Design Thinking & Digital

Innovation
Organisational context
 Context

There’s an old saying: necessity is the mother of

invention.
 Context

Innovate strategically to construct, foster and

support an organisation’s growth.
 Context

This talk explores means of clarifying innovation

directions within organisations.
 Recall

Last week’s talk covered some key reports you

can use to stay informed of technical trends.
 Recall

Once you know those trends, you are well-

placed to consider strategic innovations.

What’s the next step?

 Today

Adopt diverse perspectives on the trends.

Capture information arising from those diverse
perspectives.
Adopting diverse perspectives
Adopting diverse perspectives

Why?
 Adopting diverse perspectives

Morgan’s metaphors provide a framework for

(re-)reading a complicated and problematic
context; such as identifying the optimal
technological or social trend in which to invest
innovative efforts.
 Adopting diverse perspectives

Something for you to consider:

As each metaphor is described, consider how
strongly it relates to each of the design thinking
modes (empathise, define a problem, ideate
imaginatively, prototype, test).
Adopting diverse perspectives

View a complex problem as a machine ...

Adopting diverse perspectives

… as an organism …
Adopting diverse perspectives

… as a brain …
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… as a culture …
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… as a manifestation of political power …

Adopting diverse perspectives

… as a ‘psychic prison’ …
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… as a manifestation of change and flux …

Adopting diverse perspectives

… as an instrument of domination.
 Adopting diverse perspectives

Use Morgan’s metaphors to explore the various

elements catalysing and shaping innovation
trends and to construct deep awareness of your
own organisation’s capability.
 Adopting diverse perspectives

Don’t stop with Morgan’s eight.

Identify new metaphors you (and others) can
apply to uncover hidden detail and
constructively disrupt the context of the
problem you are engaged with.
Adopting diverse perspectives

TOP
 Adopting diverse perspectives

Technical: adopt a cold and rational (scientific)

perspective on a problem.
 Adopting diverse perspectives

Organisational: focus on any structural factors

shaping the problem.
Adopting diverse perspectives

Personal: focus on the stories of individual

people (personas and user stories).
 Adopting diverse perspectives

Why? For the same reasons you use Morgan’s

metaphors.
 Adopting diverse perspectives

What other perspectives can you think of and

apply?
 Try it for yourself
The design thinking assessment requires you to
think about online learning.

Try to establish diverse perspectives on online

learning by applying Morgan’s metaphors and
TOP.
 Try it for yourself

With online learning in mind, work with

someone else to apply three of Morgan’s
metaphors.
 Try it for yourself

Now do the same exercise with TOP.

Apply the three perspectives to online learning.

 Try it for yourself

You should now have developed a rich range of

perspectives on online learning.

These techniques can be applied to any

organised concept, like an organisation or a
technology or a strategy.
Capturing diverse perspectives
Capturing diverse perspectives

Rich pictures
Capturing diverse perspectives

Spontaneously capture and model rich

understandings and complex meanings.
Innovation of the week

Brain-Computer Interfaces
 Innovation of the week

Who thinks there was some empathy involved in

designing BCIs? Why? Who disagrees? Why?
Any questions?
 Any questions?

Consider: if all the other students apply all of

Morgan’s metaphors and the three TOP
perspectives, what will you do to stand out from
the crowd?
 Any questions?

What’s going to be the easiest part of adopting

diverse perspectives for you?
 Any questions?

What’s going to be the hardest part of adopting

diverse perspectives for you?
 Any questions?

As usual, prepare for this challenge: think of a

strategy right now and write it down (2
minutes). After a few weeks look at it again and
see if it’s helped you at all.
Thank you