Abstract
Design Thinking is a development that has recently attracted significant attention in the management discourse. The Institute of Information Management at the University of St.Gallen, the academic home of all three authors, has been conducting Design Thinking teaching and research for 10 years. In this study, Design Thinking is defined as: mindset, process, and toolbox. As a mindset, Design Thinking is characterized by several key principles: a combination of divergent and convergent thinking, a strong orientation to both obvious and hidden needs of customers and users, and prototyping. As a process, Design Thinking is seen as a combination of a micro- and a macro-process. The micro-process—as innovation process per se—consists of these steps: “Define the Problem”, “Needfinding and Synthesis”, “Ideate”, “Prototype” and “Test”. The macro-process consists of milestones manifested in prototypes that must fulfill defined requirements. As a toolbox, Design Thinking refers to the application of numerous methods and techniques from various disciplines: design, but also engineering, informatics, and psychology. Today, a growing number of companies, consulting firms, and universities use Design Thinking, continuously enlarging and re-defining its meaning. At University of St.Gallen, Design Thinking is taught as a problem-based course, together with research partner companies, with more than 40 projects successfully completed over the past 10 years. Research in Design Thinking at the University of St.Gallen focuses on aspects of modeling the Design Thinking processes and corporate entrepreneurship. In the near future, Design Thinking is expected to be deployed as an innovative method in corporations and also become an integral part of management education, particularly innovation. In addition, it will be developed further at the interface of design, design management and engineering sciences.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
https://www.audiunite.com/se/service/sv_unite.html, retrieved on 18 December 2014.
- 2.
https://profiles.stanford.edu/larry-leifer, retrieved on 22 January 2015.
- 3.
http://www.colani.de/, retrieved on 19 December 2014.
- 4.
http://www.bauhaus.de/de/, retrieved on 19 December 2014.
- 5.
http://web.stanford.edu/group/me310/me310_2014/, retrieved on 19 December 2014.
- 6.
http://dthsg.com/ retrieved on 19 December 2014.
- 7.
http://dschool.stanford.edu/, retrieved on 19 December 2014.
- 8.
http://web.stanford.edu/group/me310/me310_2014/about_design_process_big.html, retrieved on 19 December 2014. These websites provide an idea of Design Thinking education at Standford University’s Engineering Department.
- 9.
http://dthsg.com/phases/, retrieved on 19 December 2014.
- 10.
We would like to point out that the list of methods and tools is neither complete nor representative. We selected for this introduction a few tools to give a first glimpse into the tools that are used during Design Thinking projects.
- 11.
https://dschool.stanford.edu/wp-content/themes/dschool/method-cards/empathy-map.pdf, retrieved on 22 January 2015.
- 12.
http://www.drawingideasbook.com/images/AEIOU_worksheets.pdf, retrieved on 22 January 2015.
- 13.
http://www.strengthsfinder.com/, retrieved on 26 January 2015.
- 14.
http://web.stanford.edu/group/me310/me310_2014/, retrieved on 22 January 2015.
References
Abrell T, Durstewitz M (2014) User involvement in internal corporate venturing: the viewpoint of the corporate entrepreneur. In: CINet conference 2014, Budapest, pp 1–13
Abrell T, Uebernickel F (2014) Design thinking and corporate entrepreneurship: an exploratory study. In: Bohemia E, Rieple A, Liedtka J, Cooper R (eds) Proceedings of the 19th DMI: academic design management conference, London, pp 1887–1903
Abrell T, Durstewitz M, Uebernickel F (2014) Design thinking and effectuation in internal corporate venturing: an exploratory study. In: Toivonen M (ed) Proceedings 24th annual RESER conference services and new societal challenges: innovation for sustainable growth and welfare, Helsinki, 11–13 September, pp 7–15
Balzert H (1982) Die Entwicklung von Software-Systemen: Prinzipien, Methoden, Sprachen, Werkzeuge. Bibliographisches Institut, Mannheim
Brenner W, Witte C (2011) Business innovation: CIOs im Wettbewerb der Ideen. Frankfurter Allgemeine Buch, Frankfurt am Main
Brenner W, Karagiannis D, Kolbe L, Krüger J, Lamberti HJ, Leifer L, Leimeister JM, Österle H, Petrie C, Plattner H, Schwabe G, Uebernickel F, Winter R, Zarnekow R (2014) User, use and utility research. Wirtschaftsinformatik 56(1):65–72
Briggs-Myers I, Myers P (1995) Gifts differing: understanding personality type. Davies-Black Publishing, Mountain View, CA
Brown T (2008) Design Thinking. Harv Bus Rev June 2008:84–95
Brown T (2009) Change by design: how design thinking transforms organizations and inspires innovation. Harper Collins, New York
