Corporate Design Thinking as Social Technology

Jeanne Liedtka, Strategy Professor at Darden School (University of Virginia) and Chief Learning Officer of United Technologies writes in a featured article in Harvard Business Review about the modern corporate design-thinking process as a form of social technology: https://hbr.org/2018/09/why-design-thinking-works

Summary: Professor Liedtka troubleshoots the processes that companies use to innovate. She describes the seven step process known as design thinking as being the most natural flowing and effective way for large companies to innovate. Mastering the complexity of getting a large group of employees, partners, customers, and stakeholders in this process is a form of social technology.

The steps consist of:

1. Immersion of the design-thinking participants in the customer experience;

2. Developing insights into the most significant issues that customers deal with;

3. Brainstorming key features that any solution would have AKA DESIGN CRITERIA

4. Structured Brainstorming

5. Articulating the necessary assumptions implicit in the ideas and determining which are the most accurate assumptions

6. Rough Prototyping - creating a rough, mock product or storyboarding

7. Testing