Design Thinking

Methodology Book

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 Copyright © 2016

EMRAH YAYICI

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written
permission of the publisher.

ISBN: 978-605-86037-5-2

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Preface

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This book explains design thinking methodology that is applied by high-
performing enterprises, start-ups and organizations in developing
innovative

products;
technologies;
services;
business models;
marketing ideas;
processes;
spaces; and
solutions for diverse business, social, and everyday challenges.

It includes easily applicable design thinking techniques, such as

HMW questions,
personas,
mind mapping,
empathy mapping,
affinity diagram,
value-proposition canvas,
storyboard,
cause-and-effect diagram,
brainstorming,
brain dumps,
reverse brainstorming,
benchmarking,
journey map, and
prototyping.
A real-life case study is used to introduce design thinking methodology
and techniques in a more practical way to a broad range of practitioners,
including

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 project managers and IT specialists,
innovation teams,
marketing professionals and brand managers,
product managers,
designers,
consultants,
strategic planning experts,
entrepreneurs,
C-level executives, and
architects.

The book also explains how artful thinking perspectives can be applied to
enhance design thinking skills, such as

creativity,
thinking out of the box,
empathy,
visual thinking,
observation,
asking the right questions, and
pattern recognition.

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 Table of Contents

Design Thinking Methodology

Phase 1: Definition
Phase 2: Research
Phase 3: Interpretation
Phase 4: Idea Generation
Phase 5: Prototyping
Phase 6: Evaluation
Design Thinking Best Practices
How to Apply Design Thinking and Lean and Agile Methodologies Together
How to Implement Design Thinking Methodology
Case Study

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Design Thinking Methodology

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The top two agenda items at every organization are being more innovative
in

creating products, technologies, services, and spaces that people

love and,
overcoming complex business, technological, and social problems
with new ideas, processes, and business models.

Organizations search for a magical way to achieve these two objectives.

This requires a new way of thinking in today’s dynamic and complex
world, which is shaped around bang (bytes, atoms, neurons, and genes).

In this age of complexity and uncertainty with many unknowns, “design

thinking” and “artful thinking” have become the most distinctive ways to
achieve innovation and overcome the challenges at start-ups, large
enterprises, and nonprofit organizations.

Design thinking methodology has six phases:

1. Definition

Define the challenge of a specific group of people.

2. Research

Interview and observe the target audience in its own context and
identify its needs, problems and expectations associated with the
defined challenge.

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3. Interpretation

Detect patterns among research data and use them to generate

actionable insights.

4. Idea Generation
With inspiration from the insights, generate ideas for creative solutions
that may satisfy the needs and expectations and solve the problems of
the target audience.
5. Prototyping

Turn selected solution ideas into tangible forms.

6. Evaluation

Test the solution alternatives by using prototypes, and refine them

based on target users’ feedback.

The famous artist Marcel Duchamp said, “I don't believe in art. I believe
in artists.” Similarly, companies that apply design thinking have realized
that this methodology unleashes its real potential when it’s applied by
teams having whole-brain thinking (both left- and right-brain) skills. In
design thinking projects

the definition phase requires concretization skills;

the research phase requires observation, asking the right

questions, and contextual thinking skills.

the interpretation phase requires empathy, pattern recognition,

and intuition skills;

the idea generation phase requires creativity, thinking out of the

box, and organic design skills;

the prototyping phase requires visual thinking and

conceptualization skills and the ability to simplify and create

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 allegories; and
the evaluation phase requires critical thinking skills.

Nevertheless, it is unrealistic to expect these skills from every member of

the design thinking team. In recent years, a mind-set called “artful
thinking” has been applied at innovative companies and leading
universities such as Harvard and MIT to improve whole-brain skills by
embedding art into professional, academic and personal life.

Art is the top level of intellectuality. The word “intellect” originates from
the Latin “intellectus,” which means “to understand.” Dealing with art
makes a person an intellectual with skills such as creativity, observation,
empathy, and critical thinking. These skills help people better empathize
with others and understand the things around them.

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Artful thinking leads us to ask what if famous artists such as Picasso, Da
Vinci, Dali, and Van Gogh were business and technology professionals
and to look at business and personal life from different perspectives. As
French novelist and critic Marcel Proust said, “The real voyage of
discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”
Artful thinking helps us see the world with these new eyes and use this
increased awareness and mindfulness in the creation of innovative
business and technology solutions.

With this aim in mind, art fairs exhibiting important artworks of the
twentieth and twenty-first centuries are organized in Silicon Valley in
collaboration with the world’s most respected galleries and art institutions.

Many of the cofounders and CEOs of the world’s most innovative

companies in Silicon Valley have been liberal arts graduates who
integrated art with business and technology and led their companies to
create innovative products. For instance, Norio Ohga, the former president
and chairman of Sony Corporation and the inventor of the compact disk
(CD), was a graduate of the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and
Music. Steve Jobs also took many liberal arts courses and once said, “It is
technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities that
yields the results that make our hearts sing.”

Therefore, the “magic” step that companies can take to unlock creativity,

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foster innovation, and develop delightful solutions that touch the hearts of
people is to apply design thinking methodology and an artful thinking
mind-set. By doing so, they can replace shallow, organizational mind-sets
with deeper ones, resulting in improved emotional intelligence and
creative empowerment.

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Phase 1: Definition

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Design thinking is not about pixels, look and feel, or visual aesthetics. It is
a designer’s approach that can also be applied by nondesigners to meet
needs and solve people’s business, social, and everyday problems.

It is about going plural and crafting any kind of challenge at an

organization regardless of its size. The design solution to the challenge
may be a physical object, such as a new product, technology, or space; or
an intangible concept, such as a new service, process, or business model.

Design thinking teams apply design methods such as personas, empathy

mapping, and prototyping. Like designers, they use diagrams and sketches
instead of classical specification documents and spreadsheets.

In most organizations, design thinking projects are initiated only to

develop innovative customer-facing products or services because they
have a direct impact on sales, profitability, customer satisfaction, and
loyalty. The return on investment (ROI) of these projects is usually very
high.

However, organizations should not underestimate the value of design

thinking in overcoming challenges in enterprise processes, such as human
resources and supply chain management.

Applying design thinking to solve the problems in these processes may

bring huge cost-savings with improved efficiency and productivity.

Organizations usually have three types of challenges:

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 1. Known / Knowns: The root cause of the problem is definitely
known.

2. Known / Unknowns: Possible root causes of the problem are

known.

3. Unknown / Unknowns: The team has no idea of the root causes of

the problem.

Solving type 2 (complicated) and especially type 3 (complex) challenges

requires a new way of thinking with aspects of empathy, experimentation,
and creativity. Embodying all of these, design thinking is much more
effective than classical methodologies in solving complicated and complex
challenges.

The key success factor in the definition phase is spending enough time to
frame the challenge as a specific, purpose-led, achievable, and crystal-
clear statement. As Albert Einstein said, “If I had an hour to solve a
problem, I would spend fifty-five minutes thinking about the problem and
five minutes thinking about solutions.”

A concrete definition of the design challenge at the start of the project is

very important, because all of the other efforts at later phases should be in
alignment with the design challenge. According to the butterfly effect in

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chaos theory, a small change at one place in a complex system can result
in large effects elsewhere. The formation details of a hurricane can be
influenced even by the flapping of a butterfly’s wings at a distinct location
several weeks earlier. Similarly, an ambiguous definition of a design
challenge will have an adverse rippling effect on all other design thinking
activities and will result in waste. As Ansel Adams said, “There is nothing
worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept.”
Skills for Definition of the Challenge

- Concretization

Design thinking teams should have strong concretization skills in order to

define even the most abstract challenge as a crystal-clear statement. They
can improve their concretization skills by being involved in artful thinking
activities. In the art history, the advent of photography created a paradigm
shift. Artists started to produce more abstract works instead of realistic and
figurative objects, because cameras could already create a perfect image of
these objects.

Picasso’s bull painting is a perfect example of an abstract versus a concrete

perception of the same object. The efforts to concretize abstract paintings,
sculptures, and installations positively affect concretization skills. Dealing
with philosophy also has a similarly positive impact on concretization
skills, since its main objective is also concretizing abstract concepts.

Techniques for Definition of the Challenge

- HMW Questions Technique

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Design thinking teams can use the “how might we” (HMW) questions
technique to define and frame the design challenge in a concrete way.
HMW questions should not be too broad or too narrow.
Wrong Design Challenge Definitions

“How might we be a more successful company?” (too broad)

“How might we improve the sales of our dealers at remote

locations by adding a dealer search page on the mobile app?”
(too narrow)

Right Design Challenge Definition

“How might we improve the sales of our dealers at remote

locations?”

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Phase 2: Research

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Innovation is the most popular buzzword of our century. In the majority of
organizations, the number-one priority of executives is to create innovative
business and technology solutions. Governments spend billions of dollars
to support organizations with incentives to stimulate innovation.
However, the ROI related to these efforts is very low. Only a small
number of organizations succeed in developing innovative solutions. Most
of them either create a similar version of an existing product or introduce a
new product that the target audience has no interest in.

Copernicus said, “What appear to us as motions of the sun arise not from
its motion but from the motion of the earth and our sphere, with which we
revolve about the sun like any other planet.”

After the acceptance of Copernicus’s theory, people perceived the sun as

the center of the planets in the solar system. This was a paradigm shift in
the mind-set of human beings who had envisioned the earth as the center
of the universe throughout history. This new way of thinking hastened
developments in science.
To foster innovation, a similar paradigm shift has to occur in the mind-set
of people developing business and technology solutions. The shallow
product-centric mind-set has to be replaced with a more human-centric
one.

