Design Thinking

Basics

By: Technologies and Digital Banking Processes

Digital Strategy and Transformation Sub Process August,
2023
 Objectives
Upon successful completion of the course, learners should be able to:
Develop many creative ideas through structured brainstorming sessions

Design rapid prototypes to bring their ideas into reality as quickly as

possible, and obtain feedback

More broadly, gain a greater acceptance towards dealing with ambiguity and
uncertainty in their professional and personal lives

Learn to work with many

different people in fast-paced, dynamic,
cross-disciplinary team settings

Gain the design thinking competence to approach many different problems

and challenges with an open, creative, empathetic, and prototype-driven mind
set.

Empowered to apply all the design thinking methodology to your work and
solve complex problems that occur in your life, workplace, country, and
even across the world

©Cooperative Bank of Learning and Growth Team

Contents

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Introduction

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Cont.…
Design thinking is both an ideology and a process, concerned with
solving complex problems in a highly user- centric way.

Design thinking is extremely user centric, meaning that it

focuses on humans first and foremost, seeking to understand
people’s needs and come up with effective solutions to meet those
needs.

Starts by developing an empathetic understanding of the problem

through communication with the people around the problem,
generates solutions by using a creative thinking approach, and then
selects the best possible solution with a low cost prototyping test

©Cooperative Bank of Learning and Growth Team

Why Design Thinking
Design Thinking;

Uses different thinking styles, it not only solves complex problems, but
often identifies new opportunities.

May assist organizations (anybody) in staying ahead of

competition and achieving long term success the by
innovation and creativity.
encouraging

Produce business value by creating solutions that satisfy the

demands of users

©Cooperative Bank of Learning and Growth Team

Design Thinking Principle
Christophe Meinel and Harry Leifer of the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford University
identified four rules; Human Rule
01 Design is social in nature, problems must be solved in a way that satisfies
human needs and acknowledge the human elements in all technologies.

Ambiguity Rule
02
Design thinkers should not be prevented by their own assumptions and
perceptual blocks, and should feel free to see things differently

Redesign Rule
03 All design is redesign, technology and social circumstances are constantly evolving
so that design thinkers should adopt the changes of technology and circumstances in
satisfying these needs.

Tangibility Rule
04 Making ideas tangible facilitates communication, this directly refers to
creating prototypes

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Cont.…

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Cont.…Design Thinking
There are four Ps of Design Thinking

Place
The working spaces that must be considered for a
successful idea development and should be
designed to promote creativity.

People
The human being with empathy, analytical skills
and creativity to solve problems in ways that
increase customers' value
Philosophy
Needed to create and sustain results, as no matter how high the level
of technology and professional management techniques are, the

Process belief is that the most fundamental sustainable design thinking motive
depends on the customers problem.
The synergy created by working space
and people for experiencing and
implementing design thinking

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10 Commandments of Design Thinking

01 Leave titles at the door!

There is no hierarchy of position during a Design Thinking activities

Encourage wild ideas!

02
Let our imagination run wild and any (supposedly) crazy idea and every idea should be treated
equally

03 Go for quantity!
Quantity before quality. Selected, analysed and evaluated
later

04 Build on Ideas of others!

There is no Copyright and Ideas from others should be taken up, supplemented or changed

05 Think human centered!

Design Thinking is first and foremost thinking about people and not about technology or business goals

©Cooperative Bank of Learning and Growth Team

Cont.….
10 Commandments of Design Thinking:

Be visual and make it tangible!

06
Use drawings, illustrations, photos, vidéos, prototypes, etc.

07 Avoid criticism!
Idea generation and evaluation must be strictly separate

08 Fail early and often!

Failure means learning; often failure means that you have learned a lot

09 Stay focused!
Set yourself limits, stick to the concrete tasks in the Design Thinking
process

10 Let`s have fun!

Developing new ideas in a team should be fun so as creativity
needs it.

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Traditional & Design Thinking Problem Solving Approach

Design thinking and traditional thinking are two different

methods used in problem solving.

The traditional approach pours all of its resources into one plan.

Failure will be catastrophic and is something to fear

In design thinking, small and incremental changes are made to many

possible solutions.

People love to fail fast and learn how to improve that or

another solution

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Traditional Problem Solving Approach
Traditional thinking and cognitive studies suggest that the prevailing way
to solve a problem is to follow an orderly and linear process that takes from
the problem to the solution

The options are evaluated and the best will be chosen for implementation, thus
transforming the initial situation to the specific goal

A traditional problem-solving process can be represented by the following steps:

 Define the problem
 Generate alternative solutions
 Evaluate and choose the best option
 Implement and verify the results

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Cont.….

