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Design Thinking is a methodology, a mind set and a posture based on empathy, it enables multidisciplinary teams to address a business issue, find a solution and prototype it with fun and enthusiasm.
The Design Thinking process according to the Hasso Plattner Institute – School of Design Thinking – Potsdam is a 6 step process (Understand, Observe, Point of view, Ideate, Prototype and Test).
In the Understand step, participants build a common vision of the challenge and to do so they have to use several tools and practices (ex. Silent brainstorming, sharing, clustering, …)
In the Observe step, participants based on the vison built before engage with multiple stakeholders to get out their needs, irritants and inspirations with empathy and gather all possible information.
In the Point of View step, participants based on their observations, analyze all the available information and build a portrait (Persona) that incarnate what they found, then they have to see the challenge thought his eyes.
In the Ideate step, participants have to find as much innovative ideas as possible to help the Persona face the challenge and choose one or more ideas to prototype.
In the Prototype step, participants create a basic prototype of the chosen idea in order to explain it, verify the concepts and better engage with the stakeholders.
In the Test step, participants show the prototype and get all the possible feedback from stakeholders and update it.
As Design Thinking is an iterative method, participants can go backward then forward and cycle as many times as needed till, they reach a mature prototype.
At the end of a Design Thinking workshop the mature prototype can be presented to the stakeholders in order to create a real pilot and a business model of the final solution.
“If you cannot explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough”
Albert Einstein
Karim NAFIE. Trainer, Coach & Design Thinker. Passionate about #Design Thinking and certified from the Hasso Plattner Institute – School Of Design Thinking Potsdam (Germany), I founded Novalist Thinking to help customers design innovative solutions for their markets through empathy & team working. To know more about it … visit my LinkedIn page