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Organizations should realize that innovation cannot be achieved at the
technical level. Innovation is a matter of formulating solutions that best
meet user needs. Products should be regarded as tools to meet people’s
needs, not as final objectives. In other words, products should be
developed by listening to the voices of the users.

Steve Jobs commented on this situation as follows: “You have got to start
with the customer experience and work back toward the technology—not
the other way around.” He also said, “True innovation comes from
recognizing an unmet need and designing a creative way to fill it.”

In recent years, organizations have started to invest heavily in human-

centric methodologies with this vision. This is a logical investment
because nowadays competitors can quickly copy your company’s products
and services, but it takes a considerable amount of time for them to copy
your human-centric approach.

Banking is one of the industries in which this situation is best witnessed.

Today, almost every bank has the same portfolio of commoditized
products and services. And competing with low-price commissions and
interest rates is not sustainable for them. The only way to gain a
competitive advantage is to be human-centric by providing the best
experience in all customer-interaction channels, especially the digital ones.
Previously, the digital self-service channels of banks were regarded as an
“alternative” to their branches. The only mission of these digital channels

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was to decrease costs by providing more efficiency. With the increased
penetration of broadband Internet connections and mobile devices, these
alternative channels became the mainstream channels providing the
maximum customer value. As a result, financial institutions had to be more
customer-centric and started to redesign their ATM, web, and mobile-
banking applications to improve the customer experience.

Walter Gropius, the founder of famous Bauhaus school, said, “Building

means designing life processes.” Design thinking is a human-centered
methodology that helps organizations to create solutions around their
users.

However, “designing for every user” is not a feasible and effective

strategy.

Rather than offering a one-size-fits-all approach, the solutions should

address specific needs and problems of a target audience. Therefore,
design thinking teams should start the research phase by defining their
target user groups.

Research Techniques

- Persona Technique

Personas, which are representative imaginary characters, are the best way
to define and visualize target user groups.

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Although there can be several user profiles for a product, design thinking
teams should limit the number of personas to three (at most at four, in
extreme cases) to prevent falling into the trap of “designing for
everybody.”

A persona description should include a name, photo and demographic info

(age, gender, education, profession, etc.) and a scenario section that best
represents the mental model of the persona.

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An important aspect of human-centricity is emotional design. Human
beings judge things based on their left brains’ logical and right brains’
emotional capabilities.
And most of the time, emotion is the main criterion in their judgments. In
alignment with their emotions, users first create a mental model of the
products they use. This model guides them throughout their whole
experience with the product. Therefore, solutions should be based on the
mental models of users rather than of designers. To ensure this, persona
descriptions should not only have demographic information but should
also include psychological aspects such as interests, capabilities,
weaknesses, and expectations of the persona. These psychological aspects
can be defined in the scenario section of the persona description.

An effective way to understand users’ interests, capabilities, weaknesses,

and expectations is to ask their opinions about the existing products or
services they already use. Their comments about the existing situation can
be interpreted to understand the users’ own mental models. This reminds
us of a quotation of the famous philosopher Spinoza. “If Pierre tells
something about Paul, we learn more about Pierre than we learn about
Paul.”

After personas are defined, design thinking teams find users who represent
the personas and start the research. The quality of the research data
depends on how immersive the research activities are. Therefore, design
thinking teams should spend most of their time on field work instead of
desk research.

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They should apply ethnographic research techniques such as interviews
and user observations and identify the needs, problems and expectations of
the target audience.

- Interview Technique

The aim of interviews is to collect as much data as possible by asking

specific and unbiased questions to the representative users. During
interviews, the following best practices should be applied:

Get ready for interviews by analyzing the current situation

beforehand.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions when something is not clear.

Avoid making assumptions.

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 Question the rationale behind the interviewees’ statements by
always asking why.

Listen more and talk less.

Prepare simple, objective, and to-the-point questions before

interviews.

Don’t ask biased questions.

Be open-minded and prevent shallow “either/or” discussions.

- User Observation Technique

Design thinking teams should observe users in their own contexts to

uncover the needs and problems that are not captured during interviews.

“Context” is often confused with “content,” but they are completely

different concepts. Context’s definition in business, art, and other fields is
very similar to its meaning in archaeology. For an archaeologist, context
means the place where an artifact is found. The artifact itself (content) is
not explanatory enough to make predictions about history; it should be
evaluated together with the attributes of the place it is found.

Similarly, when analyzing an artwork, it is very important to know the

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contextual factors—such as the social, political, and ecological conditions
—of the time in which the artist created her work. For instance,
impressionist artists were interested in the context as much as in the
content. The most famous impressionist painters were Eduard Manet,
Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Camille Pissarro, Alfred Sisley, and Pierre-
August Renoir, and they predominantly painted landscapes and scenes
from life and captured the momentary effect of light by painting en plein
air, or in the open air. In order to best perceive and present contextual
factors in their paintings, impressionist artists took leave of the studio and
went outside in nature to paint. Monet’s Impression, Sunrise painting gave
the impressionism movement its name. Monet painted the same subject on
multiple canvases at different times of the day.

In this way, he could show different views of the same content as the
context changed due to the level of light during the day. At the time,
impressionist paintings were highly criticized because they altered
conservative and traditional standards of painting, but now they are
recognized as the first modern movement in art.

Just as in archeology and art, context should be taken into account by

design thinking teams because it is one of the most important factors
affecting humans’ behavior in their use of any product, technology,
service, or space.

This situation easily can be observed at banks where there are many

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alternative contact points with customers. User behavior is different at
each channel due to contextual factors. For example, while a live video
chat technology is an effective customer-service solution for Internet
banking users, it is not an effective feature for ATM users due to the
negative reactions of impatient customers waiting in a queue.

Research Skills

The effectiveness of the research activities is highly dependent on the

design thinking teams’ observation and questioning skills. Being involved
in art activities and attaining artful thinking perspectives can help design
thinking teams improve these skills.

- Observation

Analyzing artworks, especially abstract ones, and trying to understand

their content improves how we observe and understand the things around
us.

Art teaches us how to think with our eyes and makes us better observers.
We start to see things instead of only looking at them. As Swiss-German
painter Paul Klee said, “Art does not reproduce what we see; rather, it
makes us see.”
- Asking the Right Questions

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Novelist Thomas Berger said, “The art and science of asking questions is
the source of all knowledge.”

Asking the right questions is one of the most important competencies in

business. Wrong questions mislead the team, generate conflicts, waste
time, and result in failure. But giving the right answers to the wrong
questions is even worse than giving the wrong answers to the right
questions.

The manner in which one asks questions is also important. The “observer
effect” in quantum mechanics states that “by the act of watching, the
observer affects the observed reality.” Similarly, asking questions in a
biased way affects the objectivity of the answers.

As they spend more time analyzing artworks, design thinking teams start
to ask more to the point questions:

“What was the aim of the artist in making this painting?”

“Why is this painting so valuable?”
“What did the artist want to express?”
“Which movement can be associated with this artwork?”
“How are techniques such as composition and perspective
applied to this work of art?”

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Good questioning skills also improve critical-thinking skills, which help
one to judge and evaluate situations better before assuming that they are
correct.

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Phase 3: Interpretation

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In design thinking projects, if research is surfing, then interpretation is
deep diving. The aim of the interpretation phase is to analyze research
data, detect patterns among them, and generate actionable insights that
form a basis for creative solution ideas.

While it is possible to cook bad food with good ingredients, it is not

possible to cook good food with bad ingredients. Similarly, although it is
possible to build weak solutions from powerful insights, it is not possible
to generate good solutions from poor insights.

Therefore, the key success factor in design thinking projects is the ability
to generate powerful insights from the research data. However, it is a
challenging task to identify insights from large sets of research data.

The most practical way to overcome this difficulty is to visualize the

research data. This can best be achieved by using techniques such as
empathy mapping, mind-mapping, journey maps, and affinity diagrams.

Interpretation Techniques

- Empathy Mapping Technique

Design thinking is an empathy-driven methodology that promotes

emotional design. It requires treating people not as subscribers but as
human beings who form emotional bonds to the products, services, or
spaces they use.

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Therefore, in generating insights, design thinking teams should consider
not only the needs and problems of the target audience but also the
emotions. They can apply the empathy mapping technique to uncover,
visualize, and better understand the target persona groups’ emotional
experience in the current situation by synthesizing the research data. It is a
very effective tool to generate insights that are not obvious.

Empathy maps should be prepared for each persona group by applying the
following steps:

An empathy mapping sheet is hung on the whiteboard for the

selected persona.

The team analyzes research data about the persona and discusses
his feelings about the current situation. The team also notes the
impressions of his influencers.

Video recordings of the research phase are very helpful at this

stage.

Team members then fill in each section of the empathy mapping

sheet.

They repeat these steps for each persona group.

Finally, they analyze all of the notes on the empathy maps and
generate actionable insights from the most prominent emotional
issues.

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 - Affinity Diagram Technique

The affinity diagram is a popular technique for grouping large amounts of

research data under specific categories and then generating insights by
analyzing the connections among these groupings. The affinity diagram
technique is applied as follows:

The team first writes each research finding on a separate sticky note
and places them all on a white-board.

Then sticky notes are grouped together depending on the correlation

among them.

The team assigns a category name to each group.

Then the team starts to identify the relationships between each

category and, if possible, reorganizes them under superheaders.

The team analyzes the affinity diagram and explores patterns among
the research data based on similarities, dependencies and
repetitions.
Finally, the team uses these patterns to generate actionable insights.

