Dreaming Design Thinking via Bruce Nussbaum's 'Design Thinking Is A Failed Experiment' (Part 1)

Was following Bruce Nussbaum's Design Thinking Is A Failed Experiment.
And the first thing that came to my mind was that it is jingle. A lot appears to be in the grey. His book is going to be out next year and I have the feeling he wants to get some feedback.
Personally a great many questions come to my mind:
Can we actually learn to be creative by following certain behaviours? Yes. But can we imitate them? NO. Why? Because I think creativity involves originality. If you imitate behaviours,  you may get a display of 'ideas' but you'll miss the essence.
Design thinking is linked to creativity. As in any good thought processes, creativity is part of the quotient. We may try to measure them but in reality part of it is intrinsic and abstract. We cannot measure a person's creativity as in the form of a formula. In my opinion, it doesn't work. A creative person is so because it is his/her habit to observe in a curious, inspired, positive and inquisitive way -- in a way that is intelligent, astute, wise and even playful. Always acquiring knowledge in an apt and diversified, non dogmatic and open mind. So is design thinking a failed experiment? I doubt it. It can be if only it is used in a silly way which any form of thinking would end up to be anyway.
Nussbaum appears to try to audit creativity. But measuring it makes it resembles that of another form of test. And tests do not exactly measure one's ability due to a set form of criterias. It may serve as a guide but the guide can never be really wise to use as an absolute measure. It sounds like an subjective ranking system which I feel could be demeaning.
Design thinking is often seen as a failure perhaps of the quality of the research. Design methods do not solve big problems because of the nature of knowledge used. People in hard core sciences often see design methodologies and solutions in an inferior way as it solves 'soft problems'. Problems that seem to look 'less intelligent' and even 'cheap'. Its a brand image that the design profession needs to smartly change.All problems could be big or small. There is nothing wrong or less intelligent to solve 'small problems', but I often feel the image of the design profession is always short of being 'intellectual' somewhat.
Personally, I see true creativity when someone is able to structure their thoughts and mould it according to different scenarios of problems very aptly and efficiently. They invent systems. The most creative is able to make do with what is given and set forth. Such a person can not only solve aesthetic issues in the arts form, but can also solve a large variety of other problems in other fields like economics, social, and even life problems. I never see creativity in solely in its art or arts form. Its not a complete perspective of what creative means. It cheapens it. Design is about everything under the sky and beyond. If we need to tackle a problem, we need to know in an all rounded way. If we need to become effective problem solvers, and earn credibility; we must show our intelligence in holding substance in able to answer problems in many areas.
Can't type anymore. Unknowingly its already 2:27am !! Will stop here for now. -  Karen Fu

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Design Thinking Is A Failed Experiment. So What's Next? | Co.Design

Bruce Nussbaum, one of Design Thinking's biggest advocates, is moving on to something new. Here, he begins defining "Creative Quotient."

The decade of Design Thinking is ending and I, for one, am moving on to another conceptual framework: Creative Intelligence, or CQ. I am writing a book about Creative Intelligence, due out from HarperCollins in fall 2012, and I hope to have a conversation with the Fast Company audience on this blog about how we should teach, measure, and use CQ.

Why am I, who at Business Week was one of Design Thinking’s major advocates, moving on to a new conceptual framework? Simple. Design Thinking has given the design profession and society at large all the benefits it has to offer and is beginning to ossify and actually do harm. Helen Walters, my wonderful colleague at Business Week, lays out many of the pros and cons of Design Thinking in her post on her blog.

Design consultancies hoped that a process trick would produce change.

I would add that the construction and framing of Design Thinking itself has become a key issue. Design Thinking originally offered the world of big business--which is defined by a culture of process efficiency--a whole new process that promised to deliver creativity. By packaging creativity within a process format, designers were able to expand their engagement, impact, and sales inside the corporate world. Companies were comfortable and welcoming to Design Thinking because it was packaged as a process.

There were many successes, but far too many more failures in this endeavor. Why? Companies absorbed the process of Design Thinking all to well, turning it into a linear, gated, by-the-book methodology that delivered, at best, incremental change and innovation. Call it N+1 innovation.

CEOs in particular, took to the process side of Design Thinking, implementing it like Six Sigma and other efficiency-based processes. I had a conversation with IDEO’s Tim Brown at Parsons recently and his analysis is spot on:

Design consultancies that promoted Design Thinking were, in effect, hoping that a process trick would produce significant cultural and organizational change. From the beginning, the process of Design Thinking was a scaffolding for the real deliverable: creativity. But in order to appeal to the business culture of process, it was denuded of the mess, the conflict, failure, emotions, and looping circularity that is part and parcel of the creative process. In a few companies, CEOs and managers accepted that mess along with the process and real innovation took place. In most others, it did not. As practitioners of design thinking in consultancies now acknowledge, the success rate for the process was low, very low.

