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Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation by Tim Brown
jurgenappelo's review against another edition
4.0
Almost endless list of examples of design thinking.
jwsg's review against another edition
3.0
I fell in love with IDEO and the concept of design thinking after reading Tom Kelley's The Art of Innovation. Reading my November 2008 review of the book, I see that it says "The book flags somewhat in the middle - there are still plenty of anecdotes about the company's projects, but they're like the flashes of scenery you glimpse through the window of a train - intriguing but you wish the train moved just a wee bit slower so you could see more details. You're left feeling impressed that IDEO was behind so many clever products, but you wish Kelley could have delved a little bit into the backstory to the design and development process, as opposed to the traditional "top 10" list-approach of so many management books."
It's uncanny because that pretty much sums up how I feel about Tim Brown's - the CEO of IDEO - Change by Design. Brown notes that Change by Design is not intended to be a "how to" guide, but that it seeks to provide a framework that will help the reader identify the principles and practices. So like the Art of Innovation, it's a whirlwind tour through the key elements of design thinking - observation and from observation, insight into unmet needs (sometimes looking at extreme users to gain these insights), brainstorming, prototyping. And like the Art of Innovation, Change by Design frustrates because it skims the surface just so and fails to make a convincing case on how and why design thinking works. Change by Design is just littered with examples of companies and organisations that have successfully employed design thinking. But Brown lists these examples like students on the honor roll, without elaborating how exactly they incorporated design thinking into their organisation, and the design thinking journey. They just did and it works! Like Pangea Organics that wanted to sell "the idea of sustainability, wellness and responsibility" that led to a "comprehensive rebranding". Or how JW Marriott applied its insight that it is the "exhale moment" when a visitor enters his room, not his check in, that is the critical moment in the customer journey. Or IDEO's own use of design thinking to reinvent the firm, where they came up with "one IDEO" and the "global practices" model. All these instances (and many more) just leave the reader tantalised, frustrated, wanting to know more but forced to accept the declaration that "design thinking is great. it helped all these firms do better". And at the beginning of the book, Brown states that the book will also touch on how "on occasion, [design thinking] has overreached". I would have dearly loved to read that part but apart from a small paragraph on how the children's toothbrushes that IDEO helped design for Oral B were unenvironmentally friendly and ended up as flotsam in the sea, I couldn't really find anything on this front.
Overall, Change by Design is still an interesting read, but it probably does better preaching to the converted than it does convincing the design thinking sceptics.
It's uncanny because that pretty much sums up how I feel about Tim Brown's - the CEO of IDEO - Change by Design. Brown notes that Change by Design is not intended to be a "how to" guide, but that it seeks to provide a framework that will help the reader identify the principles and practices. So like the Art of Innovation, it's a whirlwind tour through the key elements of design thinking - observation and from observation, insight into unmet needs (sometimes looking at extreme users to gain these insights), brainstorming, prototyping. And like the Art of Innovation, Change by Design frustrates because it skims the surface just so and fails to make a convincing case on how and why design thinking works. Change by Design is just littered with examples of companies and organisations that have successfully employed design thinking. But Brown lists these examples like students on the honor roll, without elaborating how exactly they incorporated design thinking into their organisation, and the design thinking journey. They just did and it works! Like Pangea Organics that wanted to sell "the idea of sustainability, wellness and responsibility" that led to a "comprehensive rebranding". Or how JW Marriott applied its insight that it is the "exhale moment" when a visitor enters his room, not his check in, that is the critical moment in the customer journey. Or IDEO's own use of design thinking to reinvent the firm, where they came up with "one IDEO" and the "global practices" model. All these instances (and many more) just leave the reader tantalised, frustrated, wanting to know more but forced to accept the declaration that "design thinking is great. it helped all these firms do better". And at the beginning of the book, Brown states that the book will also touch on how "on occasion, [design thinking] has overreached". I would have dearly loved to read that part but apart from a small paragraph on how the children's toothbrushes that IDEO helped design for Oral B were unenvironmentally friendly and ended up as flotsam in the sea, I couldn't really find anything on this front.
Overall, Change by Design is still an interesting read, but it probably does better preaching to the converted than it does convincing the design thinking sceptics.
jeffgrann's review against another edition
5.0
Strong book that helps people connect their work with a greater purpose. Appreciated the many case studies and encouragement to try multiple techniques. Couple of lasting ideas from the book, include the prototyping, storyboarding, improvisation, importance of design in service industries, co-creating experiences, and access to your customers.
thebradking's review against another edition
4.0
I’m the co-director of a graduate program at Ball State University that’s built — in part — around design thinking. The Center for Emerging Media Design & Development trains people for that ever-undefined “21st century knowledge workforce.”
Part of that training focuses on helping people work in interdisciplinary groups to identify problems that may be embedded deeply within assumptions of an organization. To do this, groups must learn how to set aside their initial thoughts about a problem and its solution, and engage in user-centered ethnographic work, which is just a fancy way of saying these groups to sit with, talk to, and observe people using products. From there, they can construct a far more accurate way of understand the real problems people have.
That’s a long introduction to my review of Change by Design, written by Tim Brown, the current CEO of IDEO, a consulting company best known for deploying the design thinking process to solve a wide range of big problems. But that introduction was important because I wanted to explain why I picked up the book.
You see, we have two problems in our program related to design thinking.
