Customer Reviews

Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(17)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Tim Brown has had an amazing career working at the premier design firm in the country, IDEO. This book in part recounts stories of various clients they have worked for, and in part lays out a vision for how design can be more human centric. He discusses using these approaches for everything ranging from industrial design to social engineering.

Although the stories about the various clients are interesting, I found the book to be so high level that it was hard to take away practical steps. I would have found the book more valuable if instead of keeping the discussion at the very highest level (brainstorming is good, need to control the chaos, design goes through phases, etc) it would take some of the principles discussed and look at specifics -- here is a specific client interaction where we did x, y, z. Here is why we did it. Here is what happened. Here is a specific failure case. Here is what we learned.

Without it, although the book covers a lot of interesting case studies, it doesn't do so in a way in which I felt that I have knowledge of things to do differently in my day to day creative activities within my company, or ways in which I could interact with clients better.

I recently read two books (this one written with Barry Katz and Roger Martin's The Design of Business) and am reading a third (Neil Sheehan's A Fiery Peace in a Cold War) in which major organizational transformations are accomplished by those who understand the power of design thinking, help their colleagues to do so, and then together, take an approach, Tim Brown suggests, "that is powerful, effective, and broadly accessible, that can be integrated into all aspects of business and society, and that individuals and teams can use to generate breakthrough ideas that are implemented and that therefore have high impact. Design thinking, the subject of this book, offers just such an approach." He goes on to acknowledge, "I was trained as an industrial designer, but it took me a long time to realize the difference between [begin italics] being [end italics] and [begin italics] thinking like [end italics] a designer. That strikes me as a critically important distinction. Brown views the power of design "not as a link in a chain but as the hub of a wheel"...not as a stage in a process but as a center of gravity, as a gravitational/centrifugal force, with involvement at all levels and in all areas of operation. "Design is now too important to be left to designers."

Brown carefully organizes his material with two Parts. First, he introduces a set of principles for design thinking that be applied by almost anyone in any organization, whatever its size and nature may be. He involves his reader in a journey through the important stages of thinking. He provides a framework that he hopes will help the reader identify the principles and practices that make for great design thinking. He focuses on design thinking as applied to business and examines a number of the most innovative companies in the world, such as his own firm, IDEO, as well as Bank of America, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Google, Intel, Kaiser Permanente, Mattel, Mayo Clinic, Pixar, Procter & Gamble, and Shimano. Each of these companies has established a culture within which there is a constant generation of ideas. After rigorous evaluation according to criteria that are most appropriate for the given context, and frame-of-reference, the focus of most promising ideas shifts from problem to project. This requires articulation of a clear goal at the outset. Design thinking "creates natural deadlines that impose discipline and [provide] an opportunity to review progress, make midcourse corrections, and redirect future activity. The clarity, direction, and limits of a well-defined project are vital to sustaining a high level of creative energy."

Where to begin a project? Brown recommends first formulating the brief that can allow for serendipity, unpredictability, and "the capricious whims of fate," then assembling the project team, selecting those who have multidisciplinary capabilities, are not risk averse, are what Roger Martin characterizes as "integrative thinkers," welcome collaboration, and thrive on challenges. The importance of design thinking to this process cannot be exaggerated. It starts with divergence, expanding the range of options rather than limit them; it balances the perspectives of users and is what I could call "beneficiary-centric"; helps to accelerate time to first prototype (a subject to which Brown devotes a great deal of attention, notably on Pages 87-108); "shares the inspiration" within internal knowledge networks; accommodates the reality that there are no silver bullets for innovation, only "silver buckshot"; allocate resources to accommodate fast-paced, unruly, and disruptive innovation initiatives; and enables creative innovators "to bridge the chasm between thinking and doing because they [are] passionately committed to the [common] goal of a better life and a better world around them."

Here in Dallas, we have a Farmer's Market near the downtown area at which several vendors offer slices of fresh fruit so that people can sample for taste. In that spirit, here are two brief excerpts from Brown's lively and eloquent narrative:

On an approach to innovation that consists of a "judicious blend" of bottom-up experimentation and guidance from above: "The rules for this approach are as simple to state as they are challenging to apply:

1. The best ideas emerge when the whole organizational ecosystem - not just its designers and engineers and certainly not just management has room to experiment.

