Change by Design - Tim Brown

Question 1

Describe the design process

Answer 1

Moving from inspiration, though ideation onto implementation

Question 2

What is a reference design used for?

Answer 2

To show what is possible and to create inspiration

Question 3

What are the three spaces of innovation? Describe them.

Answer 3

inspiration - the problem or opportunity that motivates the search for solutions
ideation - the process of generating, developing and testing ideas
implementation - the path that leads from the project room to the market

Question 4

What is the reason for the nonlinear nature of the design process/journey?

Answer 4

Because design thinking is fundamentally an exploratory process

Question 5

What is the mark of a designer?

Answer 5

A willing embrace of constraints - Charles Eames

Question 6

What is the first stage of the design process often about?

Answer 6

Discovering which constraints are important and establishing a framework for evaluating them

Question 7

What are the three criteria by which constraints can be visualized?

Answer 7

feasability - what is functionally possible within the foreseeable future
viability - what is likely to become part of a sustainable business model
desirability - what makes sense to people and for people

Question 8

What is an example that has succeeded at designing in the realm of constraints?

Answer 8

Nintendo Wii

Question 9

What drives design thinking to depart from the status quo?

Answer 9

placing a strong emphasis on human needs - as distinct from fleeting or artificially manipulated desires

Question 10

What is the difference between a competent designer and a design thinker?

Answer 10

A competent designer will resolve the constraints of a design but a design thinker will bring them into a harmonious balance

Question 11

What are three approaches a company may take to new ideas?

Answer 11

1. They are likely to start with the constraint of what will fit within the framework of the existing business model. Because business systems are designed for efficiency, new ideas will tend to be incremental, predictable and all too easy for the competition to emulate
2. Engineering-driven companies looking for a technological breakthrough will have teams of researchers discover a new way of doing something and only afterward will they think about how the technology will fit into an existing business system and create value
3. An organization may be driven by its estimation of basic human needs and desires. At its worst this may mean dreaming up alluring but essentially meaningless products destined for the local landfill - persuading people, in the blunt words of the design gadfly Victor Papanek, “to buy things they don’t need with money they don’t have to impress neighbors who don’t care”

Question 12

What is the project?

Answer 12

The vehicle that carries an idea from concept to reality

Question 13

Describe a design project.

Answer 13

It has a beginning, middle and an end, and it is precisely these restrictions that anchor it to the real world

Question 14

Given that design thinking is expressed within the context of a project, what does it force?

Answer 14

a clear goal from the outset, it creates natural deadlines that impose discipline and give us an opportunity to review progress, make midcourse corrections and redirect future activity

Question 15

What is vital to sustaining a high level of creative energy in a project?

Answer 15

Clarity, direction and limits of a well-defined project

Question 16

What is the brief?

Answer 16

The classic starting point of any project. It is a set of mental constraints that gives the project team a framework from which to begin, benchmarks by which they can measure progress, and a set of objectives to be realized: price point, available technology, market segment and so on

Question 17

What is the project brief not?

Answer 17

a set of instructions or an attempt to answer a question before it has been posed

Question 18

What happens if a design brief is too abstract?

Answer 18

it risks leaving the project team wandering around in the fog

Question 19

What happens if a design brief is too narrow?

Answer 19

it almost guarantees that the outcome will be incremental and most likely, mediocre

Question 20

What does an individual need to operate within an interdisciplinary environment?

Answer 20

Strength in two dimentions - the T-shaped persons made famous by McKinsey & Company.

Question 21

Describe the T-shaped person.

Answer 21

On the vertical axis, every member of the team needs to possess a depth of skill that allows him or her to make a tangible contributions to the outcome. On the horizontal axis, they should have a breadth of understanding of various subject matters and disciplines

Question 22

What is the difference between a multidisciplinary team and an interdisciplinary one?

Answer 22

A multidisciplinary team has each individual become an advocate for his or her own technical specialty and project becomes a protracted negotiation among them. In an interdisciplinary team there is collective ownership of ideas and everybody takes responsibility for them

Question 23

What is the difference between groupthink and design thinking?

Answer 23

Groupthink suppresses people’s creativity whereas design thinking seeks to liberate it

Question 24

What is a good culture of innovation?

Answer 24

one that believes it is better to ask forgiveness afterward rather than permission before, that rewards people for success but gives them permission to fail, allowing for new ideas to be formed more easily

Question 25

What is design thinking?

Answer 25

Embodied thinking - embodied in teams and project but also in physical spaces of innovation

Question 26

What does RTFM stand for?

Answer 26

Read the Fucking Manual

Question 27

What is the difference between a design thinker and software engineer’s response to a user’s mistake in an interface?

Answer 27

The software engineer may lament RTFM whereas the design thinker doesn’t believe behaviours are never right or wrong, but they are always meaningful

Question 28

What is the challenge of design thinkers?

Answer 28

To help people articulate the latent needs they may not even know they have

Question 29

What are three elements of any successful design program?

Answer 29

insight, observation and empathy

Question 30

What is one of the key sources of design thinking?

Answer 30

Insight

Question 31

Where is the solution in a design paradigm?

Answer 31

it lies in the creative work of the team

Question 32

What often triggers new ideas in the creative process?

Answer 32

observing people

Question 33

Describe the evolution from design to design thinking.

Answer 33

it is the story of the evolution from the creation of products to the analysis of the relationship between people and products, and from there to the relationship between people and people

Question 34

What is real observation

Answer 34

watching what people don’t do, listening to what they don’t say