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 - Cause and Effect Diagram Technique

Insights are usually driven by the root causes of problems that were
identified during the research phase. Design thinking teams may
sometimes feel desperate when they confront tough problems. At those
times, instead of giving up early, they should keep an optimistic attitude
and remember the advice of Henry Ford, who said, “There are no big
problems; there are just a lot of little problems.”

Design thinking teams can apply this functional decomposition approach

by dividing problems into smaller parts and then analyzing the root causes
behind them. This approach is very similar to the style of cubist artists
such as Pablo Picasso, whose challenge was painting three-dimensional
objects on a two-dimensional canvas. Cubists achieved this by
deconstructing objects and reforming them as multi-layered arrangements
that show them from different viewpoints.

Design thinking teams can also use the five whys technique, which is
iteratively asking questions and using the answers as the basis of the next
question until they find the root causes of a particular problem.

A more visual technique that can be applied to deconstruct and analyze

problems is cause and effect diagram.

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 The problem (effect) is written on the right side of the diagram.

The main causes of the problem are listed on the left side, under
different categories, in a fish bone structure.

Detailed root causes are listed under each associated main category.

Finally, the relationship between the problem and its possible

causes are analyzed to generate insights.

- Mind-Mapping Technique

Mind-mapping is another popular technique to break down complex

problems into smaller parts and use them to drive actionable insights.

The mind mapping technique is applied as follows:

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 Setup a whiteboard, markers, and sticky notes or download a mind
mapping tool.

Write the problem as a keyword at the center of the map.

Position it as the main topic (problem).

Separate the main topic into simpler first-level subtopics (root
causes of the problem).

Use simple visual elements to represent each first-level subtopic.

Connect first-level subtopics to the main topic with tree branches.

Continue to elaborate these topics into second- third- and nth-level

subtopics based on more detailed cause and effect relationships.

When the tree diagram is ready, generate insights by analyzing

subtopics and their linkage to each other.

- Journey Maps Technique

Journey mapping is an effective technique to visualize and evaluate the

end-to-end experience of users during their engagement with a product or
service at different touch points. It provides a holistic representation of
each persona group’s experience, emotions, motivation, and satisfaction
level at each part of the interaction.

For instance, the activities of customers in the various channels of a utility

services company as they search for service details, apply for subscriptions
on the web page, complete the subscription at a dealer by signing a
contract, get an invoice via e-mail, and make inquiries via the call center
can be visualized and evaluated by using the journey mapping technique as
shown below. In this way, insights on improving the customer experience
in each existing interaction channel can be identified.

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38
Interpretation Skills

Insights are usually not obvious. To be able to discover the nonobvious

within the research data and generate insights, design thinking teams
should have interpretation skills in addition to observation skills.

The legendary manager of the Manchester United Football Club, Sir Alex
Ferguson, summarized this relationship between observation and
interpretation as follows: “I don’t think many people fully understand the
value of observing. I came to see observation as a critical part of my
management skills. The ability to see things is key—or, more specifically,
the ability to see things you don’t expect to see.”

Harvard Business School’s strategy and management guru Peter F.

Drucker also emphasized this point as, “The most important thing in
communication is to hear what isn't being said.”

Famous essayist and poet Jonathan Swift said, “Vision is the art of seeing
what is invisible to others.”

Interpretation ability is a combination of empathy, pattern recognition, and

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intuition skills.
- Empathy

Empathy is the ability to understand the feelings of other people. Design

thinking teams need an advanced level of empathy skills to better
understand the emotions of target users and interpret their needs, problems,
interests, and expectations.

From the earliest times in human history, art has been the most popular
way for people to express their emotions and other people’s. This fact can
be better understood by reading the following quotes by some of the
world’s greatest artists.

The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over
the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper,
from a passing shape, from a spider’s web. (Pablo Picasso)

I am not interested in the relationships of color or form or

anything else…I’m interested only in expressing basic human
emotions, and the fact that a lot of people break down and cry
when confronted with my pictures show that I communicate
those basic human emotions. The people who weep before my
pictures are having the same experience I had when I painted
them. And if you, as you say, are moved only by their color
relationships, then you miss the point! (Abstract expressionist

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 Mark Rothko)
Impressionism is the newspaper of the soul (Henri Matisse, a
leading figure in the fauvism art movement, whose objective was
to create artworks that make people happy.)

Therefore, historians and sociologists use artworks as master tools to

understand the thoughts, emotions, and reactions of people in response to
the social and political environment of their times. As famous historian
Hendrik Willem van Loon said, “The arts are an even better barometer of
what is happening in our world than the stock market or the debates in
congress.”

Similarly, design thinking teams can improve their empathy skills by

practicing the act of analyzing artworks and trying to understand the
emotions expressed in these artworks. The best artworks to start with are
expressionist and surrealist ones.

In expressionism, artworks reveal artists’ expressions of their surroundings

rather than their direct impressions of nature. Expressionist artists such as
Vincent van Gogh, Edvard Munch, Mark Rothko, and Wassily Kandinsky
depicted representations of objects in their minds instead of directly
transposing the objects in their paintings.

Surrealist artists such as Joan Miró, Salvador Dali, René Magritte, and
Giorgio de Chirico created paintings focused on the unconscious by

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leveraging the power of their imaginations and dreams. They were highly
affected by Freud’s theories of psychoanalysis. Their motto is best
explained by American author and philosopher Henry David Thoreau, who
said, “This world is but a canvas to our imagination.”

In these art movements, artists express their feelings and thoughts in a

more deep and abstract form rather than in a concrete manner. Therefore,
efforts to understand the artworks of expressionist and surrealist artists
improve empathy skills of design thinking teams in a very effective way.

- Pattern Recognition

Interpretation is mostly about recognizing patterns among research data.

Being involved in art activities and attaining artful thinking perspectives
helps design thinking teams to recognize patterns among their
observations. As mathematician and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead
said, “Art is the imposing of a pattern on experience, and our aesthetic
enjoyment is recognition of the pattern.” Poet and literary critic Herbert
Read echoed this idea when he said, “Art is pattern informed by
sensibility.”

After dealing with art for a period, you start to associate objects around
you with artworks—for instance, when you

…realize a light and shadow effect on an object, you remember

Rembrandt paintings;

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…think a painting is extremely realistic, you think about
Caravaggio;

…see a perfect combination of blue and yellow, you remember

van Gogh;

…view a sculpture, you start to compare it with Rodin’s art

pieces;

…talk about a dream, you remember surrealist artists such as

Salvador Dali and René Magritte;

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 …witness a perfect view, you start to think about Camille Corot
and William Turner paintings;

…see minimalist geometrical shapes with blue, yellow, and red

colors, you recognize Piet Mondrian;
…come across a lonely woman, you start to think about Edward
Hopper paintings;
…see a perfect color combination, you recognize Matisse’s
artworks.
…watch a ballet, you remember Edgar Degas;
…are caught in the rain, you recognize Pissarro’s paintings;
…discover a perfect use of techniques, you think about Felice
Casorati;
…read philosophy, you remember Giorgio de Chirico;
…notice abstract figures on an object, you remember Wassily
Kandinsky and Joan Miró.

This is an indicator that your pattern-recognition skills are getting better.

- Intuition

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Being able to recognize patterns results in a better understanding of the
deterministic cause-and-effect relationships among things. In time, you are
better able to predict what will happen in certain conditions. That is an
indicator of enhancement of your intuition skills. This is described as the
third and most valuable type of knowledge in Spinoza’s philosophy. This
skill helps design thinking teams in exploring root causes of problems,
identifying insights, and generating ideas for solutions.

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Phase 4: Idea Generation

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The objective of the idea generation phase is to find creative ideas that will
solve the target audience’s challenge. This is the phase in which the team’s
creativity and imagination should be at the top level. Brainstorming is the
most effective technique in this phase.
Idea Generation Techniques

- Brainstorming

Brainstorming is listing creative ideas spontaneously without too much

thinking about their quality.

To maximize the effectiveness of brainstorming sessions, design thinking

teams should apply the following best practices:

Invite all of the relevant stakeholders.

If needed, use ice-breaking techniques (such as asking them their

opinions about a popular subject) at the beginning of the session to
help people start collaborating.

At the beginning of the meeting, go over the design challenge,

research results, and insights uncovered during the previous phases.

Motivate participants to think in divergent ways and tell them to

generate as many ideas as possible. Remind them that their ideas do
not have to be realistic or achievable.

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 When needed, steer participants to generate solution ideas related
to the design challenge.

In order not to discourage participants, do not judge the quality of

their ideas.

Make whiteboards available because some people can express their

ideas better by drawing.

Do not evaluate the feasibility of solution ideas during

brainstorming sessions. These details should be handled during
prioritization sessions.

Be careful with participants who criticize others’ ideas with a

negative attitude. Do not allow these people to demotivate others.

- Brain Dump

If the participants are hesitant to share their ideas in front of other people,
then design thinking teams can apply the brain dump technique.

This technique is applied as follows:

Instead of telling their ideas, brainstorming participants

individually write down their ideas on sticky notes.

They silently write each idea on a separate sticky note.

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 The facilitator reminds them to complete this process in a given
period.

When the time is up, participants present their ideas to each other.

- Reverse Brainstorming
If participants have difficulty generating creative ideas, design thinking
teams can apply the reverse brainstorming technique. It aims to approach
the problem in a reversed way.

For example, if the objective is improving customer experience at the call

center, then the team questions how customers can have a worse
experience. The technique is applied as follows:

Describe the problem that needs to be solved.

Ask participants how they can cause the problem instead of how
they can solve it.

List all possible options that cause the problem.

