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You own a cafe in the heart of the financial district. Each morning, the cafe hums with activity during the rush hour. And every morning, the same problem arises: as customers reach for condiments, they spill their coffee across the counter. They leave frustrated, and your staff spends extra time cleaning up.
So, for one week, you step back and observe. You watch how customers move, what they reach for first, and where they get stuck. You speak with your employees to gather their insights on what could be improved. After a few small changes to the condiment layout, the mess disappears, and even the lines move faster.
No extravagant solution was needed. Just a shift in perspective, strategic thinking, and empathy for both customers and staff. That, in essence, is the power of design thinking.
“It is very much a user-centric, collaborative, and iterative way of problem solving,” said Jared Lee, Faculty Lecturer of Strategy and Organization at McGill University and partner at Juniper Advisers. “It isn’t about having the most sophisticated technical solution—it’s about having a solution that works for the people in the environment where they’re trying to deploy it.”
When done well, it can be transformative. Organizations can uncover novel ways to create value by understanding their stakeholders more deeply. They can reimagine products, services, processes, tools, or whole business models to better serve their goals – whether that’s improving coffee condiments or sweeping organizational changes.
A shift in perspective
Dating back to the 1960s, design thinking is a customer-focused and empathic approach to problem-solving that helps organizations tackle complex challenges through creative insights. According to Lee, it helps institutions better understand their consumers and respond to rapidly changing environments.
At the heart of design thinking is play, curiosity, creativity, and a willingness to investigate problems from new angles. It’s not about x input equals y output; it’s a way of thinking about and approaching problems.
Observation is a foundational part of the process. Organisations must immerse themselves in their customers’ experiences to truly understand customer needs. The more user-centred a product or service is, the more likely it is to foster customer loyalty and satisfaction.
The lens must also turn inward. Leaders must observe their operations, team dynamics, and organizational culture to identify gaps and opportunities for change.
At the Desautels Faculty of Management, Lee teaches a five-step process in design thinking: Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, and Test. As an example, here’s how design thinking could unfold when trying to improve navigation for students on campus:
1. Empathize. The first step is to gather information. Observe how students navigate campus in real-time, conduct interviews featuring a wide range of perspectives, and identify pain points and highlights in the student navigation experience.
2. Define. Synthesize your findings to pinpoint the core of the problem. Root your problem statement in the real challenges you identified in the previous step.
3. Ideate. This is where you can start brainstorming solutions. Come up with as many possible fixes as you can (e.g. physical signs, digital tools, peer guides). You can even run co-creation sessions with students affected by the issue.
4. Prototype. Start creating early versions of possible solutions. Gather feedback from students.
5. Test. Deploy the prototype with a small user group. Collect real-time feedback through observations and surveys. Avoid relying solely on user feedback; look at their behaviours, too.
Trusting the process
Sometimes, design thinking points to unconventional solutions that leaders don’t expect. And sometimes, it uncovers questions they never thought to ask in the first place. This is all part of the process.
“People see it [design thinking] from the outside and think it’s completely unstructured and non-repeatable, or it’s just chaos,” said Lee. “There is a method to the madness. There’s a discipline; a repeatable, framework-driven process.”
Evidence suggests that in the right organization at the right time with the right approach, the method works. According to the Design Value Index, companies that integrate design thinking into their strategy outperform their industry peers by 228 per cent. Businesses that embed design thinking into their operations also report higher revenues and returns. And the benefits aren’t just financial—71 per cent of organizations practising design thinking report improvements in workplace culture. Design thinking encourages a bottom-up model where all team members are invited to contribute to solving problems and feel valued. For design thinking to succeed, however, it requires time, trust, and a willingness to challenge assumptions.
More important than the process or any one method or outcome, though, “[design thinking] is an ethos. It’s a way of thinking. It’s a way of viewing and experiencing an issue or process or whatever it is that you’re trying to tackle,” said Lee. “It’s a mindset to uncover problems and work in a collaborative fashion to explore possibilities—then iteratively refine what could be the right answer.”