There’s a saying which goes: a problem well-stated is a problem half

solved.

With a well-defined problem statement, a series of possible solutions for the

problem can be generated by using various problem solving strategies like
rule of thumb, analogical problem solving or means-end analysis

In our daily lives, we always encounter problems that are ill defined.
Sometimes they are classified as “wicked problems” complex challenges
with many unknowns.

In these instances, the traditional problem-solving approach might

not be very effective.

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Wicked Problems
Problem that's difficult or impossible to solve because of its complex and
interconnected nature and lack of clarity as well as precision description of the
problem statement.

Conklin’s identify criteria for wicked problems as following points:

01 You don’t understand the problem until you 04 The problem is unique and
have developed a solution. novel.

05 Solutions to wicked problems are

02 Every solution to a wicked problem is a “one-shot not right or wrong
operation” because there is no opportunity to learn by
trial and error.

06 Wicked problems have no

Wicked problems do not have an enumerable stopping rule.
03
set of potential solutions.

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Disadvantages of Traditional Problem Solving Approach

Usually linear and definitive i.e. from imagining the problems and implementing
solutions

Focusses on driving efficiency in the organisation usually measured in terms of

revenues, costs, profits etc. while largely ignoring the customer.

Highly convergent in that it does not make adequate efforts to truly define the
problem customer is facing and instead jumps to developing solutions

Highly hierarchical i.e. a certain group are assumed to have the best ideas but in this
era of innovation , anybody, irrespective of level, can come up with good thoughts/ideas
or can trigger productive thoughts in other.

All the above issues are the reason why we might consider an alternative approach of
Design Thinking method to come up with the problem of this dynamic environment.

©Cooperative Bank of Learning and Growth Team

Design Thinking Problem Solving Approach
To address the fast-changing environment and the growth of wicked problems in
the business, organizations have adopted Design Thinking as one of their
problem-solving approaches.

The Design Thinking approach emphasizes the human-centered focus, holistic

consideration of the problem, a non-linear process, and a creative thinking style in
considering and resolving problems.

Design Thinking is the classic process starts with understanding and defining the
problem, developing a few options and select the most appropriate ones, and then
implementing and evaluating the solutions in the real world.

©Cooperative Bank of Learning and Growth Team

 Cont.…..

Design Thinking is a core part of the design discipline

Design Thinking differs from the traditional problem solving

approaches, which are largely based on a linear problem solving
technique.

Major differences between these two problem solving approaches are in

the implementation of the process.

In contrast, Design Thinking uses a human-centric, non-linear

approach, and a creative thinking style

©Cooperative Bank of Learning and Growth Team

 Design Thinking Stages

Design thinking is a user-centric approach to problem-solving and is often

employed by companies to overcome complex challenges in innovative
way

There are five key steps in the design thinking process: empathize,
define, ideate, prototype, and test

One thing we have to keep in mind is that the process isn’t always linear:
any one of the five stages of the design thinking process could spark an idea
or outcome that leads to repeating an earlier stage

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 Cont.….
01 Emphasize 04 Prototype
• Understanding of the problem that we are going to solve.  produces some inexpensive or rough mock-up solutions to verify the
• Empathy ability to share someone else’s feelings or experiences by performance of the proposed solutions from the Ideate stage
imagining what it would be like to be in that person’s situation.
 Purpose is to allow a quick and inexpensive test to be done which can
evaluate the performance of the solution
02 Define
 Give a better understanding of the problem and identify the best
o Focuses on developing a definition of the possible solution for the problem specified
problem
o Based on the information collected and insight inspired
in the previous stage, the design thinker develops a
comprehensive understanding of the problem
05 Test
03 Ideate  Generates results that might also inform the design thinker to
redefine the problem or refine the solution at other stages
 Focuses on generating ideas and solutions for
resolving the problem.

 Thinking out of the box always helps us

generate creative solutions

 Various ideation techniques like Brainstorming and Mind

Mapping are used to help generate creative solutions

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 Emphasize
Design thinkers set aside their own biases and work to gain a deeper
understanding of real users and their needs

Some tools and methods commonly used in this stage are;

• Interviews: talk to users directly to gain insight into their challenges and
understand their points of view.

• Surveys and Questionnaires: identify who your users are, what they
currently think about your product, what problems they face, and what their
needs are.

