Thanks to Twitter I've connected with several new and interesting people in the innovation space during the past couple of weeks. One of them is Ralf Beuker who has written a good blog entry on design-thinking that should strike a chord with many in our community. What is design-thinking? Is it a process? A mind-set? A profession?
Accordingly, our view on 'Design Thinking' is not so much related to a profession itself, but rather a question of mindset. In this sense 'Design Thinking' is rather an attitude than exclusive to a profession....As a matter of fact 'Design Thinkers' will develop similar frameworks that approach a problem or issue from different angles and free themselves to stick to traditional definitions and models. Again it's not about 'right' or 'wrong', but rather about yes/and!
Ralf Beuker at Vol. 2: The Design Management WeblogThe BIF TakeawayThere is definitive value in the designer's approach to solving problems which can be applied to all components of businessAnd I think there are two reasons for this: First, designers have a mindset that welcomes opposing models. And second, the designer's process puts the customer at the center of the value proposition.
Roger Martin, Dean of the Rotman School at the University of Toronto, argues that economic value creation will only be found if organizations shift from "an obsession with reliability" to a "welcoming environment for validity." In searching for creative solutions to problems, designers tend to embrace complexity, tolerate uncertainty and manage tension. This is exactly the mindset required when an organization wants to tackle value generation outside its current operating model.
So the question facing all leaders is how to keep current business models reliably producing while at the same time, experimenting with new and valid ways to deliver value?
When it comes to R&D, many companies are quite skilled at designing experiments to test out possible combinations of features and functions to deliver the next great product or service. But those same companies have no similar sets of processes when it comes to designing the next great business model. And that's a problem.
Here at the Business Innovation Factory (BIF), we believe the CEO of tomorrow will have to change their business model several times over the course of a career and consequently, must establish an ongoing process to explore new business models (even models that might threaten the current one). What's needed is a 'safe haven' for experimentation - an R&D lab for new business models. By relying on an iterative approach to validation, BIF is building a platform to explore and experiment with new business models much in the same way new products and technologies are tested today.
Imagine a time when an established company can have a sense of how a collection of possible future business models is faring within any given series of experiments and where risk is measured and shaped by valid experimentation processes and protocols. That should be the outcome of any good R&D effort.
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