- Working through the design thinking process
gives you confidence that you'll be developing a product
that customers need and want.
You'll start the development process knowing
that you've got a solution
that will work for your target audience.
That's a major departure from how most projects are run.
Rather than taking the first few months of a project
to work out exactly what it is you're building and why,
you start with a good overview
of where you want to end up.
Now, your development methodology
will carry the iterative process forward.
As I've mentioned several times during this course,
design thinking lends itself to a lean
or agile approach to product development.
The design thinking process can be seen
as a sprint zero type of activity
or customer development and validated learning.
Of course, the information you get
from the design thinking process,
doesn't lose its value
once you move forward into code.
Customers' pain points remain the same.
Your product goals remain the same.
You'll still run frequent validation exercises
like user testing or metrics analysis.
In other words, design thinking sets the scene for
how the team will approach the whole development process.
They'll have a set of shared experiences
where they learn about who their customers really are.
They'll have a common understanding of
why the product is being built the way it is.
And they'll be much more confident
in making design decisions as the product matures.