[Note: In 1924, William L. McKnight, then CEO of 3M observed, "If you put fences around people, you get sheep. Give people the room they need." That is especially true of those who participate in brainstorming sessions. ]

2. Those most exposed to changing externalities (new technology, shifting customer base, strategic threats or opportunities) are the ones best placed to respond and most motivated to do so.

3. Ideas should not be favored based on who creates them. (Repeat aloud.)

4. Ideas that create a buzz should be favored. Indeed, ideas should gain a vocal following, however small, before being given organizational support.

5. The `gardening' skills of senior leadership should be used to tend, prune, and harvest ideas. MBAs call this `risk tolerance.' I call it the top-down bit.

6. An overarching purpose should be articulated so that the organization has a sense of direction and innovators don't feel the need for constant supervision."

On brainstorming: "Brainstorming, ironically, is a structured way of breaking out of structure. It takes practice...[All organizations have their own rules] that lay out the playing field within which a team of players can perform at high levels...At IDEO we have dedicated rooms for our brainstorming sessions and the rules are literally written on the walls: Defer judgment. Encourage wild ideas. Stay focused on the topic. The most important of them, I would argue, is `Build on the ideas of others.' It's right up there with `Thou shalt not kill' and `Honor thy father and thy mother,' as it ensures that every participant is invested in the last idea put forward and has the chance to move it along."

Recall a previous reference to the "journey" on which Brown invites his reader to embark. "There are useful starting points and helpful landmarks along the way, but the continuum of innovation is best thought of as a system, of overlapping spaces rather than a sequence of orderly steps." As Brown makes crystal clear, the reason for the iterative, non-linear nature of the journey "is not that design thinkers are disorganized or undisciplined but that design thinking is fundamentally an exploratory process; it will invariably make unexpected discoveries along the way, and it would be foolish not to find out where they lead."

Bon voyage!

Several books and many articles have been written about the business practices and design accomplishments of the iconic Industrial Design firm IDEO. But, this most recent text instructs and invites the reader to participate in Design Thinking and Problem Solving. Beginning with a mind map to supplement the table of contents Tim Brown escorts the reader in a multi-threaded adventure in the sometimes systematic, sometimes serendipitous world of design based problem solving; including methods for brainstorming, visualization and prototyping in a variety of environments. He demonstrates and invites the reader to share the methods of thinking and acting which have resulted in true innovation not only in product form and function, but in new experiences in hospitals, amusement parks and in life-saving design and engineering efforts for the Third World. Other books illustrate the design process and share the beautiful results achieved by Product Design and Development professionals, but aside from this book and Henry Dreyfuss' "Designing for People" which is so influential it was reprinted after half a century no other text shows the reader how to think and act as designer; a skill so necessary in solving the complex problems of modern life.

I highly recommend this short text, not only to the artist, or engineer but to all concerned citizens who hope to make a contribution in solving the problems of their own life and those of a global society.

--Ira Laefsky
Information Technology and HCI Consultant

The problem with good design is that as a finished product, it tends to efface the process that led to it. Master painters and sculptors often made dozens of studies before creating the celebrated works we see in museums --- and we need to follow a similar process before we can expect to produce anything good or beautiful.

I dislike this book. The title promises so much, and then the author tries to stuff in as many vignettes as possible, giving short shrift to each, as well as to the overall message. Since every story employing IDEO [the author's firm] or a "design team" was a smashing success, the argument goes, the author's processes must be the right way to stimulate design thinking. What about the flip side of the story? Why isn't there an analysis of design failures?

Fortunately, the author summarizes the main process points in the final 15 pages of the book, as: "begin at the beginning", "take a human-centered approach", "fail early, fail often", "get professional help", "share the inspiration", "blend big and small projects", "budget to the pace of innovation", "find talent any way you can", "design for the cycle", "don't ask what? ask why?", "open your eyes", "make it visual", "build on the ideas of others", "demand options", "balance your portfolio", "design a life". Yes, CEO-talk.

