In this new episode of IseeQ’s TechTalk series, Ferenc Szalai, CTO at Navega Strategies, and prof. Ulrich Weinberg, Head of the School of Design Thinking at Hasso Plattner Institute, talk about the not-so-new, yet currently ever-so popular solution-based approach to solving problems, which is known as Design Thinking. In this short article you will only find our favourite bits of the discussion but if we have caught your interest, you can reach the whole of it on one of the links below, both in video or podcast formats.
The term ‘design thinking’ has been around since the late 1950s, when John E. Arnold first used it to define a creative approach to problem solving. Then the 1990s brought about an international series of research symposia in the topic, which led to the early 2000s, when Hasso Plattner founded the H.P. Institute of Design at Stanford University and shortly after prof. Weinberg was asked to establish and direct the School of Design Thinking at H.P.I. in Potsdam, Germany. “First we were focusing on students, and we found out pretty soon that design thinking is an approach that is helping not only individuals, but especially groups, teams, organisations and companies to reinvent themselves in a very good way”, prof. Weinberg tells about his first experiences in the field that also shape his view today.
Even though the phenomenon is becoming more widely known, Ferenc makes a smart remark on the idea that people still do not necessarily know what design thinking truly is and is not, which prof. Weinberg explains as follows: “what people were thinking at the beginning and what I still see at agencies today is that they’re dealing with design thinking as a user centered design, as just a method”. While there is indeed a method, there are two other highly important components that define design thinking, in his point of view. The aforementioned method is that of fluidity, which helps us get out of those linear, rigid process models of old times, and which includes iterations and non-linear activities. “So, the whole approach is still about how to solve complex problems better and how to come up with new ideas in a better way. In my perspective, the best way to achieve this is by setting up a complex setting, which means a little team from different disciplines, backgrounds and personalities, and to have them solve the problem collaboratively, not competitively” as being one of those two important parts of design thinking, according to prof. Weinberg, while  “the third component is the physical space”.
We have all experienced different office spaces, as well as we have all heard about the great debate on open offices. So, it is inevitable that Ferenc asks our guest about his take on what kind of office space cultivates innovation. “In Potsdam, we were focusing fully on the ‘we’ experience, the collaboration experience. So, we took everything out that represented the ‘I’ experience: the separation, the isolation, the IQ things. We focused on the WeQ, the ‘we’ qualities and that was on purpose because all of our participants were students coming out of a learning experience, which is fully ‘I-focused’ prof. Weinberg states. Unfortunately, the world of work is not this progressive, thus as prof. Weinberg points out, we need flexibility and the mixture of IQ and WeQ within the office space we are situated in. From his perspective, the ‘we’ component consists of four different areas: “there is the workspace, where the separate teams are working. Then you have the shared space, where the teams are collaborating. Then you have the makespace with all kinds of material, and you need a space for relaxation: the lounge”. On the other hand, “you also need a little area, where you can have a nice phone call on your own and an area, where you can sit one-on-one. This kind of flexibility should be offered in an office environment”. Therefore, when one is (re-)constructing an office according to the method of design thinking, they should at all times focus on the communal spaces and elements, while should also keep an eye on those catering to the individual needs.
