“Evolve or be Disrupted” – The pace of change and disruption in the business environment demands that Project Managers acquire and grow new skills. Indeed, we need new tools and models to operate in a more flexible, discovery-driven world. To be successful, our profession needs to look past the rigor and discipline of managing projects and embrace agility and collaboration, thinking about customers first, innovation and adaptive leadership.
Design Thinking has emerged as a successful methodology that organizations use to approach problem-solving and delivery of innovative solutions that delight their customers.
Here are some of the best resources that you can use to become more knowledgeable on Design Thinking. (In no particular order.)
IDEO – IDEO (pronounced “eye-dee-oh”) an international design and consulting firm headquartered in Palo Alto, California, has been a leading proponent of applying design thinking methodology to design products, services, environments, and digital experiences.
Frog Design – Frog is global product strategy and design firm founded in Germany and currently headquartered in San Francisco, California. Frog has developed and made available a “Collective Action Toolkit” that helps put design-thinking tools into the hands of local change agents to transform their communities. While this toolkit is more geared to solving community problems, the tools and methods can be applied to problem-solving in the government and business sectors.
Stanford d.school – If there is one place to start learning more about Design Thinking, I would highly recommend the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford, more commonly known as the “d.school.” The d.school provides an excellent “Virtual Crash Course on Design Thinking” on their website.
Luma Institute – The LUMA Institute provides training programs for learning and applying key practices of human-centered design. Their “Looking, Understanding, Making” approach is very accessible to average people who may not necessarily think of themselves as “innovators”.
Google Ventures (GV) – GV has developed a 5-day process for tackling business questions through design, prototyping, and testing of ideas with customers. A guide for “The Design Sprint” is laid out nicely at their website.
IBM Design Thinking – IBM Design Thinking is billed as a scalable framework to help teams understand and deliver. At the heart of this framework is a set of behaviors focused on discovering users’ needs and envisioning a better future, called the “Loop.” The Loop is a continuous cycle of observing, reflecting and making.
Interaction Design Foundation – The Interaction Design Foundation is a 16-year-old nonprofit community, founded in Denmark, whose aim is to lower the cost of design education. IDF offers an extensive library of design-related textbooks and comprehensive instructor-led online courses.
Canva – Canva is a graphic-design tool website that uses a drag-and-drop format and provides access to over a million photographs, graphics, and fonts. In 2014, the Canva team unveiled the Canva Design School; a new platform, workshop series and teacher resource hub designed to increase the world’s visual literacy.
Design Council UK– Design Council’s stated purpose is to make life better by design. It’s mission is to champion great design that improves lives and makes things better. The Design Council aims to harness design to drive business growth and improve service efficiency, design practical solutions to complex problems, create better, more sustainable places, and to lead and share the latest thinking on design.
University of Copenhagen’s Innovation Toolbox – The aim of the innovation toolbox is to support teachers with planning and carrying out innovation & entrepreneurship teaching, both in relation to minor processes and workshops as well as longer-term courses. The innovation toolbox provides an overview to Design Thinking and provides over forty methods to use on projects.
Hasso Plattner Institute (HPI) for Digital Engineering – HPI is an institute and faculty of the University of Potsdam. Since 2007, the HPI School of Design Thinking has brought together students and academics from different fields to work in multidisciplinary teams where they learn to become innovators and to develop user-friendly products and services.
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