While reading this book, I found that "design team" could often be replaced by "consultant". The author does not describe what separates mediocre design from great design; nor how to identify a good design team.

The author describes his "butterfly test", where people vote for ideas by affixing post-it notes next to items posted on the wall. This is essentially a public ballot --- a cute idea, which will only work in organizations where people won't be swayed by how others have voted; otherwise, wisdom-of-crowds benefits won't accrue.

I was lucky enough to get a pre-release copy of this book...and I'm glad I did.

Don't be taken in by some of the other reviews. There are others that are bashing the book because it doesn't tell the reader much 'how to implement' Design Thinking and spends much of its time promoting IDEO.

I disagree wholeheartedly with those comments. While this book does promote IDEO's rich history and successes, the book does a great deal to introduce the concept of Design Thinking to the reader. If you're a long-time practitioner of design thinking, this book may not be for you...if you aren't, this book is perfect.

According to this book, Design Thinking is the interplay of people and product/process. When you use a design thinking approach you take the entire environment into consideration when designing a process or product. Rather than take a look at a few possibilities for a design of a bike (in the case of the Shimano bike story in the book) and build a bike, the design thinker looks at the broader picture and environment to few new choices and possibilities.

If you have an interest in Design Thinking or just want to know more about the topic, get this book now. If you're an academic who wants to see case studies of design thinking in action that show success and failure, perhaps this isn't the book for you.

I read this book as part of our User Experience Book Club, and to sum it up in advance, I was quite disappointed. I thought a person like Tim Brown who led a design company of the caliber of IDEO would be able to share some real gems of wisdom with his readers. However, I distinctly felt that Tim didn't know how to do this. Instead, he created lots of different headlines that always made a promise but then didn't deliver. His biggest mistake is that he seems to believe that a long list of case studies with hardly any detail would teach readers how to tackle big design challenges. Unfortunately that is not the case - after reading the book, I knew just as much about how I could change the design culture within my company as before.

If this book was titled "All the cool stuff IDEO has done over the past 30 years", I would tend to give it 3 stars - I would still think that it's just a never-ending list of involvements, none of them explained in any depth that might prove to be helpful for readers.

In the last third of the book, before he wraps up, Tim then starts to go on for quite a few pages about how designers will be able to save the world, and how pretty much every successful businessman in the developing world who has an altruistic mind-set is in fact a designer who just proves his hypothesis. I find this quite a weak argument, and it gets worse the more Tim celebrates his own profession.

The only saving grace of this book is the very last chapter where he quickly wraps up what a company should do to ramp up its design efforts. Had he used THAT chapter and elaborated it in book form, I would have given him 4 stars and not just 2.

I'm not a good writer, so I'll keep this review informal.

I enjoyed reading this book, but maybe because I'm a business literature junkie.

Tim Brown, a self-admitted man of pictures, obviously has problems with words, and he didn't get any good help from the "editors". Brown should read his own advice about telling better stories and getting people excited about your idea.

As he talks about using creative problem-solving skills to make better mops and to improve the airline checkpoint experience and to make kids brush their teeth more often, you gain a new appreciation for creative, open minded thinking, but you have no idea where to go from here.

He does encourage companies to hire creative and out-of-the-box people and to give designers some space and some time (Think of IBM's skunk works and Google 20%-free-time rule) but the he only practical application for individuals is to "notice the ordinary, and to think why manholes are round..." Come on.

The book is certainly not boring. It was interesting to read, but it's like an average movie where you hope for that great catharsis which never comes...

To give credit where credit is due, he did give vivid examples in the cases of the Indian Aravind eye hospital and the cheap, disposable, irrigation systems they're using in developing countries. (Anyone could've come up with the Oral-B toothbrush idea. Sorry) but very little, if any, meaningful practical suggestions.

This book brings too few specifics, too few examples, considering that non of us ever built a prototype. I want to know, for example, of what idea IDEO helped the TSA develop to increase understanding between their agents and the passengers, etc, etc, etc, etc,

[To compare this book with another thinking-man's business book, Good to Great by Jim Collins doesn't have many stated practical suggestions, but he does provide you with an abundance of live, simple examples, which lets you expand on your own.