The first comes whenever the Center’s co-director and I meet with potential partners, such as the Indianapolis Symphony. The concept of design thinking is so ephemeral that we spend a great deal of time trying to explain its steps, even when we have have willing partners. (“How is it different than regular thinking,” we’re asked quite a bit. Or “What if we don’t have any designers on staff,” we also hear.)
The second comes when we begin working with students. Design thinking is a framework for approaching a problem, not a step-by-step guide. That makes it difficult to teach students, whom we ask to spend a great deal of time working on projects so they can develop their design thinking skills.
While both problems are different, they come from the same place: understanding how a designed thinking process can help anyone approach problem solving in a more holistic manner.
Brown’s book does exactly that. Of all the books, papers, and reflections on design thinking that I’ve read, this is the best at both explaining the process that teams go through, and the reasons for using this process. The process involves using empathy to understand the needs and desires of users, divergent thinking to create strict constraint that focus the problem, transforming and prototyping a wide variety of solutions, testing and articulating the changes and final development, and understand how to make sustainable systems.
Just as importantly, Brown articulates the reasons why it’s oftentimes more important to spend a great deal of time at the start of the project identifying the actual problem. (The example I give to my students: World hunger isn’t a problem. It’s the outcome of a 1,000 small problems. You can’t “solve world hunger,” but you can figure out solutions to the 1,000 problems that cause world hunger. Design thinking helps you identify what each of those problems are in each of the areas where hunger is a problem.)
I’m a big proponent of design thinking as a process for working, creating, and solving in the modern world. It is, in many ways, the exact type of “critical thinking skills” that everyone needs, from employers down to individuals.
This is a great book for people who are trying to understand the importance and need for these processes, and for those trying to understand how to deploy these skills.
Part of that training focuses on helping people work in interdisciplinary groups to identify problems that may be embedded deeply within assumptions of an organization. To do this, groups must learn how to set aside their initial thoughts about a problem and its solution, and engage in user-centered ethnographic work, which is just a fancy way of saying these groups to sit with, talk to, and observe people using products. From there, they can construct a far more accurate way of understand the real problems people have.
That’s a long introduction to my review of Change by Design, written by Tim Brown, the current CEO of IDEO, a consulting company best known for deploying the design thinking process to solve a wide range of big problems. But that introduction was important because I wanted to explain why I picked up the book.
You see, we have two problems in our program related to design thinking.
The first comes whenever the Center’s co-director and I meet with potential partners, such as the Indianapolis Symphony. The concept of design thinking is so ephemeral that we spend a great deal of time trying to explain its steps, even when we have have willing partners. (“How is it different than regular thinking,” we’re asked quite a bit. Or “What if we don’t have any designers on staff,” we also hear.)
The second comes when we begin working with students. Design thinking is a framework for approaching a problem, not a step-by-step guide. That makes it difficult to teach students, whom we ask to spend a great deal of time working on projects so they can develop their design thinking skills.
While both problems are different, they come from the same place: understanding how a designed thinking process can help anyone approach problem solving in a more holistic manner.
Brown’s book does exactly that. Of all the books, papers, and reflections on design thinking that I’ve read, this is the best at both explaining the process that teams go through, and the reasons for using this process. The process involves using empathy to understand the needs and desires of users, divergent thinking to create strict constraint that focus the problem, transforming and prototyping a wide variety of solutions, testing and articulating the changes and final development, and understand how to make sustainable systems.
Just as importantly, Brown articulates the reasons why it’s oftentimes more important to spend a great deal of time at the start of the project identifying the actual problem. (The example I give to my students: World hunger isn’t a problem. It’s the outcome of a 1,000 small problems. You can’t “solve world hunger,” but you can figure out solutions to the 1,000 problems that cause world hunger. Design thinking helps you identify what each of those problems are in each of the areas where hunger is a problem.)
I’m a big proponent of design thinking as a process for working, creating, and solving in the modern world. It is, in many ways, the exact type of “critical thinking skills” that everyone needs, from employers down to individuals.
This is a great book for people who are trying to understand the importance and need for these processes, and for those trying to understand how to deploy these skills.
emslittlecorner's review against another edition
2.0
★: 2
I started reading this book thinking that it was going to talk about designing in itself, but instead this book talks more about business and a business technique called “design thinking”. This technique is actually explained well and it is very interesting but, of course the book has some problems going on.
I think that the biggest problem of the book is the fact that while the author tells you about the different aspects of design thinking, he also explains examples in his business life and in business history with design thinking involved, specially involved in the aspect he is talking about. This wouldn’t be bad if there were only some references through the whole chapter, but it tells you about so many examples that it becomes overwhelming and you start to forget them easily because of the amount of references it has.
I started reading this book thinking that it was going to talk about designing in itself, but instead this book talks more about business and a business technique called “design thinking”. This technique is actually explained well and it is very interesting but, of course the book has some problems going on.
I think that the biggest problem of the book is the fact that while the author tells you about the different aspects of design thinking, he also explains examples in his business life and in business history with design thinking involved, specially involved in the aspect he is talking about. This wouldn’t be bad if there were only some references through the whole chapter, but it tells you about so many examples that it becomes overwhelming and you start to forget them easily because of the amount of references it has.
robc's review against another edition
2.0
Too many "aren't we great success" stories, too little insight. The book could be half the length and still provide as much useful information.