Use these root causes as a basis to generate solutions for the

original problem.

- Benchmarking Technique

Design thinking teams should focus designing not only functional and
usable solutions but also desirable solutions that have an aura. Whether it
is a product, service, space, or an art piece, desirability is the “gotta have it

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impact” that an object has on the person who confronts it.

Philosopher and cultural critic Walter Benjamin argued that desirable art
pieces have an aura, an appearance of a supernatural force surrounding that
piece. He said, “A person can feel that aura while staring at a unique,
original artwork. However, the aura does not exist on reproductions.” The
most precious and desirable works of art are “originals” that are a result of
creativity in terms of content, subject, and form. Other works of art are
“reinterpretations” and “reproductions.” If you simply copy a work of art,
you are just making a reproduction and offer no originality; however,
when you create a reinterpretation, you produce a derivative of others’
work in your own original way.
Throughout history, even great artists have reinterpreted the art of others.
Pablo Picasso summarized this when he said, “Good artists copy; great
artists steal.” For instance, Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece Mona Lisa
was reinterpreted even by famous artists such as Salvador Dali and Marcel
Duchamp through their own aesthetic viewpoints and techniques.

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Similar to art pieces, products, services and spaces also have auras and
their originality determines the level of the “gotta have it” impact on
people. The most original solutions are those that satisfy people’s real
needs in the most creative way. Thus, design thinking teams should focus
on creating original or at least reinterpreted solutions instead of
reproducing competitors’ solutions.

During the idea generation phase, design thinking teams should first
explore original solutions that may satisfy the needs of target customers
instead of benchmarking competitors. They should be like the sun but not
the moon and illuminate themselves with the light of users instead of
competitors.

After solution ideas are generated, the benchmarking technique can then
be used to explore what kinds of solutions competitors have too.
Nevertheless, it should also be noted that even the best competitors don’t

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always do the right things. Therefore, benchmarking should not result in
copying competitors’ mistakes.

- Prioritization Technique

Every project has limited resources. It usually is not possible to convert all
of the ideas into prototypes and test their effectiveness in solving the
design challenge.

Therefore, following brainstorming sessions, design thinking teams should

organize assessment sessions and apply convergent thinking to prioritize
and select which solution ideas to prototype and test.

Solution ideas should be prioritized according to two main criteria:

value proposition

implementation difficulty
- Value Proposition Canvas Technique

Design thinking teams can use the value proposition canvas technique to
assess the effectiveness of solution ideas in satisfying the needs and wants
of target users. The value proposition canvas is a complementary
technique to the empathy map. It shows how target users can benefit from
the new solution in getting the expected gains and relieving the pains listed
on empathy maps. It also briefly explains the features of the solution and
describes what kind of a journey users will experience while employing it.

During prioritization, even a solution idea with a high value proposition

can be disregarded if it’s difficult to implement.

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Implementation difficulty is usually a matter of financial and technical
limitations. Throughout history, technical limitations have prevented the
implementation of many creative ideas. For instance, most of the superior
designs created by Leonardo da Vinci and designers at the Bauhaus school
could not be implemented due to the technical constraints of their eras.
Today, advances in technology allow us to realize any kind of creative
idea. However, these technologies have a cost, and most of the time this
fact makes financial considerations very important in evaluation of
alternative solution ideas.

During prioritization sessions, the ideas with high value propositions and
low implementation difficulty should be rated as high priority, whereas the
ones with low value propositions and high implementation difficulty
should be rated as low priority. Design thinking teams should first
prototype and evaluate high priority ideas and then assess the
implementation of low priority ones in an iterative manner. As Coco
Chanel said, “Luxury is a necessity that begins where necessity ends."

Even in time-sensitive, fast-track projects, some perfectionist stakeholders

might insist on expanding the solution scope with low priority ideas. When
they insist on perfection, the famous phrase in Voltaire’s poem “La
Bégueule” should be remembered. “Perfect is the enemy of good.” This
line makes the case that in some conditions, insisting on perfection often

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results in no improvement at all.
Even artists cannot always achieve perfection despite their meticulous
characters. Throughout history, they have struggled to create masterpieces
with the highest level of detail. The most prominent example of this is the
use of the golden ratio, also known as the divine proportion, which is
applied to achieve balance and beauty in sculptures and paintings. The
golden ratio of an object is found when the longer part divided by the
smaller part is also equal to the whole length divided by the longer part.

Leonardo da Vinci applied the golden ratio to define all of the proportions
in The Last Supper, Vitruvian Man, and the Mona Lisa.

Other artists such as Michelangelo, Raphael, Rembrandt, and Georges

Seurat also applied the golden ratio to reach the highest level of aesthetic
perfection, as did Salvador Dali. For example, the ratio of the dimensions
of Dali’s painting The Sacrament of the Last Supper represents the golden
ratio.

Due to his high self-esteem and his passion for perfection, Dali had trouble
in his early career. He was even expelled from school after criticizing his
teachers for not having enough talent to be able to comment on the
perfection of his artworks. But later in his career, even he accepted the

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idea that perfection has no limits. He summarized this fact as follows,
“Have no fear of perfection—you’ll never reach it.”

Similarly, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe said, “In art the best is good
enough.”

Idea Generation Skills

The effectiveness of brainstorming sessions largely depends on the design
thinking teams’ creativity and its ability to improvise and think out of the
box.

- Improvisation

Improvisation is the act of generating creative solutions for problems on

the fly without a lot of upfront preparation. In the arts, this competency is
the ability to perform spontaneously, and it is appreciated as a way to
encourage creativity. Improvisation skills can best be improved by being
involved in artful thinking activities, such as creative drama.

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 - Thinking out of the Box

To generate creative ideas during brainstorming sessions, design thinking

teams should be able to think out of the box.

As Albert Einstein said, “The problems that exist in the world now cannot
be solved by the level of thinking that created them.” For instance,
Archimedes calculated the volume and density of objects by putting them
in the bathtub and measuring how much the level of water had risen. The
object was displacing an amount of water equal to its own volume, and the
density of the object could be calculated by dividing the mass of the object
by the volume of water it displaced in the bathtub.

Similarly, ultrasonography technology, which enables us to visualize

subcutaneous body structures by using sound waves, was discovered by
thinking out of the box. Although sound waves are normally used in aural
technology, in one instance they were used in ophthalmic technology. Like
radar, this technology was inspired by bats. A bat emits sound waves and
listens to the echoes returning back to it to determine how far away an
object is, where it is, how big it is, and where it is moving.

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Thinking out of the box requires the ability to

make paradigm shifts,

prevent shallow either / or situations, and

approach problems from different viewpoints.

These skills are best observed in artists. As Oscar Wilde said, “No great
artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an
artist.”

For instance, Pablo Picasso created some of the most influential artworks
of the twentieth century, thanks to the new artistic perspectives he applied
during his career by thinking out of the box. These new perspectives were
most evident in his cubist masterpieces.

Cubism arose as an alternative art movement featuring a more abstract

form compared with the conventional painting methods that had been
applied since the Renaissance. It was a new and revolutionary way of
representing the world in paintings. Cubism was the result of efforts to
paint three-dimensional objects on a two-dimensional canvas. Cubists
questioned the classical norm of painting objects from a single perspective.
Instead of focusing on this fixed viewpoint, they started to paint diverse
views of an object from different angles, depending on the observer’s
vision and movement. In this way, they could show many different

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elements of an object at one time. Picasso’s famous painting The Weeping
Woman is a prime example of this style.

- Creativity

“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we

grow up.” (Pablo Picasso).

Ultimately, creativity is a skill that is best attained during childhood. It has

been proven that introducing liberal arts to children at an early age
definitely enhances their creative capacity. However, most countries’
educational systems lack this dimension. Children usually do not have a
chance to integrate creativity and analytical skills unless they are as
fortunate as Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer is. Her father is an engineer, and
her mother is an art teacher, so she has always recognized that “art and
engineering aren’t that different.” She said, “Engineering that isn’t

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beautiful has its drawbacks, and art that isn’t engineered is also less
interesting.”

People missing this opportunity in childhood should at least be introduced

to liberal arts in later stages of their lives. Design thinking teams can
unlock their creative genius by spending the time to analyze and
understand the work of artists such as cubist Pablo Picasso and Georges
Braque; impressionists such as Claude Monet and Paul Cezanne;
expressionists such as Vincent van Gogh, Edvard Munch, Mark Rothko,
and Wassily Kandinsky; and surrealists such as Salvador Dali, Giorgio de
Chirico, and René Magritte; who innovated creative ways to express their
ideas. The creative objects, perspectives, compositions, and content of
these paintings can inspire ideas for creative solution ideas.

Creativity Inspired by Nature

Starting with the ancient drawings found in caves, nature has always been
the most influential factor triggering the creativity of artists. As
impressionist Paul Cezanne said, “Art is a harmony parallel with nature.”

The story of Renaissance artist Giotto di Bondone is a perfect example.

When Giotto was a child living in the village of Vespigano, Italy, he drew
animal figures on rocks. The Florentine painter Cimabue once visited that
village. By chance, he came across Giotto’s drawings of sheep on the
rocks. Cimabue was very attracted to Giotto’s style and convinced the

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boy’s father to let him take Giotto to Florence as his apprentice. After
working with his master for a couple of years, Giotto started to acquire the
reputation as an artistic genius.

