Design thinking, a problem-solving approach that emphasizes empathy, ideation, prototyping, and iteration, can be effectively applied in the field of strategy and innovation. Here are some ways in which design thinking can be used in this context:
Customer-Centric Strategy Development: Design thinking starts with understanding the needs and desires of customers. By applying design thinking principles, organizations can gain deep insights into their customers’ experiences, pain points, and aspirations. This customer-centric approach helps in formulating strategies that are focused on delivering value and creating a competitive advantage.
Opportunity Identification: Design thinking encourages organizations to identify and explore new opportunities for innovation. By observing and empathizing with users, as well as analyzing trends and market dynamics, design thinking can uncover unmet needs and identify areas where innovation can thrive. This helps organizations stay ahead of the curve and identify strategic growth areas.
Ideation and Concept Development: Design thinking fosters a culture of ideation and creative problem-solving. It involves brainstorming and generating a wide range of ideas, which can lead to breakthrough concepts and innovations. By applying design thinking methods, organizations can encourage cross-functional collaboration and generate diverse perspectives to drive strategic and innovative thinking.
Rapid Prototyping and Testing: Design thinking emphasizes the importance of prototyping and iterative testing. In the field of strategy and innovation, this approach allows organizations to quickly test new ideas, concepts, and strategies in a low-risk environment. Prototyping can take various forms, such as mock-ups, storyboards, or even digital simulations. By obtaining early feedback and iterating based on user insights, organizations can refine their strategies and innovations before full-scale implementation.
Human-Centered Business Models: Design thinking challenges organizations to rethink their business models from a human-centered perspective. It encourages organizations to understand the ecosystem in which they operate, the stakeholders involved, and the value exchanges between them. By using design thinking, organizations can identify innovative ways to create, deliver, and capture value, leading to sustainable and customer-centric business models.
Designing Customer Experiences: Design thinking can also be applied to enhance customer experiences. By mapping out the customer journey, organizations can identify pain points and opportunities for improvement. Through iterative design and testing, organizations can create compelling and memorable experiences that differentiate them from competitors and foster customer loyalty.
Overall, design thinking brings a fresh perspective to strategy and innovation by placing the customer at the center of the process, promoting creativity, and encouraging iterative experimentation. By applying design thinking principles, organizations can drive strategic growth, foster innovation, and create products, services, and experiences that truly resonate with their customers. Let’s explore a case study that demonstrates the application of design thinking in the development of a new product.
Case Study: Design Thinking in Product Development
Company Background: XYZ Corp is a technology company specializing in smart home automation solutions. They aim to create innovative products that enhance the convenience and comfort of users’ daily lives.
Challenge: XYZ Corp identified the need for a new product that would simplify the control and management of various smart devices within a home. The challenge was to design a user-friendly interface and system that would seamlessly integrate with different devices and provide a unified control experience for users.
Design Thinking Process:
- Empathize: The XYZ Corp team began by conducting user research and interviews with homeowners to understand their pain points and challenges related to managing smart devices. They observed how users interacted with their devices, identified frustrations, and noted areas for improvement.
- Define: Based on the insights gained from empathy, the team defined the problem statement: “How might we create a user-friendly interface that simplifies the control and management of diverse smart devices in a home?”
- Ideate: The team conducted brainstorming sessions, involving cross-functional team members from design, engineering, and marketing, to generate ideas for a solution. They encouraged free thinking, encouraged wild ideas, and focused on creating a unified control experience. Ideas included voice control, intuitive mobile apps, and a central hub.
- Prototype: To bring their ideas to life, the team developed low-fidelity prototypes of different concepts. They created paper prototypes, interactive wireframes, and digital simulations to test various interaction patterns and visual designs. Prototypes were quickly iterated based on user feedback and technical feasibility.
- Test: The team conducted usability tests with potential users, allowing them to interact with the prototypes and provide feedback. They observed how users navigated through the interface, identified pain points, and gathered suggestions for improvement. This iterative testing process helped refine the design and prioritize features.