I repeat, as an avid reader of business news and books, I understood most of what was not adequately explained, but this book clearly needs a rewrite - and I will buy the next version.

When you think of a book about design, you tend to think that it is more about art and form rather than function and process. This book presents a new way of management thinking and problem solving centered on human interaction, innovation, information and insight. Change by Design by Tim Brown the CEO of IDEO is anything but simply one of the best books I have read in the past year.

Highly recommended for executives and anyone looking to understand a fresh approach to innovation, user generated content, brainstorming and problem solving. There are many books about what innovation is, this is one of the few books that discusses how to go from need to solution.

It is rare that an accomplished executive shares how they think in a way that is readily understandable and that you can take up and apply yourself. This book provides the tools to inject design thinking into your thinking but only if you have an open mind and are willing to see the limitations of current techniques and approaches.

Brown's central argument is that we need new ways of thinking and approaches to the problems we face as individuals, companies and society. Rather than relying on technology alone to address these problems, Brown concentrates on what he calls a third way of thinking - Design Thinking.

Design thinking is a non-linear approach to problem solving that integrates what is desirable from a human point of view with what is technologically feasible and economically viable by seeing a patterns in the environment and taking a human centered approach to engage people and address problems.

The book is a discussion of the design thinking philosophy rather than a prescription - which is good as it allows you to see how you would apply this way of thinking to your situation.

The book is divided into two parts. The first part of the book discuses the how aspects of design thinking. These chapters concentrate on the approaches, tools and techniques used to create comprehensive, human centered, economically viable innovation and solutions. These chapters also present these tools in the context of changes in society, technology, commerce and the environment so you can see how design thinking works.

The second part of the book discusses how design thinking applies to corporations, society, the need for global solutions and the future. These last four chapters place design thinking in context and illustrate that context with multiple examples and short case studies.

STRENGTHS

Brown applies design thinking to some of the more perplexing challenges facing business executives. There is much more to innovation than just new ideas and this book discusses how design thinking can be applied to including:

* Engineering Experiences (the experience economy),
* The transformation of products into services,
* Engaging customers and suppliers in the design and development process
* Recognizing the potential of social computing and Web 2.0 technologies
* Collaboration

That may sound like a lot for a 240-page book, but brown covers these topics individual and yet in an integrative way that shows the value of design thinking.

The book is comprehensive recognizing not only the need to design, but also the role of human centered design, change management, a new view on marketing and customer participation.

The book sheds new light on the role and power of innovation techniques like brainstorming and prototyping.

The discussion of how to involve people in the design process, how do design the experience and engage user-generated content was particularly powerful as this is a challenge for every enterprise, product or service.

CHALLENGES

The book mentions examples of where design thinking was applied to new solutions but it does not go into depth about how that thinking produced a different solution than traditional approaches. That is a particular challenge for readers who need a recipe for innovation, however this issue can be overcome with a little reflection and some web searching on the examples.

This is not a business book, so people expecting a business explanation and structure will find the book different. That is part of the whole point of design thinking - to think different and this book helps illustrate that.

Overall, highly recommended and it's a book that I will read again in about a month to pick up new insights as I learn more. This is one book that is already underlined and markets up and I am sure it will be part of core library that I will refer to in the future.

I picked up the audio version of this book, and it is hands down the best audio book I've ever purchased. Mr. Roberts' phrasing is clear and concise with almost perfect diction and just the right amount of emotion to keep it interesting. He makes it extremely easy to follow the narrative.

I had to read this book for class, and I have to say that it was actually a great read.
There are many insights in this book, but at times it can be hard to follow.

Though we had discussions on chapters every time the class met, I (and some fellow classmates) had trouble following what was going on.
We all interpreted what was said a bit differently, but after discussion usually came to the same conclusions.

I don't usually rate books, but I guess the reason I'm even bothering to rate this is because this book is actually really insightful.
As hard as it is to follow sometimes, this book will provide you with great insights and ways of thinking. I just wish it was a bit of an easier read.