The importance of being inspired by nature holds true not only in art and
architecture but also in just about every industry. Nature is in a continuous
creativity process. Innovation is observing nature’s creative artifacts and
using them to meet specific people’s specific needs. In the world of
architecture, famous architect Antoni Gaudi has been the most prominent
example of this. When he was a child, he suffered from poor health, which
prevented him from going to school, so he spent most of his time in nature.
His observations inspired his design approach, saying, “The great book
always open and which we should make an effort to read, is that of
Nature.” With this philosophy, he designed buildings with “organic style,”
and this became an important standard in architecture.

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Steve Jobs was another important figure who was inspired by nature. He
revolutionized the high-tech industry by positioning people’s natural
behaviors at the center of the product-development process. This approach
led to the innovation of the most usable consumer electronics products
ever created. Jobs’s objective was to create natural-born users of his
products. Now, even kids can use his company’s phones and touch pads
with gestures similar to their natural behaviors. This new design approach
made his company one of the best performers in the high-tech industry.

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Phase 5: Prototyping

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Even the most experienced design thinking teams can’t design the
optimum solution on the first trial. Good design is a result of several
iterations. Iteration is a cycle of doing something, testing it, improving it,
and retesting it. The most efficient method of iterative design is
prototyping.

Prototyping Techniques

- Low Fidelity Prototyping

Making iterations on the final solution is a very costly approach, because

for every iteration, the components of the solution have to be changed and
retested, whereas changing the prototype is much easier and faster.
Prototypes can be used to gather early user feedback. By prototyping,
design thinking teams can be adaptive, learn early from failures in initial
iterations, and use this experience for later ones. In prototyping, design
thinking teams can use simple materials such as cardboards, sticky notes,
paper, and pencil.

If they are creating software solutions, they can also benefit from
prototyping tools that allow mocking up the solutions and simulating them
by using a rich widget library.

Prototyping tools have features that allow interactive user actions such as
navigating among user interfaces, selecting options by clicking on radio

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buttons, and getting notifications by error messages. Sometimes graphic-
design tools are used by design thinking teams for low-fidelity
prototyping, although these tools are not suitable for this task. Since the
aim of graphic design tools is polishing user interfaces, they may mislead
the team and shift its focus from conceptual design to visual details such as
colors and font types. Designing visually aesthetic high-fidelity prototypes
is the responsibility of visual designers rather than design thinking teams.
- Storyboard Technique

If the new solution to the design challenge is not a software, a product, or a

space but rather a service, a business model, or a new process, then design
thinking teams can use the storyboard technique to prototype the solution.

As in filmmaking, the new solution is described by visualizing user

interactions as a story that is graphically represented with pictures in
sequential sections and frames. It easily can be created with a pen and
paper. You don’t need to have advanced drawing skills. The pictures do
not have to be perfect, but they should be easily understandable.

Prototyping Skills

- Visual Thinking

Many teams can find creative ideas, but they can’t turn them into reality as
a tangible solution. Design thinking teams can benefit from prototyping to
visualize and turn imaginary solution ideas into tangible forms, with which

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they can communicate with the users to gain a better understanding of how
an idea might solve the addressed challenge.

Prototyping requires “visual thinking” skills. Even Einstein said, “If I can’t
picture it, I can’t understand it.” Visual thinking is like seeing with the
mind. It is the ability to think through visuals and create images to express
ideas.

As Aristo said, “The soul never thinks without a picture.” From the
earliest times in human history, painting has been the most effective way
to express thoughts and emotions by integrating mind and soul.
Throughout history, Leonardo da Vinci has been the best example of this.
Besides his artworks, the prototypes that he prepared for his inventions are
also masterpieces. In 1994, Bill Gates paid $31 million for the Codex
manuscript that included some of those prototypes. Design thinking teams
can also improve their visual thinking skills by painting and spending
more time with artworks.

- Simplicity

Even if a product is very elegant and functional, it cannot fully meet the
needs of its users unless it is usable. Usability is a measure of how easy a
product is for its users to apply and operate. Simplicity is the first rule of
usability.

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Having many features is not an indicator of high quality in product
development. As Antoine de Saint Exupéry said, “A designer knows he
has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when
there is nothing left to take away.” This is even valid for artworks. Pablo
Picasso once said, “Art is the elimination of unnecessary.” However,
when simplifying product designs, the following Einstein quotation should
be noted in order to prevent false simplicity. “Everything should be made
as simple as possible, but not simpler.” The unnecessary parts of the
product should be removed to make it simpler unless these parts clear
away required functionality.

The best solutions are simplistic and intuitive ones that allow users to
easily find what they are looking for and complete tasks with minimal
effort and error. Complex solutions make an experience difficult for users.
As psychologist Barry Schwartz says in his book The Paradox of Choice:
Why More Is Less, choice overload creates decision-making paralysis,
anxiety, and stress rather than bringing more satisfaction to customers.
People fail to complete tasks when their cognitive loads reach a certain
limit.

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In designing solutions, design thinking teams should think as if they are
decorating a small house. They should not make their users feel
claustrophobic as if they’re in a small, crowded space with a lot of
furniture.

Legendary soccer player Johan Cruyff once said, “Football is simple. But
nothing is more difficult than playing simple football.”

Similarly, it is not easy to create simplistic and intuitive designs. Creating

simple designs requires extra time and effort. Mark Twain describes this
fact very well when he said, “I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I
wrote a long one instead.” In the same context, Einstein said, “Any fool
can complicate things; it takes a genius to simplify them.”

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Phase 6: Evaluation

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Design thinking inherits an evolutionary and experimental approach rather
than a revolutionary one. It promotes taking calculated risks by failing
early and cheaply. As American scientist and author Dr. James Jay
Horning said, “Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes
from bad judgment.”

In the evaluation phase, design thinking teams test their prototyped

solution with users representing the target personas. Then they update the
solution in an iterative manner until the solution satisfies the user needs
and overcomes the challenge that is defined in the initial phase of the
project.

Design thinking team members should always appreciate users’ critiques

of the solutions. The critique is a natural part of any effort, including the
design and artistic aspects. In the history, critiques even resulted in the
emergence of some art movements. For instance, it is believed that

impressionism, the name of an art movement, evolved from art

critiques of Monet’s paintings;

cubism, the name of another art movement, evolved from critiques

saying that those paintings were just combinations of cubes; and

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 yet another movement was called fauvism when critic Louis
Vauxcelles called the painters as "fauves" (wild beasts) due to the
tones of colors they have used.

These artists did not give up because of critiques; instead, they used them
to improve their artistic styles and perspectives.

Similarly, design thinking teams should regard the critiques of their

solutions positively and constructively. They should not take personally
people’s negative comments about their proposed solutions. Instead, they
should remember the adage, “The customer is not always right but always
has a point.”

In the evaluation phase, users have a bias toward evaluating a new solution
according to its similarity to existing products with which they are
familiar. When they are asked to comment on the new solution, they may
say, “The old one was better. I don’t know why, but it was better!” To
overcome this baby-duck syndrome, the new solution should inherit the
main usage patterns of the existing product that users are accustomed to. In
time, people will also get used to the new solution. As Arthur
Schopenhauer said, “Every truth passes through three stages before it is
recognized. In the first it is ridiculed, in the second it is opposed, in the
third it is regarded as self-evident.”

During the evaluation phase, design thinking teams should get ready to
deal with both yes-men and no-men. Yes-men are more dangerous than
no-men are. They are silent and friendly during evaluation sessions and
usually are unhelpful in communicating the flaws of the proposed solution.

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Although no-men are usually regarded as extreme and troublemaking
users, they are more helpful in identifying the missing and problematic
points of the proposed solution. If the problems are not discussed and
resolved at this early stage of the project, they will later necessitate high-
cost fixing efforts to fix the final product.

The prototyped solutions can be evaluated by applying interview, focus

group, and user observation techniques.

Evaluation Techniques

- Interview & Focus Group Techniques

Since most products are used individually, one-on-one interviews are

usually more effective than focus group sessions are.

People usually affect each other’s opinion during focus-group sessions,

and this may undermine the evaluation results. However, it is beneficial to
conduct focus group sessions after the interviews. They are especially
helpful in brainstorming how to fix the flawed parts of the proposed

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solution.
During interviews and focus groups, some users may not provide
complete, clear, and objective feedback about the solution. Some of the
users won’t want to criticize the solution, and they will hesitate to make
negative comments. To mitigate this risk, user observations should also be
conducted following interviews and focus group sessions.

- User Observation Technique

This technique consists of observing users while they use the prototyped
solution. Evaluating a solution with a limited number of users who
represent the target personas is much better than testing it with many
random users. The optimum number of users that should be included in the
evaluation phase is eight to ten per persona. For example, in the evaluation
of a solution with two personas, twenty users will be more than enough.

Finding users who represent the target personas is one of the most
challenging parts of the evaluation phase. The company’s user database
should be queried in an intelligent way to find users who represent the
persona groups. Before inviting people, team members should interview
them by phone, and, if possible, analyze their social media profiles to
determine whether they really represent the personas or not. Team
members’ friends and family who represent the personas are also good

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candidates for user observation sessions. They can be easily reached and
quickly invited to tests.

Sometimes design thinking teams hesitate to allocate a specific time and

budget for evaluation sessions, because they think a fully equipped test
laboratory is mandatory for evaluations. However, rather than being a
must-have, labs are a nice-to-have facility. Observing users while they
interact with the solution can be sufficient to detect and analyze most of
the problems with the solution.

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Design Thinking Best Practices

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Multidisciplinary Teams
Design thinking is best applied by multidisciplinary teams, since it inherits
perspectives and tools from diverse fields such as engineering, design,
ethnography, and art.

Group creativity can be best unlocked if these multidisciplinary team

members are self-motivated. Self-motivation is like a natural force such as
gravity or electromagnetic fields. In order to achieve it, team members
should be directed toward a crystal-clear target and given responsibilities
appropriate to their competencies.