Talking about teams and collaboration, Ferenc points out the importance of networks and slowly re-routes the discussion onto prof. Weinberg’s most recent book “Network Thinking: Beyond Brockhaus Thinking”. “I wrote the book because I was trying to find a pattern to describe the severeness of the paradigm shift we’re in right now: from analogue ways of thinking and doing to a digital, connected world” prof. Weinberg explains. He is actually using two different patterns to guide the readers through this aforementioned change: network thinking for one, as the pattern of the 21st century, while that of the last century he calls Brockhaus thinking. The latter concept he derives from the most famous German encyclopedia “Die Brockhaus Enzyklopädie” that was discontinued in 2014, when the publisher simply decided that this way of knowledge aggregation was over. It is indeed a valid observation, considering the fact that we now have Wikipedia, Google, and numerous other sources, which we have at our fingertips at any given time. Yet, these two patterns are at the core of prof. Weinberg’s book because he has noticed that they perfectly fit into the comparison of two different business models. “If I’m dealing with a startup, they’re drawing me that [the network type] picture, but if I’m talking to representatives of larger organisations – and we’re dealing with companies like Bosch, Siemens or Volkswagen -, they draw their rigid encyclopedic structure” says prof. Weinberg. It comes as no surprise, he agrees with the idea that larger corporations should adapt to these changes and should move forward, too, to which he confidently adds “but the next question is what should we do, how can we manoeuvre with 200.000 people, how can we do this? And my answer is design thinking. There are lots of agile frameworks and there’s a number of methods, but probably the most holistic way to approach that and to move from the old pattern to the new one is design thinking”. 
Our guests both agree that even if the so-called company decides to take the steps needed, such change can occur very slowly, can be very difficult. Prof. Weinberg explains this phenomenon as follows “we’re completely not trained to think this [network] way. We’re trained to think in a very linear way, in schools, in university; the whole education system is not preparing us, not even our kids to a world of the 21st century. The education system is still making people believe that separating things in better than connecting, separating different disciplines is better than connecting, individual grading is better than teamwork”. Coming to the mere realisation that we are constantly being taught in outdated manners that simply make it impossible for us to intuitively think and do things according to network thinking. Even nowadays, when we are all equipped with the latest technologies, we see and experience change, yet it can be hard to adapt to it. Therefore, we can agree on the fact that a change in the mindsets of people should be done, globally and at fundamentally, which starts nowhere else but in the education system itself.
When Ferenc takes it one step further and asks what companies usually misunderstand or do wrong in applying design thinking, prof. Weinberg answers “they underestimate the learning curve, which is involved. That it’s not just a thing you introduce, but changing the mindset – which is established over a period of maybe 15 years – takes a while, and that it takes a whole training process”. He explains by telling us about his hands-on experience with Bosch, where they have been working with hundreds of people over a longer period of time, training them to become enablers themselves within their own organisation, thereby setting up a snowball effect in the system. Furthermore, prof. Weinberg believes that in order for this cultural shift to happen, it is inevitable to forsake individual incentives and to inaugurate openness and acceptance. It is important to provide the opportunity to people residing at all levels in the organisation to talk about mistakes, to admit if something is not going well, without fearing the loss of their positions. Failure should at all times be considered as a natural part of the aforementioned learning curve. However, Ferenc brings in an interesting perspective by looking at organisations dealing with machine learning and/or artificial intelligence, fields that would suggest there is no way to move forward or to apply the methods of design thinking in practice. Here, prof. Weinberg points out the one part they have not tackled yet in their discussion, which is the human centeredness of design thinking. “Now we’re moving into an era, in which we’re confronted with pieces of technology that are affecting our lives, […] and I think design thinking can help very much to really figure out what kind of products, services, systems we actually want to have as humans. Right now, I see the whole tech industry being too much driven by “let’s just do everything that we’re able to do”. I don’t think that in the long run we need everything that we’re capable of. I think we have to intensively control our capacities in a way that it really makes sense for us humans” he adds. Meaning that some of the currently existing technologies are of non-necessity, as well as it is becoming ever-so clear that they can actually be causing more problems than they are solving.
Prof. Weinberg moves onto explaining this phenomenon of ‘oversupply’ by naming the reason for it to be this remaining disconnected way of thinking. “That is because there are specialists in a certain field, in a certain column and they’re competing with the other specialists in that certain column. And they’re not really speaking with the others. They’re not looking at the holistic impact of the things they’re actually doing, because they’re not trained to do so” he states. Simply put, we have specialists who only have their individual incentives to be better in mind, and who do not necessarily take into consideration the actual needs of the people. It would therefore be important for them, for us, to start thinking in a more interconnected way.

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