportunities/constraints research group Library & ISS
e-resources > i-resources competence centre
web 2.0 > web 3.0
Implications?
reaction to action
relationships with departments
scan IT trends regularly
internet guide
3rd „Step-Stone“ - Realisation
How to Guide?
user friendly
communicate offers prospective students (schools)
communication channel
21
Figure 1: "Step-Stones"
The result can best be described as a chain of action which serves as a guideline for the product development
process. In conclusion, the chain consists of three verbs, representing six main aspects of the product
development process. Please see the following graphic for illustration. The „implementation chain“ is closely
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related to the imagination of future interactions between the organisation and its users. Combining key aspects
and related actions is an associative process which is intended to result in the formulation of future scenarios, as
short, summary like stories that describe desirable actions. Based on the “implementation chain”-process, a user
pathway scenario for the library was prototyped, including possible structures, products, and services that shape
the interaction between the user and the library. This prototype served as a manifestation of the changes that the
project was intended to initiate at the core of the organisation.
The project had arrived back at the place where it started - at the interaction between organisation and user
[Fig. 3].
2. Core of Organisation
(Values and Beliefs)
1. Issues
User
Organisation
4. Service Offer
3. Implementation
Strategy
6. Conclusion
The experiences made during the Library project show, that a human-centred approach can incite innovation and
change on different levels of an organisation; its interaction with the user, its organisational structure, and its
core - the mission. The analysis of the user’s pathway as an instrument of human-centred design allows the
designer to gain insight into an organisational system which otherwise would hardly be understandable due to its
complexity. As Buchanan [25] points out: "By definition, a system is the totality of all that is contained, has been
contained, and may yet be contained within it. We can never see or experience this totality. We can only
experience our personal pathway through a system." According to Buchanan’s four orders of design, a human-
centred approach can widen the scope of design management towards the fourth placement of systems and
environments [3]. Design Management thereby helps the organisation to create a culture of innovation that
enables faster and effective reactions to a changing environment. By evoking change where it really has an
impact on the structure of the product called organisation- at the values and beliefs that shape its culture [19].
7. Acknowledgments
The author wishes to thank Prof. Rachel Cooper for generously supporting his registration to the IASDR 2009
conference.
I am grateful also to Dr. Sabine Junginger for providing useful comments on an earlier version of this paper.
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