The success rate for design thinking processes was very low.

Yet, the contributions of Design Thinking to the field of design and to society at large are immense. By formalizing the tacit values and behaviors of design, Design Thinking was able to move designers and the power of design from a focus on artifact and aesthetics within a narrow consumerist marketplace to the much wider social space of systems and society. We face huge forces of disruption, the rise and fall of generations, the spread of social media technologies, the urbanization of the planet, the rise and fall of nations, global warming, and overpopulation. Together these forces are eroding our economic, social, and political systems in a once-in-a-century kind of way. Design Thinking made design system-conscious at a key moment in time.

I don’t think the rise of Humanistic Design would have been possible without Design Thinking. And for all my concerns about it, Humanistic Design is a huge advance in the field and the great work done by the Acumen Fund, Project H, Parsons' students at Memorial Sloan Kettering, Stanford's K-12 initiative, Ideo at the Mayo Clinic and Kaiser Permanente would not have occurred without the advent of Design Thinking. The new programs in Social Innovation at Parsons, School of Visual Arts, Stanford, Columbia, and elsewhere would never have been developed.

But it was creativity that Design Thinking was originally supposed to deliver and it is to creativity that I now turn directly and purposefully. Creativity is an old concept, far older than “design.” But it is an inclusive concept. In my experience, when you say the word “design” to people across a table, they tend to smile politely and think “fashion." Say “design thinking,” and they stop smiling and tend to lean away from you. But say “creativity” and people light up and lean in toward you.

Everyone likes creativity because everyone believes they are, or were, or can be creative. And they are right. The truth is that the best scientists, entrepreneurs, engineers, soldiers, CEOs, sports coaches, hockey players, and World of Warcraft players are all creative. That scaffolding of Design Thinking, that collection of behaviors is the heart and sole of creativity. It includes being attuned to the people and culture you are immersed in and having the experience, wisdom, and knowledge to frame the real problem and--most important of all perhaps--the ability to create and enact solutions.

Design Thinking broke design out of its specialized, narrow, and limited base and connected it to more important issues and a wider universe of profit and non-profit organizations. I believe the concept of Creative Intelligence expands that social engagement even further.

Everyone believes they are, or can be, creative. And they are right.

So what is Creative Intelligence, or CQ? Let me start by saying it is a concept in formation and I hope our conversation over the next months will give it a true, deep meaning. Above all, CQ is about abilities. I can call them literacies or fluencies. If you walk into one of Katie Salen's Quest to Learn classes or a business strategy class at the Rotman School of Management, you can see people being taught behaviors that raise their CQ. You can see it in the military, corporations, and sports teams. It is about more than thinking, it is about learning by doing and learning how to do the new in an uncertain, ambiguous, complex space--our lives today.

At this point, I am defining Creative Intelligence as the ability to frame problems in new ways and to make original solutions. You can have a low or high ability to frame and solve problems, but these two capacities are key and they can be learned. I place CQ within the intellectual space of gaming, scenario planning, systems thinking and, of course, design thinking. It is a sociological approach in which creativity emerges from group activity, not a psychological approach of development stages and individual genius.

Let me end by telling you my dream: It’s 2020 and my godchild Zoe is applying to Stanford, Cambridge, and Tsinghua universities. The admissions offices in each of these top schools asks for proof of literacies in math, literature, and creativity. They check her SAT scores, her essays, her IQ, and her CQ.

Now, please join me in a conversation about Creative Intelligence. Where should we go with it? How should we shape and measure it? What kind of stories do you have to illustrate its power? What K-12, college and grad schools are trying to teach it? Where do we go with it? I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts in the comments.

[Top image by Kevin Dooley]

Bruce Nussbaum

Bruce Nussbaum blogs, tweets and writes on innovation, design thinking and creativity. The former assistant managing editor for Business Week is a Professor of Innovation and ... Read more

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via fastcodesign.com

Got this from @rebang's tweets. Followed the comments by commentors too. What say you? I think its a spin. Will come back to this at another time.

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Issue for thought: 'What makes a superior product innovation leader?'

What makes a leader?

Or at least a good follower? From what I know, design leaders need to listen to various aspects in product innovation. Math and Science is one; Arts & Humanitiesis the other and Conscience and Creativity being the most important. I think open mindedness and modesty are 2 prime areas for being a leader.