- Implement: With a refined design, XYZ Corp proceeded with the implementation of the product. They collaborated closely with the engineering team to ensure the feasibility of the design while maintaining the user-centric approach. The team also considered scalability and compatibility with different smart devices.
- Launch and Iterate: The product was launched in the market, and XYZ Corp closely monitored user feedback and behavior. They collected data on user interactions and satisfaction levels to further improve the product. Regular updates and feature additions were released based on user feedback and evolving market trends.
Results: Through the application of design thinking, XYZ Corp successfully developed a user-friendly smart home control system. The product provided a seamless and intuitive interface, allowing users to manage their smart devices effortlessly. User feedback indicated high satisfaction with the ease of use and the enhanced convenience the product offered. The iterative process also enabled XYZ Corp to stay responsive to user needs and continuously improve the product based on real-world usage.
This case study demonstrates how design thinking can drive innovation in product development, ensuring that the end product addresses user needs, delivers an exceptional user experience, and aligns with the organization’s goals and values.
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Design thinking is a problem-solving approach that is used by various individuals and organizations across different industries. Here are some examples of who uses design thinking:
Designers: Designers, including graphic designers, industrial designers, and user experience (UX) designers, often apply design thinking principles to create innovative and user-centered solutions.
Product Managers: Product managers use design thinking to understand customer needs, identify opportunities, and develop new products or improve existing ones.
Entrepreneurs and Startups: Design thinking is widely used by entrepreneurs and startups to develop and refine business ideas, design user-friendly products, and create compelling customer experiences.
Engineers and Developers: Engineers and developers incorporate design thinking to solve technical problems and create efficient, user-friendly solutions.
Educators: Design thinking is increasingly adopted in educational settings to foster creativity, problem-solving skills, and collaboration among students. It is used in disciplines such as STEM education, business, and design schools.
Non-profit Organizations: Non-profit organizations employ design thinking to address social and environmental challenges. It helps them understand the needs of communities, design effective interventions, and create sustainable solutions.
Healthcare Professionals: Design thinking is utilized in healthcare to enhance patient experiences, improve healthcare delivery systems, and develop innovative medical devices and technologies.
Government Agencies: Government agencies apply design thinking to better understand citizens’ needs, create user-friendly public services, and develop policies and programs that address societal challenges.
Marketing and Advertising Professionals: Marketing and advertising professionals employ design thinking to gain insights into consumer behavior, develop creative campaigns, and design engaging experiences.
Financial Institutions: Banks, insurance companies, and other financial institutions use design thinking to improve customer experiences, develop user-friendly interfaces for digital platforms, and create innovative financial products and services.
It’s worth noting that design thinking principles can be applied by individuals and organizations in almost any industry or field to foster innovation, problem-solving, and user-centered approaches.
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Here’s an example to illustrate how Pareto’s law can be applied in prioritizing and ordering problems:
Let’s say you’re a manager in a software development company, and you want to improve the overall efficiency and productivity of your team. You have identified several potential issues that could be hindering their performance:
- Poor code documentation
- Inadequate communication between team members
- Outdated software development tools
- Insufficient training in new technologies
- Inconsistent task prioritization
To apply Pareto’s law, you would first evaluate the impact of each problem or cause. Let’s say you assess the impact on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest:
- Poor code documentation: Impact = 7
- Inadequate communication between team members: Impact = 8
- Outdated software development tools: Impact = 5
- Insufficient training in new technologies: Impact = 9
- Inconsistent task prioritization: Impact = 6
Next, you would rank the problems based on their impact:
- Insufficient training in new technologies (9)
- Inadequate communication between team members (8)
- Poor code documentation (7)
- Inconsistent task prioritization (6)
- Outdated software development tools (5)
According to Pareto’s law, the vital few causes would be the top 20%, which, in this case, would be the top problem or the top two problems. So, in this example, the vital few causes are:
- Insufficient training in new technologies
- Inadequate communication between team members
As a result, you would prioritize these two problems and allocate your resources and efforts to address them first. By focusing on the vital few, you can have a significant impact on improving the overall efficiency and productivity of your software development team.