• Observation: View how users interact with the product and their
environment, their behaviours to gain insight into their thoughts and
feelings

• Empathy Map: a visualization tool that summarizes a user’s thoughts,

actions, and feelings.

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Define
Analyse the data gathered during the emphasize stage to identify and
define the issue with a clear and concise problem statement

Outline the challenges the target audience faces and how those
challenges can be resolved.

Tools commonly used to achieve in the define phase are;

• Data Analysis: using the data gathered so to identify and define the
user’s problem

• The “5 Whys” Method: practice of asking why repeatedly whenever a

problem is encountered in order to get beyond the obvious symptoms to discover the root

cause.

• Build User Personas: Using data gathered and build an archetype that
represents the needs of target audience

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 Ideate
Is where design thinkers start to explore solutions, techniques include;

 Brain writing: write down all ideas on a sheet of paper, then pass the paper
on
 Sketches: is a quick way to visualize ideas without expending much time.
 Round Robin Brainstorming: a collective, two step approach
to
brainstorming that begins by soliciting a solution using the “How Might We”
prompt, then developing that idea further using an iterative circular process
similar to brain writing
 Mind Maps and Flow Charts: a diagram and visualization tool that
shows how ideas are linked, making it easier to classify them and
detects patterns.

 SWOT Analysis: identify the strengths, weaknesses,

external opportunities, and threats of an idea.

©Cooperative Bank of Learning and Growth Team

 Prototype
Reveal whether the proposed product will work, whether it’s technically
feasible, and what challenges you will face bringing it to life.

Common tools and techniques used here include:

• Wireframes: Low fidelity prototype that represents the basic visual
layout of an interface or product.
• Low Fidelity Prototypes: cheap, quick, relatively simple, and require little
design skills to produce.
• High Fidelity Prototypes: realistic designs that look and operate close to the
final product.
• Walk Through: a task specific approach to determine the usability of a
prototype.

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Tes
t
The stage at which design thinkers observe how participants interact
with the prototype and gather feedback about the experience.

Commonly used testing tools include:

 Usability Testing: a testing tool that gauges the usability of a

design with a group of target users.

 Beta Launch: Releasing your prototype to a limited pool of

users to determine usability, detect bugs, and test whether your
product addresses users’ needs.

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 Design Thinking is Non Linear Process
Non-linear process of Design Thinking starts with a linear sequence which
moves from understanding the problem to generating alternative solutions for
resolving the problem.

It also works in an iterative way, which means that we loop back and repeat
steps that is why we have said design thinking is non linear process

Design thinkers always jump from one stage to another stage to go back
and redefine the problem, as well as when we evaluate the appropriateness
of the proposed solutions

This process doesn’t just solve problems, but helps to identify new
opportunities and generate creative solutions that exceed our expectations

©Cooperative Bank of Learning and Growth Team

 Design Thinking is More than the Process
Design Thinking is not merely a process for problem solving,
but the entire approach that designers use

Design thinkers do not only follow certain processes or use certain

tools to achieve their results, but are driven by the behaviours
behind the design thinking approach

The behaviours of design thinkers in approaching problems

include:
01 Human centred focus
05 Holistic
considerations
02 Non linear process
06 Creative thinking
03 Learning by
07 Use of Cognitive
making Tools
discovering 08 Intuition and subjective
04 Exploring and thinking
opportunities
©Cooperative Bank of Learning and Growth Team
Benefit of Design Thinking
There are a few benefits of using design thinking over traditional
problem-solving approaches in problem-solving, they are:

01 Problem defining
Uses a holistic approach to look at the problem by considering people as the
ultimate beneficiaries when the problem is solve

02 Idea generation
Uses a creative thinking approach to generate
ideas

03 Problem solving tool

Always uses tools to break through human perceptual blocks and increase the
effectiveness of the problem-solving process

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 Contextual Inquiry
A design thinking process starts with the collecting of data to get a better understanding of the
scenario and the problem
The data collected should be from multiple perspectives to ensure a rich supply of
information
What is Contextual Inquiry?
Observation and a semi-structured interview format to collect information
from
participants
Aims to obtain information about the participants along with the corresponding
context.
Can be used to capture the understanding of the needs, emotions, and expectations
of a group of people
Has an important requirement that the participants must take an active role in leading the
contextual inquiry
session because of most of the time the purpose of a contextual inquiry is to capture expert
knowledge of the
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Cont.…
Contextual inquiry uses the following four principles to guide the interaction.