But I think the latter 2 areas are a little hard to achieve because ego is what a lot of people have....

Here, I am posting part of my written thoughts about the issue.

Part of my post: design education.But most part of my post: who/what will help me fill up my puzzle to become the 100% all rounded innovator? Education/work/life experience?

Quote myself:

'When we had the conversation, a few things come to my mind when we
talked about architecture and product design.
I also agree with the point about the core emphasis in science and
math. I never question about that, that was exactly why
I pounced on to your (-----) course the moment I saw it. This issue has been
a hot debating topic in the product innovation field. I like Don
Norman's arguement for a strong science and tech background. Without
that you cannot 100% control the whole innovation process of
everything. Through my experience, both academic and industry and self
realisation, I think the engineering aspect is vital. But I also think
that the humanities and arts must weigh the same. Otherwise we cannot
differentiate between a mechanical product designer/architectual
engineer from a product designer/architect. It is not easy to cramp
everything within 3-4 years of study. So when I picked my first
degree, I picked the one that teaches how to sharp and creative in
various material/appearance design/technology/applied engineering

There are world class designers/architects whose math / science may
not be to the depths of the engineer. But they are also able to
understand the concepts and workings of such math and science
backgrounds. I am the perfectionist type who would like to master this
engineering aspect which my academic course could not fit this in,
because they choose to focus on humanities and arts rather than to try
to teach all with no in depth specialisation in any. So I thought its
up to me to fill the 3rd aspect of the product innovation in ---- that
is the sciene and math aspect.

<snipped>

<snipped> I do not hold any postgraduate degrees but I was admitted
to a few very fine colleges (snipped) for product/industrial design based on product creativity,
ideas and sustainable design.I didn't attend because I had financial
difficulties even to attend 1 year of the courses before they could
offer full scholarship.  But I sat on committees for design innovation .... at (snipped) probably
because of me being the 'naughtiest' referee who refuse to get
squished out because I was poor & without a postgrad. The basis of
these courses, I feel, look at character and creativity & the sense of
thinking. But I sense your college seem to place math and science in
1st position before everything, if I am correct. I've seen Americans
from Stanford and MIT visiting  RCA (Royal College of Art, London) and
I know what I have and what they have. Usually MIT product designers
go to RCA for the art part....(snipped)

I was hoping to attend the missed function where all the profs are
there and it would be much easier to convey ideas and thoughts with
some visuals. Unfortunately it was over. The idea of product
innovation is very different between a hard core engineer and hard
core designer. But eitherway, the best of these cohorts produce the
top ideas and best designs. Dyson, an arts grad was one of them. There
are lots in Europe who are arts based. But I feel the wholerounder has
to take more 6 years academically + lifetime of keen interest in
making lives better to be a junior master in product innovation for
skills. Creativity being the most important in any science, art,
technological innovation. I wonder how your profs there think? It
would be interesting debate but right now, I want to sort my case out.
Sorry about the length of the post. I just did it at one go.

Cheers !
Karen'

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The Creativity Crisis - Newsweek -- some views on promoting creativity

American education, he described our focus on standardized curriculum, rote memorization, and nationalized testing.

via newsweek.com

And yet we are following the standardised tests that the Americans may well be on their way to ditching it... Creativity and Intelliegence can be identified without tests in the first place. You could just identitfy such people when you see them.

A couple of issues need to be recognised.

First off, can creativity be thought ? Can it be groomed in a city environment where everything must have a standardised order of thought? An overly protective environment that is lack of various natural environments usually doresn't help creativity to thrive either. So what can we do about it?

Experience by self realisation of how the surrounding happenings and items work, in my own experience, appears to be the best stimulation process that one could get as far as creativity is concerned. It's probably one of the optimal ways of instilling original creativity of a higher calibre. We have lots of lessons learnt from nature, which offers the law of how mechanims work. In fact we get man made formulas off from nature.

How can creativity be instilled when the kid is pampered with maids and whose life is chauffeured to and fro in cars; coupled with loads of uncreative teaching methods that could further make their minds stagnant? Methods that seem to run on certain values and ideas only ? Or via a certain mission of a place etc?

I often wonder if we have been grooming students who seem to blindly think they are the greatest just because they've learnt a lot for their age.Or are we really grooming kids who could really think about issues and create them from almost anything in their hands and in any kind of environment? The type who can create knowledge, offer new insights that are simple in form from the complexity of life problems? 

