- I really hope that by walking through the steps
involved in a design thinking exercise,
I've helped you to see that it's not just possible
for you to run the process yourself
but it's actually preferable.
There are lots of digital agencies out there,
Many of them are pushing design thinking style processes
in one form or another,
and for good reason, the process works.
However, unless the agency is committed
to sitting with your development team
until after you've released several iterations
of the product, they just aren't
as committed as they need to be.
The agency model doesn't lend itself
to embedding with a team, it's much easier
to create a couple of hero shots
of what the UI could look like,
wrap the research up in some glossy presentation slides,
sell the concept to an executive in your company,
and then leave the implementation up to you.
That's crazy.
The real work comes when you have
to turn those pretty pictures into a working prototype
and then into a full blown product.
If you're working with an agency
who are using design thinking processes,
insist that they're involved with your team,
at least until you've tested and refined
a paper prototype and a story map or other planning document
that determines the order in which you'll turn
the prototype into reality.
My preference though is to teach internal teams
at your company how to do design thinking themselves.
Sometimes I hear executives worrying
that their internal teams
are not as creative as agency staff.
That's not true.
The creative process is just that, a process.
Design thinking is a fancy name for that creative process.
If the team is freed up to follow
the design thinking process,
it's amazing how creative they can be.
With the added benefit that they really know
that business and customer types much better
than any agency could ever hope to.