Once you have effectively addressed the vital few causes, you can then move on to addressing the remaining problems in the list, which are the trivial many. Although they may still need attention, their impact is comparatively lower, and they can be tackled in a more efficient manner after the vital few have been resolved.
By applying Pareto’s law, you can ensure that you’re investing your time, energy, and resources where they will make the most substantial difference, leading to better outcomes in problem-solving and prioritization.
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Pareto’s law, also known as the 80/20 rule or the principle of the vital few, states that for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. This principle was named after Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, who observed this pattern in wealth distribution in society.
Pareto’s law has been found to apply to a wide range of phenomena in various fields, including business, economics, time management, and problem-solving. When applied to problem-solving or prioritization, Pareto’s law suggests that a small number of problems or causes are responsible for the majority of the negative effects or outcomes.
By understanding and utilizing Pareto’s law, you can effectively prioritize and order problems by focusing on the vital few causes that have the greatest impact. Here’s how you can apply it:
Identify the problem: Begin by listing all the problems or causes you want to address.
Evaluate the impact: Assess the impact of each problem or cause. Determine the negative effects they have on your desired outcome or objective. This could be based on data, feedback, or expert judgment.
Rank the problems: Order the problems or causes based on their relative impact. The vital few causes will typically contribute to the majority of the negative effects, while the trivial many will have less impact.
Prioritize the vital few: Focus your attention and resources on the vital few causes that have the most significant impact. By addressing these first, you can maximize your efforts and achieve the greatest results.
Address the trivial many: While the vital few causes should take precedence, it’s also important to address the remaining problems or causes to ensure comprehensive problem-solving. Allocate resources accordingly but keep in mind that their impact may be comparatively smaller.
By following Pareto’s law, you can avoid spreading your efforts too thin across a large number of problems. Instead, you concentrate on the crucial few causes that will yield the most substantial improvements or resolutions. This approach allows for more efficient problem-solving and resource allocation, leading to better outcomes overall.
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Design thinking is an iterative problem-solving method that focuses on understanding user needs, generating creative ideas, and prototyping and testing solutions. While the specific stages may vary depending on the source or framework, here are the key stages commonly associated with the design thinking method:
Empathize: This stage involves gaining a deep understanding of the problem or challenge by empathizing with the users and stakeholders. It requires conducting research, interviews, observations, and other methods to gather insights and uncover the needs, motivations, and pain points of the people you are designing for.
Define: In this stage, the information gathered during the empathize stage is synthesized to define a clear and actionable problem statement or design challenge. It involves analyzing the research data, identifying patterns, and reframing the problem to focus on the specific needs and goals of the users.
Ideate: This stage is all about generating a wide range of creative ideas and potential solutions. It encourages brainstorming and encourages participants to think outside the box. The emphasis is on quantity, not quality, and it’s important to suspend judgment and encourage wild ideas. Various ideation techniques such as mind mapping, sketching, and prototyping can be used to stimulate idea generation.
Prototype: Prototyping involves creating tangible representations of ideas and concepts. This can range from low-fidelity prototypes such as sketches or simple models to high-fidelity prototypes that closely resemble the final product or solution. The goal is to quickly and cheaply test and gather feedback on the proposed ideas.
Test: The testing stage involves gathering feedback and insights on the prototypes from the users and stakeholders. The aim is to evaluate the feasibility, desirability, and effectiveness of the proposed solutions. It may require conducting user tests, interviews, or observations to understand how well the prototype addresses the user’s needs and whether any modifications are needed.
Iterate: Based on the feedback and insights gained from testing, the design thinking process involves refining and iterating on the solutions. This may involve going back to any of the previous stages to gain further insights, redefine the problem, generate new ideas, or create improved prototypes. The iterative nature of design thinking allows for continuous improvement and refinement of the solutions until the desired outcome is achieved.