Optimistic Mindset

Design thinking teams should start every project by believing that they
will resolve any kind of challenge. Despite all of the limitations they
confront during the project, they should maintain this positive mind-set.

They should push the boundaries of creative expression in all

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circumstances and remember the saying, “Creativity loves constraints.”
They can take famous artist Paul Cezanne as an example. He overcame the
challenge of creating immersive and three-dimensional paintings with a
limited tool kit of paint and canvas by forming chromatic effects, changes
of angle, and shifts in proportion.

Conflict Management

When team members have conflicts with each other, they should keep their
positive and collaborative attitudes by remembering Nobel Prize–winner
Nikolaas Tinbergen’s observation that, “there is no white or black in life;
there are different tones of gray.”

When conflicts arise, they should try hard to create win-win situations.
The first rule of creating win-win situations is to ask, “Why does the
conflict exist?” The second rule is to find an answer to this question
collaboratively by ignoring personal egos, by behaving objectively, and by
being empathic.

Allegory

In communication within the team, with other project stakeholders, and

with the target audience, design thinking teams should be able to express
even the most complex thoughts in the simplest forms. Allegory skills can
be very helpful in achieving this.

Allegory is the ability to conceptualize and express abstract and complex

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ideas and emotions with symbols. It is an effective way to communicate a
message with a minimal number of words and to convince other people
with analogies.
Design thinking teams can improve their allegory skills and express
themselves in a more concise way by the practice of analyzing artworks.
French artist Edgar Degas said, “Art is not what you see but what you
make others see.” Just about everyone has heard the adage “a picture is
worth a thousand words,” but in truth, paintings tell us much more than a
thousand words.

Conceptualization

The information age is being replaced by the conceptual age. In this new
age, people who can compose excessive amounts of information as
tangible concepts in a structured way will be successful.

A similar paradigm shift was experienced in the art world when Marcel

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Duchamp initiated conceptual art by stating that rather than the aesthetic
details, the idea behind a work and the way it is conceptualized were the
most important aspects of an artwork. His piece called Fountain, which
originally was a porcelain urinal, is the best example of this. This new way
of thinking had an important role in the emergence of today’s more
abstract and conceptual contemporary art world.

Conceptualization is an artist’s composition of elements such as line,

space, shape, color, tone, text, form, and depth to represent an idea or
feeling. Fauvist artist Henri Matisse defined composition as, “the art of
arranging in a decorative manner the diverse elements at the painter’s
command to express his feelings.” Techniques such as balance, movement,
unity, rhythm, contrast, and pattern are used to create a particular
composition. Composition is also very important in other fields of art such
as photography, sculpture, and music. For instance, Johann Sebastian Bach
is regarded as one of the greatest musicians of all times thanks to the
composing techniques he developed. He invented a universal form of
musical grammar with a mathematical logic that helped musicians create
complex musical compositions that otherwise could only have been
mastered by geniuses such as Mozart and Beethoven. Even computers and
amateur musicians can now compose and play music based on the form of
musical grammar that Bach created.

Design thinking teams should have conceptualization skills, since this

methodology is mainly about designing a solution by conceptualizing
creative ideas. They can improve their conceptualization skills by
analyzing how ideas are conceptualized in artworks with different forms of
compositions.

Avant-Garde Mindset

Teams that have limited expertise in the subject matter can apply design
thinking. Design thinking teams know that the real subject matter experts

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are the users who experience the needs or problems in question. Design
thinking teams apply techniques such as the customer journey and
empathy maps to articulate the needs of the target users.
However, innovation goes beyond understanding people’s needs. It is only
achieved when a creative solution that fulfills people’s needs is found.
Henry Ford illustrated this idea when he said, “If I had asked people what
they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” But he developed a car
to fulfill the need for faster transportation instead of products that made
horses faster.

When a specific need is identified even before people are aware of this
need, and it is satisfied with a creative solution, this is called a disruptive
innovation. Disruptive innovations can be only achieved by avant-garde
people with thought processes beyond those of others. Throughout history,
the most avant-garde individuals have always been artists. French-born
music composer Edgard Varése observed, “Contrary to general belief, an
artist is never ahead of his time but most people are far behind theirs.”

Among all artists, Paul Cezanne is recognized as the most avant-garde, as

he changed the course of modern art. Émile Zola once said that he was a
genius ahead of his time. Even great artists such as Matisse and Picasso
regarded Cezanne as “the father of us all.” Cezanne once said, "With an
apple I want to astonish Paris." Cezanne formed a new revolutionary

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approach by restructuring the relationship between form and color and
created a new visual language that conveyed emotions to the viewer.

Analyzing the works and lives of avant-garde artists such as Cezanne helps
design thinking teams look beyond the frame in an avant-garde style and
improve their innovative potential.

Hard Work

Without hard work and dedication, even design thinking teams with
advanced creativity skills cannot design great solutions. Hard work is the
secret of success not only in business, but also in all other professions,
including science and art. We can witness this by studying the lives of
most creative artists and scientists. For example, Albert Einstein once said,
“It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.”

Émile Zola also summarized this fact, saying, “The artist is nothing
without the gift, but the gift is nothing without work.” Pablo Picasso was
one of the most hard-working artists of all time. He was always busy
creating different kinds of artworks such as paintings, sculptures, and
ceramics. It is claimed that during the more than seventy-five years of his
career, he created more than ten thousand paintings.

Renaissance artists were also extreme examples of hard work, passion, and
dedication. For instance, Michelangelo painted The Creation of Adam
fresco as part of the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling in four years, under extremely
uncomfortable conditions. Most of the time, he worked either lying on his
back or with his head tilted upward. Leonardo da Vinci also spent years
analyzing the anatomy of cadavers to create masterpieces such as Mona
Lisa.

Nobel Prize–winning author André Gide summarized this dedication,

saying, “Art begins with resistance—at the point where resistance is
overcome. No human masterpiece has ever been created without great

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labor.”

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How to Apply Design Thinking and Lean and
Agile Methodologies Together

82
According to physics theory, everything in the universe has a bias to pass
from a well-ordered state to a disordered state due to the law of entropy.
This is also valid for projects. To prevent disorder and chaos, project teams
should apply a methodology. Products and services can be developed with
either a revolutionary or an evolutionary approach. In the revolutionary
approach, the new solution is developed in a big upfront design phase and
is fully implemented after it is completed. In the evolutionary approach,
the solution is designed, developed, and implemented in an iterative way.
While waterfall is a revolutionary methodology, design thinking and lean
and agile methodologies are categorized as evolutionary ones.
Rather than an alternative, design thinking should be regarded as a
complementary methodology to lean and agile. All of these methodologies
can be applied together throughout the product development lifecycle as
follows:

1. Design thinking methodology should be applied to identify the best

solution to overcome a specific challenge.
2. Lean methodology should be applied to define the scope of the
solution especially the initial version of the solution, which is called
the MVP (minimum viable product).

3. Agile methodology should be applied to develop and implement the

solution in an iterative manner.

1. Identify the Best Solution with Design Thinking

Management guru Peter F. Drucker once said, “Management is doing

things right; leadership is doing the right things.” Design thinking teams
need to have both leadership and management skills. However, they
should always keep in mind that doing the right thing is always more
important than doing it right. Therefore, organizations should first apply
design thinking methodology to identify the right solution for their

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challenge. Then they should define the solution scope by applying lean
methodology. Finally, they should develop and implement the solution
with agile methodology.
2. Define the Scope of the Solution with Lean Methodology

According to Einstein’s relativity theory, observations that you make about

time differ from the observations of others who are moving at different
speeds. Similarly, project durations are relative for different stakeholders
at the same organization. Technical teams would consider six months to be
a challenging time frame in which to develop a new product. But business
units would consider six months to be a long duration. If they are delivered
late, new product or service development projects lose their importance for
the company due to rapidly changing market conditions and fierce time-to-
market pressures. Especially in this kind of time-sensitive situation, where
time to market is critical, product development teams should aim to
generate “fair-value” outcomes in an iterative way. The team should apply
a lean mind-set and move to a “good enough” solution in the shortest time
instead of wasting time with complicated nice-to-have ideas. The aim
should be to create a solution at the right time and with sufficient detail.

The lean approach suggests the following flow in the product-development

lifecycle:

Deploy the first release with a core version of the product, and get
customer feedback as early as possible.

At each subsequent iteration, use previous customer feedback to

refine the product by adding, updating, and even dropping features.

Iterate until the product satisfies user needs.

The core version of a product should have a minimum set of features that
can solve the main problem of target users. Popular terms such as MVP
(minimum viable product) and MMF (minimum marketable features) are

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used to define this core version of the product.
High-priority features on scope documents are the best candidates for the
MVP. Medium- and low-priority features can be added to later releases
based on user feedback on the core version.

The priority of features may change based on customer feedback. A

feature that initially was considered low-priority may later become a high-
priority one. Similarly, a product feature that was initially considered a
high-priority one may become obsolete if it doesn’t deliver the desired
value to customers.

3. Implement the Solution with Agile Methodology

A product can be developed and implemented with either waterfall or agile
methodology. In recent years, agile has been adopted as the main
methodology in many organizations. According to the dialectical method
in philosophy, “Within themselves all things contain internal dialectical
contradictions that are the primary cause of motion, change, and
development in the world.” Similarly, the internal contradictions and
drawbacks of the waterfall methodology have been the driving force
behind agile adoption.

