How can we be better product designers?
Posted on December 28th, 2009 by Paul McArdle – No Comments.
Here’s an interesting video (runs for an hour) promoting a new book “Glimmer: How Design Can Transform Your Life, and Maybe Even the World” by Warren Berger (and Bruce Mau).
Seems like an interesting book, so have thrown it in our shopping cart, and will review it sometime in 2010.
.
A. What is “Design Thinking”
At the risk of sounding like a troglodyte, I must admit to being a newcomer to the term “design thinking”.
From what I understand (correct me if I am wrong?) it all seems like it revolves around designing/developing things to deliver to meet customer needs (voiced or unvoiced).
If this is what it is, then it sounds like it is pretty much what I have been doing, over the past 10 years, through this company (in “making the electricity market understandable”).
That said, I am very interested in finding ways in which we can, as a company, systematise our approach to product development (in order that we can scale).
At the end of the video, the point is made that the purpose of the book is to share the “genus of the creative genius” with everyone – because (just like with the shift from QC to QA) it is becoming everyone’s responsibility to be creative.
.
B. Values that lead to Good Design
I found the discussion very interesting – especially given the navel-gazing we have been doing recently:
1) As part of our autopsy 2; and
2) With reference to our planning for the next next stages of our growth over the next 10 years.
In particular, I was pleased to hear reference to having organisational cultures promoting values such as the following:
1) Optimism
Bruce Mau terms this “imagining a better world” (in which is implicit that you need to start from the assumption that a better world is possible, in the first place).
In my mind, there are two sides to this coin. In “Good to Great”, Jim Collins sums this up very well in stating that the key participants in a business must both:
“1) confront the brutal facts but
2) never lose faith”.
To make a positive, and sustainable, contribution to a business (or indeed to any organisation) I believe you need to have both values.
Having experienced people (as shareholders and/or employees) with one, but not the other, I am convinced that neither are effective in isolation.
2) Willingness to Question
In the interview, Bruce and Warren talk about a willingness to question what is assumed to be “reality” – to me it works better if it more of an urge than a willingness (i.e. a never-ending quest to understand more, or better, why things are the way they are).
For instance, this drive should be behind each individual’s quest for life-long learning.
Of course, this drive to question must also be balanced with a drive to deliver real results (i.e. to temporarily suspend questioning, at times, in order to deliver an iterative outcome for clients). Just one more paradox each individual needs to become more used to managing.
3) Empathy
In the interview, Bruce and Warren talk about empathy.
I would not have termed it as such, but this is all about being able to truly put yourself in your customer’s shoes, to be able to really understand:
1) what threats and weaknesses keep them awake at night, and
2) the opportunities and strengths that energise them.Certainly anyone who wants to play a key role in product development (with any company) needs to love doing this.
4) Failing Forward
The concept has been discussed before in different forums (e.g. Jim Collins and Jerry Porras termed it “try a lot of stuff, and keep what works”). We have been trying to instil more of this culture without our company – with mixed success (no pun intended).
I particularly like this way of describing the philosophy – i.e. it emphasises that “failure” should be the objective, rather than something to be avoided, as it really is a stepping stone to future success.
This was one of my primary motivators in stipulating our move towards Agile Software Development, for instance. As you would expect, this transition is still a work in progress.
There is much more we can do in the coming months and years to entrench this value into our culture…
5) Scenario Planning
This was the last of the 5 attributes that Warren mentions (in his list of 5) in the video.
Given that part of my history has involved scenario planning for the electricity supply industry, this is not unfamiliar to me – however I must profess that the comments in the video prompted me to think about this tool in a different way.
The point is made that the good designer will, in the process of designing their “product”:
“think about the consequences of … , and as much as they can, they try to anticipate and predict…”
In this paradigm, this makes a couple of points to me:
1) In terms of your product’s benefits (and dis-benefits) to society, the designer needs to think of both ahead of time, and draw up plans for each.
2) In a prototype-focused (“fail-forward”) model for working, it also means that the designer will become more attuned to not “betting the farm” on an individual innovation, unless circumstances warrant.
6) Thinking Laterally, and In Metaphors
This mention appeared later in the video.
There have been a number of books, and other resources, written about the need to be different – taking ideas from dissimilar industries, or stories, is one way of germinating such a process.
All-in-all, these values are some of those we will be needing to consider as we continue our strategic review and reenergisation exercise into 2010.
.
C. Attributes to hire for
In a question from the floor (about a design-focused culture established in the Mutual Fund Division of CIBC) several attributes are mentioned. The speaker references these as prerequisites for organisational cultures (and individual persons) to deliver success.
The speaker made the point that this division of CIBC hired for a person’s attributes, as distinct from their particular skills. This is aligned with comments I have posted previously.
In particular, the following attributes were mentioned:
1) No Fear / Confidence
This term was mentioned – especially with reference to the way children experiment and learn (i.e. by making mistakes).
Personally, I don’t believe that successful people have NO fear – rather, I think that they feel the fear but do it anyway (and no, I have not read that book!)
Our company culture can support this by ensuring that no-one is crucified for making a mistake. I believe we are already on this journey, and am keen to emphasise that we only fail if we don’t learn from past mistakes.
2) Collaboration
The best example I keep coming back to was the one provided by Lars about how the development of Google Maps was effectively outsourced to its customers (i.e. they provided the tools through which local users of the service could develop and upload maps for their own local areas).
As we work through planning for the next 10 years, we need to look at every opportunity we can to collaborate with people outside the company – what this means is that those we hire need to be proactive in seeking out these opportunities.
The speaker from the floor stated it as follows:
not afraid to work with people of eclectic backgrounds – not intimidated to hear new ideas
I agree!
3) Character
The speaker used this term to describe someone who has the internal constitution to stand by their own point of view, whether another person agrees with them or not (i.e. not a candle in the wind).
I would call this someone’s “resolve”. To me, this is akin to a person’s ability to “roll with the punches”.
Or, to put it another way, we’re looking for people possessing a high Adversity Quotient (but don’t despair – because, as Paul Stoltz has written, a person’s Adversity Quotient can be raised through a deliberate process that they can apply – if they so choose to follow it, though it’s not easy).
4) Ability to Multi-Task
In the questions at the end, Warren mentions that he admired the way Bruce was able to work on numerous projects at the same time.
To me, this is similar to the way in which the mature mind can hold two competing ideas in mind simultaneously.
Given the key positions we will be recruiting for in 2010, I will be making special note of the above.
.
D. Other Interesting Mentions
Other points of note in the video:
1) Warren notes that his book is more like “a primer” about what design is all about (whereas people like Roger Martin, who I wrote about previously, write at a much greater level of detail). Now that we have both books on their way to us, I will be interested to compare and contrast.
2) During the interview, Daniel Pink is also mentioned. I previously posted about a Dan Pink video here, released to promote a new book he had written (still unreviewed). Likewise, my interest in what Daniel has to say has been heightened.
3) The questioner mentioned above mentioned these 4 books:
“The Experience Economy” (yes, has been added to the shopping cart now)
”A whole new mind” by Daniel Pink (already delivered, still to be read)
”Glimmer” (the subject of this video – on the way now)
”The EMyth”