It’s important to note that design thinking is a flexible approach, and the stages can overlap or be revisited as needed. The process encourages an open mindset, collaboration, and a user-centered approach to problem-solving.
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Total Quality Management (TQM) is a structured system focused on satisfying customers by involving all members of an organization in improving the quality of products, processes, and resources. Sustained customer satisfaction, its main objective, is accomplished through systematic methods for problem solving, breakthrough achievement, and standardization derived from teaching quality leaders such as Philip B. Crosby, W. Edwards Deming, Armand V. Feigenbaum, Kaoru Ishikawa, and Joseph M. Juran. There are no hard-line procedures for implementing TQM. The PDCA cycle, also known as the Shewhart Cycle or the Deming Cycle, is a popular TQM problem-solving tool.
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Have you ever confronted a situation doing hard work the whole day and at the end you realize that most of the time had been given by you and your team to the Non Value Added things! 
One of the important aspects of the leadership in today’s competitive world is Prioritization. It helps to save time and money as you will be able to focus on what is important at the expense of lower value activities. Prioritizing skills are your ability to see what tasks are more important at each moment and give those tasks more of your attention, energy, and time.
We all have so much on hand to do and really speaking so much time to finish the things up. But we lack the skill to manage our work with the time. We mostly forget to take up the important things first and less significant work later. Instead, we do completely opposite to this. This is human nature as we all do the same thing in our day to day lives.
This issue is pertinent not only at an individual level, but even at organizational level. Organizations focus on the wrong reasons or causes and waste a lot of effort to solve a problem or improve their business.
How to improve upon it?
Lean Six Sigma teaches a very useful technique of prioritization to overcome this problem which is a mother of our all the other problems.
Pareto Analysis is based on 80/20 rule which says that our 20% efforts (out of the whole 100%) will give 80% of the benefits. This can be interpreted in many different ways like, for sales people 80% of the orders will come from the 20% of the customers, for team managers 20% people of the whole team shall give 80% of the work or results. Here, we should keep in mind that this doesn’t mean that the rest 20% is not important at all but can be said as less significant.
To generalize, 80% of the problem is caused by 20% of the reasons!
Thus using the Pareto principle, we can derive maximum impact with minimum effort and within short time span, if we focus on the right factors. Simple it is, right?
Before understanding the benefits of Pareto Analysis there are certain facts to be known about it. They are as under:
- This principle was developed in the year 1896 and is named after Vilfredo Pareto who was an Italian engineer, sociologist, economist, political scientist, and philosopher.
- Pareto derived this concept by his work and experience and observed that 80% of the wealth in Italy belonged to 20% of the people.
- In the year 1941, Dr, Joseph Juran who was an evangelist of quality and quality management as he was an engineer and a management consultant cam across the concept of Pareto Principle. He then started applying the principle in the quality and derived a phrase through experience that is “there are vital few and useful many”.
- The Pareto Principle can be implemented in many different aspects such as in science, management, business, in software, in sports, occupational health and safety, financial service industry, and implementing projects which says that put 80% of your time in 20% of your project which will save a lot of your time and energy.
- Pareto principle can be graphically represented by Pareto Chart that contains bothbars and a line graph, where individual values are represented in descending order by bars, and the cumulative total is represented by the line.
With an example given as under you will be able to understand why to focus on significant few:
Our Online Lean Six Sigma Green Belt Certification course teaches you step by step procedure to construct a pareto chart, different pareto variants and how to interpret them. More importantly it covers when and when not to apply pareto principle.
Benefits of Pareto Analysis:
- Improved Decision Making: With a focus on resolving problems, the procedures and processes required to make the changes should be documented during a Pareto analysis. This documentation will enable better preparation and improvements in decision making for future changes.
- Increased Efficiency: Once the changes or problems are listed, they are ranked in order from the biggest to the least severe. The problems ranked highest in severity should become the main focus for problem resolution or improvement. Focusing on causes and problem resolution contributes to organizational efficiency.