1. Context
 The interviewer observes the participants performing their activities and
simultaneously discusses what is happening with them
2. Partnership
 The participants and the interviewer should collaborate in the process to
achieve data acquisition and uncover unarticulated information.

3. Interpretation
 Verify the interpretation of the information collected and insights figured
out with the participants during the interview

4. Focus
 Certain interests of the participants might not fall into the scope of the study, and the
interviewer may need to steer the focus of the discussion back to the topic.

©Cooperative Bank of Learning and Growth Team

How to Apply Design Thinking

Utilize five stage process to explain the principles behind the design thinking
approach in problem solving

Use a divergent thinking approach to understand the general scenario,

and a convergent thinking approach to identify the specific problem
Employ various design thinking tools to help in collecting and analysing
data for problems.

Consider the Affinity Map, which is a tool that helps to organize large amounts
of data

Apply Cognitive Walkthrough to address some of the deficiencies of our

thinking approach in the problem solving process

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Affinity Map
is a systematic method to identify the natural relationships between points
of data and categorize them according to the meaning embedded within
them.

Affinity Mapping (Affinity Diagram) also known as the KJ Method as a

tool was created by Jiro Kawakita in 1960’ to organize large amounts of
data or ideas into groups with common themes and relationships.

The system also encourages people to use their intuition and break away
from entrenched thinking to identify the relationships between these data
and ideas

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Analogous Inspiration

In our everyday lives, we often use analogies to help us identify possible

solutions for problems involving new situations

Analogies can offer a fresh perspective and provide inspiration

for situations in which we get stuck.

Analogous Inspiration is a method that helps us get inspiration by looking for

solutions in different contexts

Achieved by exploring different scenarios or looking at different industries to

find connections between seemingly unrelated experiences and scenarios

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Brainstorming
The term brainstorming is now used as a generic term for people
getting together to generate ideas.

The ultimate purpose of brainstorming is to generate creative and

appropriate solutions for resolving problems.

Divided into a divergent phrase to generate ideas and a convergent

phrase to evaluate ideas
Divergent phrase is to allow the participants to generate as many ideas as
possible quickly, and the meeting does not care whether these ideas are
new or appropriate as possible solutions or not.

The principle behind idea generation is that the more the ideas
generated, the higher chance there is to find good and creative ones.

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Think out of Box Think like there is no Box
We will never find the best ideas until we recognize there is no box

To develop the best ideas, make a critical new assumption: There is no

box.

The kind of creative thinking that leads to serious innovation requires

approaching challenges without any boxes.

The kind of creative thinking that leads to serious innovation requires

approaching challenges without any boxes.

Make a critical new assumption as there is no box, tell yourself it’s a

choice or, once and for all, set your box on fire.

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 Creativity & Problem Solving
Creativity is essential for Design Thinking

Then, what is Creativity?

The National Advisory Committee on Creative and Cultural Education defined
creativity as imaginative activity fashioned so as to produce outcomes that are
both original and value added

Creativity involves thinking that is aimed at producing ideas or products that

are relatively novel and valuable

Creative processes always involve:

1. Thinking or behaving imaginatively

2. The purposeful use of imaginative activity

3. The generation of something original

4. Outcome which must be of value to the purpose

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Creative Thinking Style

Nobel laureate Albert Einstein once said “Imagination is more important than
knowledge”
Scholars believe that three specific abilities are needed to generate creative ideas;
01 Synthetic ability

ability allows us to generate novel ideas, enables us to connect different things effectively to generate new
concepts.

2. Analytical ability

is the power to think critically, enables us to make appropriate analysis of ideas and judge their effectiveness
so that helps us to judge which of several novel ideas is more appropriate to pursue

3. Practical ability
However, ideas which are only novel and appropriate might still not be good enough to be successful so
we still need the practical ability to promote these ideas.

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 Cont.…
Sometimes people run into certain problems that they cannot solve so they are stuck
and the situation looks like a dead end.

By Redefining Problems people can come up with alternative solutions to problems.

Questioning Assumptions is another element that enhances creative thinking style

Assumptions are beliefs accepted as true without evidence. They may not be correct or free
of limitations.
Sometimes, we fall into a mistake of over-focusing on finding the answers without
looking more carefully at the questions

John Dewey suggested that “how we think is often more important than what we think”

So challenging assumptions and asking provoking questions are important elements for
enhancing our creative thinking style.

©Cooperative Bank of Learning and Growth Team

Tolerating Ambiguity
Like artists and writers when they start to work on a creative project,
people have to go through a period of ambiguity to let their creative
ideas grow.