Agile has three manifesto statements:

1. “Working software over comprehensive documentation”

In scrum, a popular agile framework, requirements are defined as

short and simple user stories (as a “role,” I want “goal”) on the
product backlog by a business unit representative (the product
owner). This minimizes the level of documentation and bureaucracy
witnessed in waterfall projects.

2. “Customer collaboration over contract negotiation”

In agile projects, the product owner and the development team work

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 at the same location, which creates a more collaborative product
development environment compared with waterfall projects.

3. “Responding to change over following a plan”

In waterfall projects, development waits for the completion of

analysis and design phases. Thus, in a one-year project, it takes at
least five to six months on average to get to the working parts of a
product. This latency in delivery creates anxiety for business units
that are impatient to see “quick” results. On the other hand, the
agile team releases the working parts of the product in a series of
two to three weeklong “sprints” under the coordination of a “scrum
master.” The team velocity is adjusted iteratively by analyzing
burn-down charts of previous sprints.

Agile projects’ fast delivery of working products, starting with the first
iteration, brings confidence to all stakeholders and enables the gathering of
early customer feedback.
At dynamic business environments in which change is not the exception
but the norm, applying agile methodology is more meaningful, because
waterfall has low flexibility for changes in requirements. Any possible
change to the requirements has an impact on the overall analysis and
design artifacts. In agile environments, a change to the requirements has
no effect on the parts of the product that have not been analyzed or
designed yet.

However, applying agile methodology to every kind of project may not be

a correct strategy. It is still more appropriate to proceed with waterfall
when

the product has intensive integration among its components,

the colocation of project team members is not feasible,

it is not possible for the team members to work only on a single

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 project at a time, and

there is high employee turnover, which creates the risk of losing

project know-how if project team members leave the company.

Organic Unity
In today’s highly competitive business and technology world, what is
important is the score, not how you played the game. As it was said at the
start of the movie Now You See Me, “The closer you look, the less you
see.” From start to end, product development teams should focus on the
big picture (solving the design challenge) by having a bird’s-eye, holistic
view of the project.
Throughout the project life cycle, which includes

- identifying the best solution to the challenge by applying design

thinking;

- defining the scope, using the minimum viable product approach of

lean; and

- implementing the defined scope within two to three weeks of

sprints with agile methodology;

product development teams should ensure an organic unity in answering

Why, What, and How questions.

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In this sense, the logic applied while creating a successful solution and a
precious artwork is very similar. They both have an “organic unity” in
terms of answering Why, What, and How questions.

Pablo Picasso’s painting Guernica is a perfect example of this organic

unity.

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The practice of understanding the organic unity among content, subjects,
and forms of precious artworks helps business and technology teams
achieve the organic unity of why, what, and how questions while
developing new products and services.

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How to Implement Design Thinking
Methodology

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Rome Was Not Built in a Day
As Albert Einstein said, “Insanity is doing the same things over and over
again and expecting different results.” Organizations that have lost their
innovative spirit should apply design thinking as a fresh perspective.

However, they should think big but start small by remembering that
“Rome was not built in a day.” They should first practice design thinking
on small projects and then apply this methodology to solve more
challenging problems.
The “forming, storming, norming, and performing” model of group
development that Bruce Tuckman proposed is important when
implementing a new methodology. Each of these four consequent phases is
experienced by any organization when a new methodology is applied.
When design thinking teams confront barriers raised by peers and upper
management, they should not give up easily. Instead, they should do their
best to get buy-in from others. When they feel demotivated, they should
remember that “it is not the strength of waves that shapes the rocks but it
is their persistence.”

They should also keep in mind that “action speaks louder than words.”
Rather than repeatedly describing the benefits of design thinking, they
should apply it whenever applicable and show its ROI.

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Crafting Design Challenges

Design thinking is very similar to craftsmanship in the sense that applying

effective techniques is a silver bullet in the design of successful solutions.
Design thinking teams apply many useful techniques at each phase of the
project:

definition: HMW questions

research: personas, interviews, user observation

interpretation: mind mapping, empathy mapping, customer
journeys, affinity diagrams

idea generation: brainstorming, brain dumps, reverse

brainstorming, value proposition canvas

prototyping: low fidelity prototyping, storyboards

evaluation: interviews, focus groups, user observation

Design thinking teams should be aware that techniques are only wizards,
not magicians. They have limits. They can only help the teams do their
work in a more convenient way.

Some critics contend that using techniques in works that include design
and artistic perspectives kills creativity. This is not valid even for art.

Throughout history, developments in science not only had impacts on

engineering but also on art in terms of the usage of new techniques. For
instance, English physicist Isaac Newton was the first to discover that
colors originate from light. He converted white light into red, orange,
yellow, green, blue, and violet colors by refracting it on a prism. He
invented a circular diagram that arranged primary colors and their
complementary ones on opposite sides. Artists have benefited from this
diagram to create effective color combinations and contrasts in their
paintings.

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Renaissance artists, in particular, applied advanced techniques in creating
their artworks. For instance, they applied the following:

the perspective technique to create the illusion of depth on a

two-dimensional canvas based on how the eyes see the world
a linear perspective to show closer objects larger, and
more distant objects smaller
a vanishing point to fix the position of artists to their
view of the scene by implementing an imaginary horizon
and vertical lines
an atmospheric perspective to show that the appearance
of objects fades off into the distance

the foreshortening technique to create the illusion of depth by

shortening lines

the sfumato technique to create three-dimensionality by

blurring or softening sharp outlines

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 the chiaroscuro technique to create soft, lifelike figures by
using a strong contrast between light and dark

balance and proportion techniques to ensure proper size

With respect to techniques, Leonardo da Vinci has been regarded as the

most accomplished Renaissance artist. He even studied anatomy to
develop new universal techniques that he could apply to his art. By
applying these innovative techniques, he created incredibly realistic
figures in his paintings. The natural style that can be observed in his
masterpiece Mona Lisa is a perfect example.

Artworks from the same movement have often shared similar techniques.
The characteristics of the most famous art movements and their most
famous representatives are as follows:

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Renaissance artists increased the emphasis on realism through the
use of perspective.

Baroque artists aimed to create highly dramatized themes to bring

people back to religious places.

Rococo painters created scenes of love, entertainment, and nature

with soft colors and curvy lines.

Romanticism period artists portrayed nostalgia for the past.

Impressionism focused on the effects of light and visual

impressions of nature at a certain time of the day. As French artist

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Robert Delaunay said, “It is the birth of light in painting.”

Fauvism was characterized by the use of violent colors to

create emotion.

Expressionism aimed to express the emotion of the artist instead of

directly representing nature.

Cubism aimed to show geometric forms of an object from many

angles simultaneously.

Futurism aimed to show the beauty of technological advances and

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machines.

Dada was an “anti-art” movement.

Realism period artists focused on painting scenes from everyday

life.

Surrealism focused on dreams and the subconscious, and was

influenced by Freud’s theories on psychology.

Pop art was the art of popular culture that characterized consumers,
the globalization of pop music, and youth.

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Egyptian art is also considered a movement recognized mainly by the
usage of techniques and rules in a strictly standard way.

Egypt was one of the most civilized societies in the ancient world.
Historians have learned much about this society by analyzing its artwork.
Egyptians believed in life after death. To keep their souls alive, they
created wall paintings for the next life. The Egyptians adherence to
conservative values led to rigid painting rules for artists. These fixed rules
were called the Canon of Proportion, or the Canon. The following were
some of these Canon rules:

The sizes of figures in paintings were determined by the person’s

social status, instead of by perspective rules.
Human figures all looked just about the same.
Parts of the body were shown from different views. The head and
feet were shown in profile, and the shoulders and eyes were shown
frontally.
Specific colors were used to express specific emotions. For
instance, white represented power and greatness, black represented
death, red represented victory and anger, blue represented life, and
green represented new life.

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These standards were applied over the course of hundreds of years. Some
historians and sociologists believe that these conservative artistic rules
negatively affected the creativity of the society as well as artistic and
scientific progress in that region.

To prevent a similar fate, design thinking teams should not fall into the
trap of over-standardization in applying techniques.

For instance

they don’t have to limit usage of the HMW (how might we)
questions only to definethe challenge ; HMW questions can also be
used at brainstorming sessions;

prototypes can be used in the research phase (in addition to the

evaluation phase) to better communicate with target audience;

interviews and user observation techniques can be used in both the

research and the evaluation phases; and

affinity diagrams can be used to not only group and analyze

research data but also to organize ideas generated in brainstorming
sessions.

Design thinking teams should focus on generating outcomes (solutions)

rather than outputs (deliverables). The objective of the team should not be
to produce fancy documents and diagrams.

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Instead, they should aim to design a solution that best meets the needs of
the target audience. Techniques should be used as tools to make these
efforts more convenient.

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Case Study

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1. Definition of Challenge
ArtBizTech (www.artbiztech.org) is a multidisciplinary group of
people that helps organizations develop innovative products, technologies,
services, business models, processes, and spaces. The ArtBizTech team
applies design thinking methodology to solve any kind of business or
social challenge.

ArtBizTech also organizes two-hour “Artful Thinking Meetups” where

business and technology professionals meet with artists and discuss the
perspectives employed in the creation of famous artworks.

At these meetups participants explore how these perspectives can invoke

creativity and inspire innovative business and technology solutions.

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However, two-hour art discussions are not enough to develop the creativity
skills of business and technology people. As Pablo Picasso said, “Every
child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow
up.” Unfortunately, as people grow up, their creativity diminishes due to
the memorization-based education systems and silo-based work
environments.

The only way to enhance creativity is to embed art into people’s personal
and business lives.

But how?

As ArtBizTech team, we decided to apply design thinking methodology to

tackle this challenge.

