Solving Problems with Design Thinking: Ten Stories of What Works
Columbia University Press, September 2013
Design-oriented firms such as Apple and IDEO have demonstrated how design thinking can directly affect business results. Yet most managers lack a real sense of how to put this new approach to use for issues other than product development and sales growth. Solving Problems with Design Thinking details ten real-world examples of managers who successfully applied design methods at 3M, Toyota, IBM, Intuit, and SAP; entrepreneurial start-ups such as MeYou Health; and government and social sector organizations including the City of Dublin and Denmark's The Good Kitchen.
Using design skills such as ethnography, visualization, storytelling, and experimentation, these managers produced innovative solutions to problems concerning strategy implementation, sales force support, internal process redesign, feeding the elderly, engaging citizens, and the trade show experience. Here they elaborate on the challenges they faced and the processes and tools they used, offering their personal perspectives and providing a clear path to implementation based on the principles and practices of design thinking.
Hardcover | ISBN: 9780231163569 | Publication Date: September 2013
Reviews:
"In a clear and simple style, this book shows how design thinking
has been applied successfully to address complex and very
different problems in a variety of organizations, both for- and
not-for-profit. The ten case studies provide creative and
innovative applications of the design principles, providing
sufficient detail of use to readers in their own planning
processes. The book provides depth of value to the graduate
professional classroom while being simple and clear for immediate
use by managers."
-- Toni Ungaretti, Johns Hopkins University
"Jeanne Liedtka is dedicated to bringing design concepts and
theory down from the stratosphere into the hands of managers
tackling everyday problems. She and her co-authors achieve just
this in Solving Problems with Design Thinking. Read it
once for inspiration and encouragement. Then go back to its pages
time and time again for models, tools, lessons, and stories that
will transform design thinking a powerful asset for you."
-- Roger Martin, Dean of the Rotman School of Management,
University of Toronto
"This book offers a solid, in-depth look at the power of design
thinking to solve organizational problems. Better yet, through
real-life examples, it demonstrates a far more important skill:
how to uncover the more urgent problems lurking beneath the
surface. The authors brilliantly reveal how the design mindset can
permeate -- and then transform -- an organization."
-- Daniel Pink, author of Drive and To Sell is
Human
