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Enterprise Design Thinking

How might we scale a design thinking mindset across a 100-year-old, 350,000-employee technology organization?

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Context

Design thinking is not new. Depending on how you trace it, it has been around for at least a half century, perhaps more. Simply put, it is about bringing a designer's mindset to solving problems and working with groups. By "designer's mindset" I mean focusing on an outcome, considering multiple ways to achieve it, and then trying things and watching what happens. In the context of the work I do, it is about getting teams focused on people instead of products and outcomes instead of features.

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IBM certainly did not invent design thinking. That said, there was a gap in the practice and proliferation of design thinking IBM set out to fill; how could it work for large enterprises? In or around 2013, IBM began to put their own spin on design thinking describing it in three parts:

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The Principals​

  • Focus on User Outcomes

  • Diverse Empowered Teams

  • Restless Reinvention

The Loop​

  • Observe

  • Reflect

  • Make

The Keys

  • Sponsor Users

  • Hills

  • Playbacks

It was the keys that IBM added in order to address the needs of large enterprises. When I joined IBM in 2015, I immediately began to evangelize the practices where I worked in the organization (New York City) and connected with leadership to help roll out this approach across the organization. This has not been an insignificant challenge in a historically technology-focused company.

Clients/Owners

IBM Design Program Office

 

My Role 

  • Subject Matter Expert/Author

  • Training

  • Facilitation

Customers/Users

Design Thinkers (Practitioners from Novices to Coach Candidates)

 

Goals

  • Expand the practice of design thinking beyond designers so that anyone on a team can be a coach.

  • Ensure that practitioners and coaches understood that design thinking is more than workshops with post-its.

  • Bring the practice of design thinking to all areas of work; product development, consulting, strategy, even operations.

 

Hypothesis

If we can certify that any practitioner who has demonstrated the application of design thinking fully, by using all parts of the framework in real-world work, we will exponentially spread adoption of a customer-centered focus. We will know we are right if we see an increase on certified design thinking coaches in all parts of the organization.

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With that expertise established I started the first chapter in New York City to create a community that educated and enabled the practice throughout all areas of the business.

As the core team iterated on how to expand the practice internally, I worked on a rubric of qualifications to evaluate and certify design thinking coaches. This certification is issued to both internal and external practitioners.

I also contributed to the creation of company-wide training materials and the expansion of the certification framework that identifies both practitioners and leaders who deliver, and create the conditions for design thinking respectively.

When I moved from iX to the Blockchain Services organization I began creating blockchain-specific design thinking approaches and have been rolling out and iterating those ever since.

The Journey

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When I started working at the New York City studio I established myself as an expert in design thinking by demonstrating the practice with my teams and clients, delivering talks and running workshops on the topic both publicly and privately, and connecting with design leadership in Austin.

Outcomes

  • Over 400 Coaches, 400 Advocates, 100 Leaders, and 6500 Co-Creators evaluated and certified based on the rubric.

  • Enterprise Design Thinking is now embedded in other methods, such as the IBM Garage Method and has become just another part of how IBM works as opposed to something to do.

  • A Forrester report issued in 2018 determined the following benefits of design thinking as of that time:

    • Reduced time required for initial design and alignment by 75%, resulting in $196K savings per minor project and $872K per major project.

    • Project teams leveraged better designs and user understanding to reduce development and testing time by at 33%. This equates to cost savings of $223K per minor project and $1.1M per major project.

    • Helped projects cut design defects in half. Projects were more successful in meeting user needs, thereby reducing design defects and subsequent rework to save $77K per minor project and $153K per major project.

    • Faster time-to-market increased profits by $182K per minor project and $1.1M per major project.

    • Human-centered design improved product outcomes, reduced the risk of costly failures, and increased portfolio profitability by $18.6M

    • Cross-functional teams collaborated to share problems and find solutions, reducing costs by $9.2M in streamlined processes.

    • Encouraged an empowered, engaged, and happy workforce.

    • Enhanced KPIs such as UI, UX, CX, NPS, and brand energy.

    • Perfected internal processes for HR, sales, and beyond.

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