Cooper A (2004) Inmates are running the asylum: why high-tech products drive us crazy and how to restore the sanity. Sams Publishing, Indianapolis, IN, Retrieved on 15 Jan 2015 from: http://itu.dk/people/russel/B%F8ger/Pearson.-.The.Inmates.Are.Running.the.Asylum.pdf
Dorst K (2010) The nature of design thinking. In: Proceedings of the 8th design thinking research symposium, pp 19–20
Faste R, Roth B, Wilde DJ (1993) Integrating creativity into the mechanical engineering curriculum. ASME Resource Guide to Innovation in Eng. Design
Grand S, Jonas J (2012) Mapping design research. Birkhäuser, Basel
Hassi L, Laakso M (2011) Conceptions of design thinking in the design and management discourses. In: Roozenburg NFM, Chen LL, Stappers PJ (eds) Proceedings of IASDR2011, the 4th world conference on design research, Delft, pp 1–10
Johansson-Sköldberg U, Woodilla J, Çetinkaya M (2013) Design thinking: past, present and possible futures. Creat Innov Manag 22(2):121–146
Kelley T, Kelley D (2013) Creative confidence—unleashing the creative potential within us all. Crown Business, New York
Kumar V (2012) 101 design methods: a structured approach for driving innovation in your organization. Wiley, Hoboken, NJ
Kuratko DF, Morris MH, Covin JG (2011) Corporate entrepreneurship and innovation: entrepreneurial development within organizations, 3rd edn. South-Western Cengage Learning, Independence, KY, International edition
Leimeister JM, Winter R, Brenner W, Jung R (2014) Research Program “Digital business and transformation IWI-HSG” (Working Paper No. 1). Working paper series University of St.Gallen Institute of Information Management (IWI-HSG)
Lidwell W, Holden K, Butler J (2004) Design: Die 100 Prinzipien für erfolgreiche Gestaltung. Stiebner Verlag, München
Martin R (2009) The design of business: why design thinking is the next competitive advantage. Harvard Business Press, Boston, MA
Martin B, Hanington B (2013) Design Methoden: 100 Recherchemethoden und Analysetechniken für erfolgreiche Gestaltung. Stieber Verlag, München
Meinel C, Leifer L (2015) Introduction—design thinking is mainly about building innovators. In: Plattner H, Meinel C, Leifer L (eds) Design thinking research: building innovators. Springer, Cham, pp 1–14
Oesterle H (1981) Entwurf betrieblicher Informationssysteme. Hanser, München
Ohno T (1993) Das Toyota-Produktionssystem. Campus Verlag, Frankfurt
Oxford Dictionaries (2015). Retrieved on 3 Jan 2015 from http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/design
Plattner H, Meinel C, Weinberg U (2009) Design Thinking—Innovation lernen—Ideenwelten öffnen. Moderne Industrie, München
Quesenbery W, Brooks K (2011) Storytelling for user experience: crafting stories for better design. Rosenfeld Media, New York
Rappaport A (1986) Creating shareholder value: the new standard for business performance. Free Press, New York
Rhinow H, Meinel C (2014) Design thinking: expectations from a management perspective. In: Plattner H, Meinel C, Leifer L (eds) Design thinking research: building innovation eco-systems. Springer, Cham, pp 239–252
Rowe PG (1987) Design thinking. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA
Schindlholzer B (2014) Methode zur Entwicklung von Innovationen durch Design Thinking Coaching. Disseration, D-Druck Spescha, St.Gallen
Shamiyeh M (2010) Ways of bringing it about. In: Shamiyeh M (ed) Creating desired futures—how design thinking innovates business. Birkhäuser, Basel, pp 113–126
Simon H (1969) The sciences of the artificial. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA
Stanford University (2011) ME 310—Stanford design cycle. Stanford University, Stanford
Stanford University (2016) ME 310–Stanford design cycle. http://web.stanford.edu/group/me310/me316 2016/aboutdesignprocessbig.html. Accessed 01 Jan 2016
Stickdorn M, Schneider J (2011) This is service design thinking. Basics—Tools—Cases. BIS Publishers, Amsterdam
Thommen JP (2012) Betriebswirtschaftslehre. Versus Verlag, Zürich
Vetterli C, Uebernickel F, Brenner W (2012) Initialzündung durch Embedded Design Thinking—Ein Fallbeispiel aus der Finanzindustrie. Zeitschrift für Organisationsentwicklung 2:22–31
Wilde D (2009) Teamology: the construction and organization of effective teams. Springer, London
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Brenner, W., Uebernickel, F., Abrell, T. (2016). Design Thinking as Mindset, Process, and Toolbox. In: Brenner, W., Uebernickel, F. (eds) Design Thinking for Innovation. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-26100-3_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-26100-3_1
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-26098-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-26100-3
eBook Packages: Business and ManagementBusiness and Management (R0)