Design challenges are inherently complex and deserving of more than a step-by-step plan in order to resolve emerging nuances and provide pathways to implementation.

Because design is messy and non-linear, each project needs to be bespoke. The challenges at hand need to be customised. The scoping of the project plan between the client and the design team is the starting point.

The overall approach has to be based on ‘design thinking’: a means of problem solving that uses design methodologies to tap into a deep reservoir of opportunity. These methods include observation, prototyping, building, and storytelling, and can be applied by a wide range of people to a breadth of organisational challenges.

An inherently shared approach, design thinking brings together people from different disciplines to effectively explore new ideas – ideas that are more human-centred, capable of being better executed, and that generate valuable outcomes.

Design thinking also enables us to collectively tackle problems and ideas that are more complex than the lone designer can imagine: inaccessible healthcare, billions of people living on a few dollars a day, energy usage outpacing the planet’s ability to support it, education systems that fail students, etc.

These problems all have people at their heart. They require a collaborative, human-centred, iterative, and practical approach to finding the best ideas and ultimate solutions.

Design thinking is just such an approach to innovation.

Design is the preparation of a plan for change.

Hans Haenlein www.haenlein.com