- Enhanced Problem Solving Technique: Members of a group can conduct a Pareto analysis together. Arriving at a group consensus about the issues that require change fosters organizational learning and increases group cohesiveness. Lean Six Sigma Green Belt Certification course shall help the individuals of the company learn many tools along with Pareto Analysis which shall also help him or her to boost their careers.
- Saves Time and Money: Doing right things at the right time with right people and at the right place is naturally going to save time and money and this has to be calculated by multiplying the time with the number of individuals involved in the process.
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As we all know that there are different levels of certification in Lean Six Sigma and these levels have been associated with “Belt” titles. It’s a very obvious question that why the levels here have been associated with the titles used in Martial Arts? That is because of the association of discipline and rigor in Lean Six Sigma similar to the martial arts.
You would find four commonly used belt titles in Six Sigma Certification and they are Yellow Belt, Green Belt, Black Belt and Master Black Belt. However, the most basic level in Lean Six Sigma is sometimes called as “White Belt”. A White Belt understands the theoretical aspects but virtually no application knowledge of the Lean Six Sigma concept. One could say this is an entry level awareness program. Let us understand one by one, the four belts mentioned above.
- Yellow Belt: A Yellow Belt is someone who has undergone a basic training program that is may be a day’s training with a basic level of understanding of the quantitative part of the concept. He or she is able to appreciate the goals of Lean Six Sigma. Having knowledge of Yellow Belt level means that person is able to apply basic tools in the company and undertake simple improvement projects. Usually the organization who wants to implement Lean Six Sigma wants all their employees to be at least Yellow Belt trained as this makes the implementation and change management easier and faster.
- Green Belt: Lean Six Sigma Green Belt receives a training of at least one week with emphasis on DMAIC method and tools. DMAIC is problem solving methodology which stands for Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control through which he/she is able to undertake improvement projects in his/her process which improves customer satisfaction and efficiency of the process. Green Belts are also called as “Work Horses” having the following responsibilities:
- Initial analysis of company like Gemba Walk and Data Analysis which will be helpful in defining the road map of the project.
- Define the project and prepare the project charter.
- All over co-ordination with management, yellow belts, black belts and master black belts.
- Facilitate the team through all phases of the project.
- Provide training to the team for effectiveness of the implementation.
- Black Belt: A black belt is someone who receives at least 3 to 4 weeks of extensive training with the emphases on DMAIC method and tools which is explained as above. Unlike a green belt, black belt is a full time role who has the responsibility to run large scale high impact improvement projects where he mentors and coaches green belts. Responsibilities of a black belt are listed as under:
- Helps in deciding the project.
- Helps in refining the project charter and makes sure that the things are moving in the desired direction.
- Leads, mentors and coaches green and yellow belts and champions.
- Empowers the team members to design experiments and analyse the data required for the project.
- Provide training in tools and team functions to project team members.
- Makes sure that the project succeeds.
- Maintains balance between Management, Employees and Customer’s needs.
- Manages the team for effectiveness and efficiency.
- Master Black Belt: It is usually a leadership role having excellent change management skills along with having good technical knowledge. After completion of the black belt course and having good experience he/she receives additional 3 to four weeks of training mostly around change management and statistics. MBB’s primary role is to deploy six sigma concepts in the organization, advice to executives or business unit managers, and leverages, his/her skills with projects that are led by black belts and green belts. A Master Black Belt reports the senior or top management and coaches the black belts and Green Belts. Responsibilities of Master Black Belts are enumerated as under:
- Provides guidance to senior executives and top level managers on Six Sigma management.
- Help identify and prioritize key project areas in keeping with strategic initiatives.
- Continually improve and innovate the organization’s Six Sigma process.
- Apply Six Sigma across both operations and transactions-based processes such as Sales, HR, IT, Facility Management, etc.
