If you are design thinking and doing any of these 4 things: STOP and start over.

1. You’re doing design thinking in a (1-day) workshop.

Design thinking is fundamentally collaborative. Although a workshop can be a great format, it’s not
enough to just sit in a room together. Insights and ideas need to incubate and develop, take your
time between collaborative sessions.

2. You’re design thinking without the input of a real user.

‘Empathising’ without doing research is basically just playing make-believe about how other people
feel and merely reinforces your own biases.

Stop, get out of the room and do your research. Talk to users, listen and observe before you
proceed.

3. You’re not involving the stakeholders that actually have to build the product or service.

By not preparing for implementation you will inevitably get stuck a bunch of post-its and a silly lego-
prototype.

If you want something to happen for real, get them involved, understand their processes, know their
requirements and constraints.

4. You’re starting your ideation without having a clear challenge (from a user and business
perspective) and a novel perspective on the situation.

Stop, put down the post-its and step back! Do the hard work to understand the problem better.

Jürgen Tanghe