- Starting a design thinking process in your organization
isn't necessarily easy.
One of the biggest issues
is going to be the people you work with.
People are used to doing things
the way they've always done them.
They don't like trying new things.
Lots of the people you work with
probably report into different areas of the organization,
different silos, to use organization speak.
And so they have no real incentive to listen to you
when you say you want to try something different.
The sad thing is the way they create products now
could be horribly inefficient,
and it probably leaves them with no real verification
they're on the right path
till after they've launched the product.
But it's the process they know,
and that means that I'll stick to it.
You're about to ask these people
to do probably the scariest thing they've had to do at work
in several years.
You're going to ask them to stop doing their regular day job
for a whole week or even two weeks,
and sit in a room with a bunch of other people
without a clear idea of what the outcome will be.
You're going to have to help them get over that fear,
by replacing it with a sense of hopeful anticipation.
I have a simple strategy to help you out.
Now, overall, the design thinking process is intended
to reduce the number of meetings you need to hold
because you bring everyone together in the same room
and reach a common understanding.
But when you're initially selling the idea,
you'll be doing quite a lot of evangelism.
In other words, you'll be in a lot of meetings.
I'm not talking about meetings where you ask for permission
to run the design thinking session.
Instead, I'm talking about meetings where you sell the idea
of design thinking to the people who you want to attend
the actual session.
First, identify the influential people
in each of the groups you work with,
who are flexible and open to trying out new ideas.
Now, meet with these people one at a time and face-to-face.
Tell them what you're trying to achieve.
Tell them why you need their involvement.
Ask them what they dislike most
about the current way that products are developed.
The idea is to find the one thing you can use
to sell them on design thinking.
Then, they'll be on your side,
and will help get their department on board.
For instance, legal, marketing, and operations
tend to complain about being brought on board too late.
Developers complain that they don't get to see
the big picture for the project,
things like business justifications or customer needs.
Planners tend to be upset about time delays
caused by poor initial estimates.
Help them see how the one week of their time
replaces endless meetings in the future
and leaves everyone in the room on the same page.
Having everyone in from the beginning
lets ops, legal, and marketing flag any issues
and start planning much further in advance.
Developers can see the business or regulatory reasons
why things might have to be built a certain way
so they can think about
the technological requirements more clearly.
This also leads to better time estimates
for each area of the work,
so planning gets off to a better start too.
What you're doing in these meetings
is selling the idea of design thinking.
You're picking up on the thing
that hurts each individual the most
and showing how design thinking can help with that.
As you get more people on board,
you can mention that in each of your subsequent meetings.
The very fact that other groups have agreed to take part
will make it easier for you
to convince people to participate.