If you want to start your journey in Lean Six Sigma, its best you start by understanding some of the basics of Lean Six Sigma. Our Lean Six Sigma Primer Course is Free and it gives a great deal of information on Six Sigma. From there on you could more to Yellow Belt and Green Belt. This approach is pragmatic because it optimizes your investment of resources, time and effort.
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As a business analyst you are often expected to act as a bridge between a functional domain and the business stakeholders. Business analysts must be great verbal and written communicators, tactful diplomats, problem solvers, thinkers and analyzers. Though you have been extensive training in project management and related areas, using systematic business and management tools such as graphical analysis, data distribution & visualization, statistical discovery, etc are considered to be difficult by many Business Analysts.
Fortunately Lean Six Sigma, which is process improvement methodology provides many of the tools that can be handy for Business Analysts at one place. It comprises of statistical tools and techniques along with visualization tools. There are many tools such as Visual Analysis & Data Discovery tools like Fish-bone, 5 why, in scope-Out scope, Box plots and analytical tools like MSA, Descriptive Statistics, Variation, Correlation and Regression. They are explained in brief as under:
Visual Tools:
There are many tools which a business analyst will learn from Lean Six Sigma Green Belt Certification. We’ll talk about few Visual analysis tools from Lean Six Sigma in brief as under:
- Fish Bone Diagram also called as Cause and Effect Diagram helps to reach the root cause of any business issue. The important characteristic of this tool is to categorize the issue into 6 different aspects like Men, Machine, Material, Measurement, Method and Mother Nature (Environment). This will help the analyst prioritize the problem and solve the problem in a systematic manner.
- Another tool for root cause analysis is 5-Why which involves repeating the question “Why” where each question forms the base of the next question and this will go on until the root cause is found. All the questions and answers of the 5 Why, are placed on a sheet of paper with the help of which the analyst can view the whole picture in a single page.
- Box plot is a quick way of visualization of data and is represented in the form of box & whiskers. It helps in scrutinizing and comparing sets of data which demonstrates the variation in the sample data set.
- Statistical process control (SPC) is method of measuring and controlling KPIs of any process. AKA control charts, this helps to proactively identify issues from data. It is a great tool for continuous monitoring of process parameters both in service and manufacturing processes.
- Run charts are similar to control charts and suggest shifts in the process over a period of time and points out special factors which influence the process variability.
- FMEA stands for Failure Modes and Effect Analysis which is an approach to identify all possible failures in any process. Like doing analysis of how and where we can fail so as to take precaution before even starting the implementation of any project. This is a very important element for the success of any project which will help a business analyst in his/her daily management.
Analytical Tools:
Here are few examples of data discovery analytical tools that a Business Analyst will learn from Six Sigma.
- Quite often Business Analysts struggle with poor data quality. MSA aka Measurement System Analysis is a Lean Six Sigma tool used to evaluate that whether the data collection method, the instruments/source used for measuring and whole measurement is precise & accurate or not. This is also used to ensure the integrity of data used for analysis and gauge the effects of errors in measurement used to make decisions taken for product or processes.
- Descriptive statistics includes the assessment of central tendency and measures of dispersion in the any data set. Further it helps to identify skewness, kurtosis, outliers, and specific patterns in the distribution.
- Analysis of Variance abstracted as ANOVA is a statistical hypothesis test used to identify significant factors that cause a particular business issue. The biggest the merit of such advanced statistical methods is in confidence & credibility that a Business Analyst can provide to the leadership and management on his analysis and conclusions.
- Correlation & Regression are similar tools used to establish a relationship between the two business variables such as revenue and capacity. By validating such relationships, the Business Analyst can bring out significant insights to the management.
A business analyst having Green Belt Certification shall have a comprehensive understanding of Lean six sigma and shall be able to apply its tenets to their daily work. The principles of Six Sigma are so widely applicable that employees getting trained are highly valued and aggressively sought after. Lean Six Sigma Certification will be a stepping stone for professionals to a higher level as you avail expertise in different problem solving tools and techniques of Lean Six Sigma.
