Design Advantage : The Secret to Creating Long-Term Value 8
Derived from: Roger Martin’s The Design of Business
RAP6 : Building Within
PROFIT : Adding Design Thinking to your organization is not like adding a coat of paint. It’s more like rebuilding a new house from the inside. It’s a cultural change that requires a re-think, re-work and dare I say it, a re-design. Here’s ten clues to get you started…
1 Words 
Analyticals and Intuitives speak a different language. One speaks ‘business’: reliability, proof, statistics. The other speaks ‘design’: possible outcomes, futures and alternatives. Start some language training! Go bi-lingual!
2 Clarity
Establish some clear expectations about what’s going to happen, how it’s going to happen and what it’s going to look like when you become a Design Thinking organization. Also check timeframes. It may take 5 years to make the transition.
3 Traction
Start Design Thinking where you can get the most traction – ideally, where it already exists in your organization. Marketing may not be the obvious choice – they may be creative and they don’t necessarily operate like designers.
4 Help!
Recruit the best design talent you can. And, look for partnerships with other organizations that value design and do it well. Work experience in a design office might be a useful program to implement for your team.
5 Culture
A shift to Design Thinking is a cultural shift. You’ll need to review work incentives, team structures and workplace training. You’ll also need to stop rewarding the drive for reliability. Project planning will need to be evaluated in fresh ways.
6 Embed
Seed your teams with at least one designer. This may be a permanent arrangement or as a guest to get your people to think about their work differently. This includes your leadership teams and your board.
7 Build
Designers work differently! You may need to build new systems, new work environments, provide new tools, new computers…
8 Do It!
Talking about design will barely scratch the cultural surface. You need to do it and demonstrate it and demand it as part of your way of operating. Design ways for your entire organization to experience good design at work everyday.
9 Outsource
Consider outsourcing the areas of your business that already run as algorithms. This can be a way to reduce costs and release design fever.
10 Convert
Review existing heuristics and convert these to algorithms. The wealth of knowledge in the minds of your team could be worth more as a set of systems and procedures run by others. It’s a way to drive efficiency, reduce costs and free up Design Thinking.
