Can design thinking be applied to the strategic planning of any organization? At first glance, it might seem like these concepts and practices are only related in a context tied to the arts or design itself. But that's not all there is to it.
There's a lot in the design thinking process that can be leveraged to enhance your planning, making this combination very beneficial in the pursuit of results. Read on, we'll help you understand this issue better!
But, after all, what is design thinking?
Design thinking is the critical and creative process that allows the designer—or anyone who adopts it—to carefully perceive a situation and identify opportunities to create truly suitable solutions.
It seems magical, but it's not. If you decide to apply design thinking in your company, you'll notice that it takes a while for you and your colleagues to be able to make this process effective.
However, you'll soon understand how it works and gradually turn it into something very intuitive and useful in your daily life.
Therefore, it's important to know that design thinking begins with a moment of immersion, in which it's necessary to observe the situation or problem and try to understand it on all levels, according to everyone involved. In other words, impartially.
From this, it's possible to make a good analysis, capable of supporting the process of creating or developing a solution that should be tested and then put into practice.
Design thinking applied to strategic planning
By now, you may have made mental associations that allow you to understand that, in order to solve a situation or problem and achieve the result, design thinking does, in fact, have something similar to strategic planning.
But stopping there is a superficial analysis, since our goal is to truly relate the concepts and apply them together, aiming to help your company grow.
Whatever tool used for the development of the strategic plan in your company, it is important to know that design thinking does not appear as a substitute, but as an addition to the process.
It is he who will allow you to identify, in a more creative and realistic way, which actions should be executed and how they should be done, what the opportunities are and how to best take advantage of them.
In summary, design thinking exists to bring a less rigid vision to the planning process, broadening ideas and chances of success at each stage.
How do we actually make all of this work out?
There's no way to hide it. The merger between design thinking and strategic planning is increasingly being considered in the daily routines of companies of various natures. If you've arrived here thinking of doing the same (which is great), you'll probably be looking for ways to inform yourself and prepare even better.
In this process, there's a chance you'll come across accounts from those who believe the effort isn't worth it. There's even an article published by Bruce Nussbaum, who was once one of the biggest proponents of the process, stating that the “decade of design thinking is ending” and it's time to move on.
Why, then, are we still talking about this subject? Because the main point of Nussbaum's criticism is that companies have stopped achieving good results with design thinking because they have transformed it into a linear process.
If you pay close attention, at the very beginning of this article, design thinking is presented as a creative process, and if a word to the wise is sufficient, there should be no linearity here!
Of course, strategic planning itself needs more linearity, but, as seen, one process should not replace the other but complement it. Therefore, know that it is possible to combine all this and achieve success, as long as creativity has room in management model of your company.
So, do you believe that applying design thinking to strategic planning can help your company achieve better results? Leave your comment!