Declining creativity isn't a problem unique to the States. It's usually a common problem in afflunent cities around the world. Comfort doesn't seem to really dig much into creativity of the highest kind. And if we do look around at some of the best music, arts, technology etc; often the more original ones tend to come not from the bustling cities where there are lots of material attraction. They tend to come from suburb areas, towns and villages. Places where it is conducive for experimentation and personal reflection, before they are presented in the theatres, museums etc in cities for people to pay and appreciate.

Got to run now!

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Great Brains in (n) types of design - a quick draw review on 'America is Rotten & China is Awesome ? '

I read this article: 'America is rotten and China is awesome?' by G.E Anderson at the Forbe's website just a while ago; and felt compelled to write quickly about my 2 cents on innovative & creative thinking. I'll zap it straight to the point.

We all know we need to know enough and have solid foundations in our subject areas. Yet we also need to know how to quickly think via various channels in different scenarios. From an outsider's immediate point of view, many American students seem to lack the former and the Chinese students lack the latter. Having taught both nationalities before as a teacher tells me that certain curriculums need to be changed. But that again, it has always been difficult to say how and why because I always feel difficult to put in my comments especially when I do not come from a big country. And that coming from a tiny young one makes everything all the more difficult.

Americans, like many other Western countries, tend to have more creative minds that could twist and turn to create ideas of thoughts, innovative solutions etc. But having lack the depth in both Math(s) and Sciences is going to stunt them in the near term and we can start to see the effects even now, where a lot of foreign students who have graduated in the States are now working in the US developing niche products and services. All this new preference for the humanities and the arts by the Americans come from somewhat a natural distaste for numbers & physics. I also suspect that it has a lot to do with affluence where looking towards the arts where social sciences would be more interesting to learn than fomulas in math(s) and the sciences (especially Physics and engineering sciences). Natural sciences, however, doesn't seem to be much of this kind of problem. However the reality is many advancements in technology, typically with the ones that directly affect us in phyical life, requires one to be superior in these subjects.

Chinese students, on the other hand, are masters with numbers and logical thinking. Too again with many other Asian countries and typically with Russian students, where mathematics to them are like playing magic with figures.They are not uncreative but they do not appear to learn how to sit and think of other ways to come up with new solutions. Everything appears to have evolved from similar or the same common base. I attribute this problem to the way the society and economy works. When you are striving to get out from poverty to become extremely well off, the first thing you need to do is to just follow the path that will send you fastest to sucess. And that does not often allow you time to think and try. In certain instances, daring to think in a different path may be a personal economic risk, where your time and effort may be grounded to a far less profitable result. From another flip point, countries which are industrially established in the east, still tend to carry on the safe path of thinking where you focus on the safe path to climbing up the social ladder. Creativity is often set aside after you attain your financial freedom, which is exactly the formula to stunted creativity as it is better to start early and have it in our living surroundings.

In the States or indeed in the west as a whole (bearing in mind the different cultures in the west) have more accessibilities to innovation as far as the culture of free thinking / sources of various information goes. Free, also as in the freedom of not having to worry about the basic needs -- as in the society allows you the luxury of time and money to truly try different things in store.

Personally, I do not have a preference for whom is going to be the super powerhouse of the future. I think if you were to clear your minds a little, thinking a little far a little, the optimal that will keep the world sane and healthy is to actually not have any single super powerhouse in innovation. It simply isn't healthy. Creativiity, in my opinion, depends on a rich array of experiences that we can share under the common umbrella of the skies, where different creed, people etc will offer you various insights of true wonder that our own cultures may fail us in seeing what could be the best solution. We cannot be benifiting anyone, if we think true innovative thought must come from a certain part of the world.

Great brains, in my modest opinion, is one which is not only solid in the fundamentals of as many subject areas possible; but also in the way it develops over time to be fluent in the nth number of ways to come up with solutions despite under any circumstance. (politically, economically, socially etc). Innovative thinking has to make the world as one, where it shows sensitivity to the rest of the world and other people's needs. You can't do this when you start to brand one another, or trying to sit somebody off.

So in a way no one is exactly rotten and no one is exactly awesome. We have everything to share and learn from everyone. And the brain that has the ability to sort nth number of problems has got to be also a brain that is very open to all.

Quick draw at one go. Doubt a lot of people would read about it. But I thought I might as well hit the keys since I have been interested in such topics for a long long time. I don't believe in certain stigmas and a crazy few dogmatc thinking egos. My approach may somewhat look slow, but it has gained me a lot of invaluable insights and train me to think fast.

Got lots to say but I really need to pop into bed. Its 2.25 in the morning ! -- Karen Fu, some little nobody sitting on the equator, in front of her PC, smattering away from tiny Singapore.

[pic source: www.gmtmag.com/en/]