Design Thinking with IBM

“Design thinking” and all the creative problem-solving skills associated with it are like second nature to architects, urban planners and designers. I’ve heard the term bandied about here at PAYETTE and in several sessions led by Rosa Sheng when she challenges architects to think beyond architecture for ways to apply their design thinking skills. Earlier this month AIGA Boston offered a Design at Scale workshop led by Seth Johnson of IBM. Johnson works out of IBM’s new design center and educates fellow IBMers in the principles of design thinking and facilitates cross-discipline collaboration (Design Thinking at IBM).

Johnson’s workshop was about the tools he uses to foster design thinking and collaboration as well as how to scale design thinking processes on a global scale. Throughout the workshop, Johnson shared exercises and strategies he uses to aid teams in their creative processes. At the heart of Johnson’s design thinking strategy is inclusion and engagement.

The Design at Scale Workshop reminded me of the hackathons we’ve held here at PAYETTE. When I organized these sessions, I wanted to foster collaboration across disciplines, look past conventional wisdom and broaden the knowledge base from which we draw inspiration. After both hackathons, one piece of feedback I heard repeatedly was how difficult teams found it to break away from conventional wisdom. Through the workshop I discovered new ideas for helping teams reframe the challenge at hand. Johnson’s approach is similar to how UX designers approach their work and relies heavily on empathy and scenario maps as well as user profiles. He then asks smaller groups to check back in with the larger group, summarizing their progress and perspective, which allows the larger group to offer feedback. This is all part of the larger tenet at play at IBM, “The Loop,” which asks IBMers to observe, reflect and make. It’s a continuous process of collaboration, iteration and ultimately, problem-solving. Sound familiar?

As participants we had the opportunity to test an accelerated design thinking process. We split into small groups; each assigned a rough user profile and a challenge. We built empathy and scenario maps and questioned our assumptions. While Johnson’s approach draws on elements of design thinking that may come as second nature to architects and designers, he also relies heavily on facilitators with high emotional intelligence. Who can “read the room” and work to build consensus, drawing out even the most reticent participant? This is an interesting and important in layer in increasingly collaborative work.