Swinburne

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Design Thinking:
The QAME of Organisational Innovation

Elizabeth (Dori) Tunstall

Associate Professor, Design Anthropology
Swinburne Faculty of Design
CapGemini Accelerated Solutions Environment
4 July 2012
Content Swinburne

01 Questions, Assumptions, Methods, and Evidence

02 Mini-exercise: What is your QAME?
03 Two versions of design thinking (Brown vs. Martin)
04 Mini-exercise: What is your recombinant QAME?
QAME Swinburne

Theory has four elements: Questions What do I want to know

professionally about the world?

Assumptions What are the main issues at stake

for me in that knowledge?
> Issues
What role do I play in doing
> Roles something with that knowledge?
> Scales What is the size at which I feel I can
understand?
Methods What approach do I take to answer
my question?

Evidence How do I convince others that I

know what I know?

Source: Barnard, Alan. (2000). History

and Theory in Anthropology. New York:
Cambridge University Press. pp. 5-6
QAME of Approaches to Understanding the People Context Swinburne

Anthropology Design Marketing Engineering

Questions What does it mean

to be human?
How does one
design a
How does one
allocate resources
How does one
apply
successful to move mathematical
product, service, customers to buy and scientific
communicatio, or goods and/or principles to
experience? services? solve technical
problems?
Assumptions Origins, evolution,
and meaning
Contexts, user
requirements,
Economic rational
choice
Applied science,
feasibility and
> Issues materials constraints
Anthropologist as Marketer as
> Roles instrument Designer as selector Engineer as
> Scales Qualitative
intermediary
Quantitative
solver
significance Qualitative significance Quantitative
significance significance
Methods Ethnography as Ethnography as Ethnography as Ethnography as
way of knowing empathic intuition intimate consumer requirements
insight gathering
Participant/observ Prototype and
ation concept testing Focus group Beta testing
Evidence Informal Concepts Formal Technical
conversation presentation specifications
Prototypes
Experiential texts Strategic report Demo
Introductory exercise 1: What is your QAME? Swinburne

Step 1:
Spend 5 minutes to map out your own personal set of
questions, assumptions, methods, and evidence

Step 2:
Get in groups of four people whom you don’t know.

Step 3:
Exchange maps with each other and discuss similarities
and differences for 10 minutes.

Step 4:
Share your name, department, and one of your key
assumptions.
Name Swinburne
Department

Question

What do I want to know professionally about the world?

Assumptions
>Issues
>Roles
>Scales

What are the main issues at stake for me in that knowledge? What
role do I play in doing something with that knowledge? What is the
size at which I feel I can understand?

Methods

What approach do I take to answer my question?

Evidence

How do I convince others that I know what I know?

Design Thinking: Two versions Swinburne

Tim Brown of IDEO Roger Martin of Rotman School of

Business

Put simply, it is a discipline that In the future, the most successful

uses the designerʼs sensibility and businesses will balance analytical
methods to match peopleʼs needs mastery and intuitive originality in a
with what is technologically dynamic interplay that I call
feasible and what a viable “design thinking.”
business strategy can convert into
customer value and market
opportunity.

Source: Brown, Tim. (2008). Design Thinking. Source: Martin, Roger. (2010). Design thinking:
Harvard Business Review, 86 (6): 84-92. achieving insights via the ‘‘knowledge funnel.’’
Strategy and Leadership, 38 (2): 37-41.
doi:10.1108/10878571011029046
Tim Brown’s Design Thinking Swinburne

Questions How do we design an successful Empathy, Integrative

X by learning what it means to thinking, Optimism,
be human, properly allocating
Experimentalism, and
resources to move consumers to
buy, while respecting the Collaboration
scientific principles that solve
technical problems?
Assumptions Empathy, Integrative thinking,
Optimism, Experimentalism, and
> Issues Collaboration
> Roles Intermediary
> Scales Qualitative

Methods Human-centred design

(Ethnography + Prototyping and
Participatory Co-design +
Usability testing)
Evidence Strategic experiential
prototype/models of design,
business, and technical
constraints
Roger Martin’s Design Thinking Swinburne

Questions How do we strike a balance

between exploration and
exploitation of the innovation
process in order to sustain
competitive advantage?
Assumptions Balancing analytical and creative
thought, innovation, efficiency,
> Issues valuable insights
> Roles Selector/Editor
> Scales Both qualitative and quantitative

Methods Knowledge funnel (Move from

mystery to heuristics to
algorithm, to new mystery)
Abductive logic/reasoning
Evidence Organisational transformation in
tools, processes, and skills
Design Thinking at Deutsche Bank Swinburne
Exercise 2: Recombinant QAME Swinburne

Step 1:
Get back into your group of four.

Step 2:
Select either Brown or Martin’s QAME of Design Thinking as a
starting point for how to use it as a starting point for your questions
and assumptions.

Step 3:
In 10 minutes, take your personal QAME maps and recombine the
methods and evidence to make a group mapping.

Step 4:
Share your group mapping with the larger group to conclude the
exercise.
Names and
Departments
Swinburne

Question How do we design an successful X by OR How do we strike a balance between

learning what it means to be human,
exploration and exploitation of the
properly allocating resources to move
innovation process in order to sustain
consumers to buy, while respecting the
competitive advantage?
scientific principles that solve technical
problems?

Assumptions Empathy, Integrative thinking, Optimism, OR Balancing analytical and creative

Experimentalism, and Collaboration thought, innovation, efficiency, valuable
>Issues
insights
>Roles Intermediary
>Scales Selector/Editor
Qualitative
Both qualitative and quantitative

Methods

Evidence
Wrap up: Your QAME matters Swinburne

Takeaway 1:
The heart of most disagreements that block successful projects is
the lack of shared questions or assumptions.

Takeaway 2:
These are manifested in the methods and evidence that we choice.

Takeaway 3:
QAME is a framework that will help both identify and recombinate
for organisational alignment.

Takeaway 4:
Design thinking has a particular “theory” for design success
(Brown) or organisational transformation (Martin) that is useful for
gmoving out of your organisational rut into sustainable competitive
advantage. So take advantage of it.