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We used the HMW questions technique and defined the challenge as
follows:

“How might we reactivate creativity skills of business and technology

professionals by embedding art into their daily lives?”

2. Research

We knew that we faced a complicated challenge that required a

comprehensive research phase. We have conducted interviews with twenty
professionals and conducted direct observations in different work
environments.

Our previous observations of more than nine hundred professionals who

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attended our meetups were also very insightful.

We grouped the target audience into two personas:

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3. Interpretation

Upon completing the field work, we started to analyze a large set of

research results. Empathy maps were very helpful to dive deeply into the
data and identify outstanding emotional points.

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Based on the information in the empathy maps, we used affinity diagrams
to identify patterns and generate insights regarding each persona group’s
needs, problems and expectations.

The most prominent insights were these:

People were aware of the fact that being hardworking or talented at

their profession is not sufficient for a better career. They needed to
be more creative and innovative.

A person cannot become innovative via a one-time activity. Instead,

one should practice periodically by being involved in activities that
stimulate creativity.

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 To fully enhance their skill sets, people should not only be creators
but also makers.

Compared with classical artworks, interactive and digital artworks

could be more helpful in development of both creativity and
technological skills.

The target audience has limited free time, so they want to integrate
their family and close friends into their social activities.

4. Idea Generation

Based on these insights, our team organized brainstorming sessions.

During these sessions, attendees were very eager to share their ideas. They
generated many solution ideas, so we didn’t need to employ additional
techniques such as brain dumps or reverse brainstorming.

The most outstanding solution ideas were the following:

Start a creativity & technology course that would be instructed by

academics from art and technology departments of universities.

Establishing a creators labwhere business and technology

professionals, designers, and artists would meet to develop

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 interactive digital artworks that inspire innovative business and
technology ideas.

Initiate an art & technology mentoring program in which an artist

and a technology expert would mentor business and technology
professionals by conducting regular meetings.

Organize “hackathons” that would bring business professionals

together with a jury of technology experts and artists.

Among these ideas, the creators lab got the highest priority rating in
terms of value proposition and implementation difficulty. It was an idea
that satisfied almost all of the insights explored during the interpretation
phase. For instance, people who belong to the Susan persona could even
bring their kids to Creators Lab and create interactive artworks all
together. In this way, not only parents but also their kids could enhance
their creativity skills and technology knowledge.

The projects at the lab would not only awaken the creative genius inside
people but also allow them bring their ideas to life. The lab also had the
potential to foster the collective creativity of people, thanks to its
multidisciplinary structure. Its atmosphere could be like that of the House
of Medici. During the fourteenth century, businesspeople, scientists, and
artists in Florence, Italy, came together at the Medici family home and
created the most intellectual environment of the times. These individuals
were the driving forces behind the development of science, art, and
architecture in Florence.

5. Prototyping

After selecting Creators Lab as the idea to move forward with, the team
started to design a business and operating model of the lab.

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According to its conceptual model, people from diverse professions such
as business, technology, design, engineering, architecture, psychology, and
art would all meet to create interactive digital artworks that inspire
innovative business and technology ideas.

In these projects, people would go beyond their comfort zones, and start to
think out of the box. As British street artist Banksy once said, “Art should
comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.”

In creating the interactive artworks, people would use technology as paint

and canvas and express an artistic idea by using technology. In this way,
they would remove the boundaries between art and technology.

They would be creating objects that might inspire products that satisfy
various business or social needs. In other words, they would be making art
not for art. They would be making art for inspiring innovative products.
Therefore, at the end of every project, they would evaluate which products
the artwork could inspire. Briefly, “they would aim to find what they were
not looking for at the beginning.” The approach is very similar that of
Pablo Picasso, who said “I begin with an idea, and then it becomes
something else.”

The artwork might not inspire a product today, but it might tomorrow. It

110
could be like abstract mathematics. Some of the abstract formulations
created during the ancient time of Thales were not useful then, but they
were later used by scientists such as Johannes Kepler and Einstein in the
formulation of physics and astronomy theories.

Creators Lab would act as the Bauhaus school of the digital age.

Walter Gropius, the founder of the Bauhaus school, was one of the most
prominent people who proved how artistic perspectives contribute to
design thinking. His goal was “to create a new guild of craftsmen without
the class distinctions which raise an arrogant barrier between craftsman
and artist.” Bauhaus was established in Germany as an art school that
combined art and craft, and it revolutionized product design. It brought
creative expression to product design and used the slogan, “Art into
Industry.” It had the “vision of unification of the arts through craft.”
Artists such as Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky contributed to Bauhaus
as instructors. The curriculum included workshops on painting, sculpture,
cabinetmaking, textile, metalworking, and typography. The vision and
working principles of the Bauhaus school have always been a role model
for initiatives such as Creators Lab.
6. Evaluation:

Upon arrangement of the facility and basic technological equipment such

as Arduino microcontrollers, Raspberry Pi microcomputers, and various
sensors (of motion, touch, heat, sound, etc.) Creators Lab was announced
to business and technology professionals.

In a very short time, an enthusiastic group of people from diverse

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professions started to set up multidisciplinary teams and create interactive
digital artworks in a collaborative manner.

One of the initial projects was “Soul of the City.” This interactive artwork
aimed to make viewers feel the soul of the cities all around the world with
touch, visual, and audio effects. As the viewer moves the installation on a
plexiglass platform that is equipped with RFID (radio-frequency
identification) sensors, the Raspberry Pi micro-computer recognizes its
location and associates that location with its corresponding one on the
world map. Accordingly, the installation emits lights and sounds
resembling that city.

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When it was exhibited at a design thinking event, a group of teachers
asked the Creators Lab team if they could use this artwork in their
geography lectures. They said this artwork could be very helpful in
teaching the location of cities to the primary-school students. When the
Creators Lab team heard this question, everybody was delighted because
their motto of “finding what we are not looking for” had been realized.

As a result, the Creators Lab team has started new projects with
contributions from new members. Almost every member of the Creators

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Lab project has started to realize the benefits of being a part of this
initiative. For instance

one of the academic peers in Creators Lab was appreciated by

professors when she described how the “Soul of the City” project
contributed to her “interactive space design” master thesis, which
was an important milestone in her academic career;

another peer was hired by the IT department of a leading bank when

he proved his creativity and technical skills with his exceptional
contribution to “Einstein’s Letter on the Universal Force of Love,”
an interactive artwork project;

his colleague, who was responsible for interaction design and video
animation in the same artwork, was accepted by one of the leading
design companies on the reference of an executive peer at the
Creators Lab project;

in the “Invisible Connections of People” project, the team

successfully used IOT (internet of things) technology and the
technical architect of this project was invited to be an IOT instructor
at a training company by a person he met at an exhibit of this
artwork;

the coordinator of Creators Lab, who had greatly contributed to the

fast progress of the initiative, was accepted in a marketing and
communications master program at a highly reputable university;
and

management of Creators Lab was taken over by an expert on

human–robotics interaction and two experienced business
professionals who had previously served in executive roles of
multinational companies.

During the evaluation phase, many academics and students applied to take

114
part in Creators Lab. The team had decided to extend the target audience
to include academics and students as well as business and technology
professionals. A new initiative called the Academic Creativity &
Innovation Program has been started under Creators Lab. Now academics
and students can also use the Creators Lab facilities and equipment of
Creators Lab, which are funded by sponsorships.

We have realized many collaboration areas with other innovation oriented

communities such as the “Makers.” We have decided to support each other
during the projects to achieve unity in “thinking, creating, designing, and
making.” We organized joint events and exhibitions.

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Another lessons-learned during the evaluation phase was understanding of
people’s desire to present their work to other people. To satisfy this need,
Creators Lab has started to organize exhibitions in collaboration with
respected galleries and museums. The Creators Lab team also has started
to apply to international arts and technology competitions and exhibitions
to present their artworks to peers in other countries.

The team is now planning to expand the Creators Lab to new cities based
on the lessons learned during the evaluation phase. Its objective is to help
more people attain artful thinking perspectives and be more creative and
successful both in their personal and business lives.

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About Emrah Yayici

117
Emrah Yayici is an ArtBizTech (www.artbiztech.org) board member.

He is the author of the best-selling Business Analysis Methodology Book,

Business Analyst's Mentor Book, UX Design and Usability Mentor
Book,and Creativity: Artful Thinking for Innovative Business and
Technology.

He is a managing partner of UXservices, BA-Works and Keytorc. He

started his career as a technology and management consultant at Arthur
Andersen and Accenture. Afterward, he led global enterprise-
transformation projects at Beko-Grundig Electronics.

During his career, he has managed multinational and cross-functional

project teams in banking, insurance, telecommunications, media, consumer
electronics, IT industries, and start-ups.

Emrah Yayici contributes to IIBA® (International Institute of Business

Analysis) as a chapter president. He has also contributed to UXPA (User
Experience Professionals Association) as a member and to ISTQB®
(International Software Testing Board) as a former international board
member.

He is now sharing his experience in design thinking, business analysis,

entrepreneurship, product management, product development, customer
experience design, UX design, and usability by publishing articles and
books, leading training sessions, and speaking at conferences.

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Indice
Design Thinking Methodology 8
Phase 1: Definition 14
Phase 2: Research 19
Phase 3: Interpretation 31
Phase 4: Idea Generation 46
Phase 5: Prototyping 62
Phase 6: Evaluation 68
Design Thinking Best Practices 74
How to Apply Design Thinking and Lean and Agile
82
Methodologies Together
How to Implement Design Thinking Methodology 90
Case Study 101

119