Design Thinking and the Reality of Things

In “Design Thinking for Social Innovation” by Tim Brown and Jocelyn Wyatt, a key point that stands out is how design thinking can help bridge the gap between intended solutions to social problems and the people such problems affect. Design thinking does this by focusing on the realities of the problem and working from human needs towards human solutions. In this, Brown and Wyatt break from orthodoxy (thank goodness) and offer, though design thinking, a needs- and people-based means towards social innovation and impact.

The intentions behind Brown and Wyatt’s examples are good—clean water and malaria-preventing nets are good things—but a common factor in the story of Shanti, of the malnourished children in Vietnam, of the mosquito nets in Ghana, and of the weavers in Rwanda is this divide between intentions and implementation. Brown and Wyatt take the stance that “social challenges require systemic solutions that are grounded in the client’s or customer’s needs.” Design thinking isn’t a solution, but is rather an “approach to creating solutions.” Design thinking, by beginning from people’s needs and working towards creative solutions, avoids many of the shortcomings and exclusions created by this divide.

From my perspective, having worked for four plus years in international development, design thinking actually sounds easier than the traditional project implementation cycle, which hinges on formalized guesswork regarding outcomes and which is binary about success and failure and thus doesn’t allow for failure or trial-and-error a place in the process. I imagine the Naandi Foundation, to build the community water treatment plant in Shanti’s community, formulated it in a way common to similar projects around the globe, beginning with something like:

Goal: Clean water in this community near Hyderabad.

Objective 1: By building and operating a clean water treatment plant, X-number of people in this community will have access to clean water.

Objective 2: Though a volume-based purchasing plan, the water treatment plant will become sustainable beyond the length of this project, providing clean water for years to come.

…

This method is basically guesswork, albeit a heartfelt hope for correlation (i.e. that A plus B does in fact equal C). It provided the benefit of clean water to some and even a measure of pride in the community; both good things. However, it falls short for Shanti and her family. Design thinking begins with Shanti, with asking questions, with actual problem-solving, as Brown and Wyatt point out, in a way that humans typically go about solving problems. Design thinking isn’t so much a model as it is an approach to complex problems in the context of complex realities, of Shanti’s reality.

Design thinking is persuasive, but I do have questions. In the broader view of human-centered innovation, policy, and society, does design thinking scale? Or are its limits small projects and small change? And can (and should) it be integrated into what are often more rigid models of policy making, innovation, and development? Reading about design thinking is a beginning, and a hopeful one at that.