The period during which the idea is developing tends to be

uncomfortable.

Without adequate time or the ability to tolerate ambiguity, people

may jump to a mediocre solution instead of continuing the search
and finding the optimal solution.

We need to be taught that uncertainty and discomfort are

a part of living a creative life.

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Motivation
Effective leadership and motivation are conditions that foster creativity
Motivation is at the frontline in activating a person’s creativity, and it
governs a person’s willingness to be creative
It is the interaction of internal and external factors in a person’s
psychological process with the goal of satisfying a need

Creative people always have a strong incentive behind their willpower, and
they keep challenging themselves and refining their ideas or works.
In encouraging creative effort, it does not really matter if the ideas
people come up with are good or bad: the main point is that they are willing
to generate ideas that are a synthesis between their own thoughts and existing
ideas.

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 Supporting Environment
In order to nurture people’s creativity, we ought to recognize their creative
capabilities and provide the particular conditions in which they can be
realized.

This means that they need a supporting environment to

develop these creative capabilities
The environment should encourage and appreciate idea
new
generation, encourage cross fertilization and creative collaboration and allow
the making of mistakes.

However, most of time, our environment is not fully supportive of developing

creative capabilities

In order to ‘Encourage New Idea Generation’, people should be allowed to express

their ideas no matter whether they are valuable or not, and they should also be free
of criticism.

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No Mistake
As time passed by, you gradually built a strong sense that making mistakes was
not a good thing

You had a lot of fantastic new ideas, but you did not know whether they
were right or wrong.

There was no way for you to verify them, because they were new to you
and you did not have any experience or knowledge of them

As you could not tell whether your ideas were right or wrong, offering your
ideas involved the risk of proposing one or more wrong answers

However, you also lost the chance to learn whether your ideas were right or wrong

©Cooperative Bank of Learning and Growth Team

 How to become Design Thinker
By developing design thinking skills, you can become a design thinker Design
thinking skills can empower you to
embrace and facilitate innovation within your organization to effect
real, lasting change such as:

1. Emotional Intelligence
Skills of practitioner to empathize with the end user and understand their
dreams, goals, desires, and challenges on an intimate, personal level
2. Consensus Building
problem
Problem we’re trying
framing skillsto solve
that and identify
requires to take the best back
a step solution
andwhile ruling
reframe the out
those that don’t address the problem.
3. User Research
Is the act of understanding a product or service’s end user to get a better sense of the
problems they face, their goals, and the unique criteria they’ll use to identify a solution

©Cooperative Bank of Learning and Growth Team

 Characteristics of Design Thinking
In order to fully capture the benefit of design thinking, we should become

design thinkers ourselves and possess the following c: haracteristics.

01 Human centred Focus

Focus on satisfying human wants and improving human
lives
02 Holistic Consideration

Immerse in the physical environment, engaging and empathizing with people to

understand their experience to gain a deep personal understanding of the problem
and the related issues.

03 Non-linear Thinking

Jump from one stage to another stage, go back and redefine the problem to
eliminate the common pitfalls in problem solving

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Cont.…

04 Creative Thinking
Always generate alternative solutions to
problems
05 Use of Cognitive Tools
Drawing and sketching tools frequently used to assist in idea generation

6. Intuition and Subjective Thinking

Immediate insight, a process that allows us to know something without going through an
analytic reasoning process

7. Learning-by-making
Explore and get a deep understanding of the problem through making things.

08 Exploring and Discovering Opportunities

Do not only aim for optimum solutions in the problem solving process, but also focus on exploring
and discovering new opportunities

©Cooperative Bank of Learning and Growth Team

Summary
 Many business and non business organizations are adopting it in resolving their
problems
 Design Thinking is commonly recognized as a problem solving process that
includes five stages; Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype and Test
 But when we compare the Design Thinking process with the conventional
problem solving process, they do not have any major difference, except the
implementation part.

 Design thinkers use different thinking styles and attitudes in

approaching problems

 The benefits of Design thinking not only help in problem solving but also
opportunity finding

 In order to be proficient in design thinking, we should not only understand the

design thinking process, but also have to make ourselves become a design
thinker

©Cooperative Bank of Learning and Growth Team

 Congratulations on completing Design Thinking Basics course
and we wish this course helps you break your perceptual blocks
in creative problem solving !!

©Cooperative Bank of Learning and Growth Team

 ≈ The End ≈

Galatoomaa!

©Cooperative Bank of Learning and Growth Team