Humanising complex projects through design thinking and its effects

The last decades of research in project studies show us that humans, rather than technologies, software or mathematical models, shape project success. This is simultaneously fascinating and problematic since, while technologies, software or mathematical models are relatively predictable and straightforward, humans are far more complex, with extremely intricate links between motivations and emotions. This consideration is particularly true in complex projects where a plethora of diverse stakeholders have very different emotions and motivations toward the same project. To address this challenge, this essay proposes using design thinking principles, tools, and techniques to "humanise" complex projects. By bringing together stakeholders, including non-market stakeholders such as local communities, with diverse goals and interests and aligning them with a common purpose, design thinking can help to shape, plan, and deliver successful complex projects. While design thinking is commonly discussed in innovation studies, this essay aims to encourage its investigation and discussion in project studies

Not what you expected: Implementing design thinking as a leadership practice

Changing user needs have created new opportunities for libraries, requiring evolving leadership practices that support innovation and rapid change. Design thinking can provide leaders with a concrete process to move toward action. The authors – one an executive administrator at a large, multi-branch public library, the other an academic librarian who leads a small team – share how design thinking has positively influenced their leadership practices. The benefits of implementing this flexible process have included improved user experience, more creative solutions, wise investments, staff empowerment, increased transparency and trust, and employee learning and development. Both leaders experienced these benefits even though they are in different positions on their hierarchical organization charts. The authors propose that implementing design thinking as a leadership practice has a place in the evolving role of libraries and can shift organizational cultures to become more user-centered and embrace innovation. In addition to these benefits, the chapter discusses specific project examples, challenges, and tips for library leaders to successfully implement the process. Design thinking is translatable across library types and throughout private industry. Discussing design thinking as a leadership practice can benefit the profession and communities by giving leaders a common language to use when learning from and sharing with each other in conversations about innovation

Building a discipline: Indicators of expansion, integration and consolidation in design research across four decades

Highlights • We explored indicators of domain expansion, integration and consolidation in Design Studies. • Author disciplines have expanded into humanities, social science, and human professions. • An increased level of cross-disciplinary collaboration across time is evident. • The term ‘design’ has become increasingly central in stated university affiliations. • Across a 40 year timespan the design domain has consolidated its core foundations

A Situational Alignment Framework for PACS

This paper reports the outcomes of a study on an integrated situational alignment framework for picture archiving and communication systems (PACS) labeled as PISA. Following the design research cycle, complementary validation methods and pilot cases were used to assess the proposed framework and its operationalized survey. In this paper, the authors outline (a) the process of the framework’ development, (b) the validation process with its underlying iterative steps, (c) the outcomes of pilot cases, and (d) improvement opportunities to refine and further validate the PISA framework. Results of this study support empirical application of the framework to hospital enterprises in order to gain insights into their PACS maturity and alignment. We argue that the framework can be applied as a valuable tool for assessments, monitoring and benchmarking purposes and strategic PACS planning

Evaluation of the impact of interdisciplinarity in cancer care

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Teamwork is a key component of the health care renewal strategy emphasized in Quebec, elsewhere in Canada and in other countries to enhance the quality of oncology services. While this innovation would appear beneficial in theory, empirical evidences of its impact are limited. Current efforts in Quebec to encourage the development of local interdisciplinary teams in all hospitals offer a unique opportunity to assess the anticipated benefits. These teams working in hospital outpatient clinics are responsible for treatment, follow-up and patient support. The study objective is to assess the impact of interdisciplinarity on cancer patients and health professionals.</p> <p>Methods/Design</p> <p>This is a quasi-experimental study with three comparison groups distinguished by intensity of interdisciplinarity: strong, moderate and weak. The study will use a random sample of 12 local teams in Quebec, stratified by intensity of interdisciplinarity. The instrument to measure the intensity of the interdisciplinarity, developed in collaboration with experts, encompasses five dimensions referring to aspects of team structure and process. Self-administered questionnaires will be used to measure the impact of interdisciplinarity on patients (health care utilization, continuity of care and cancer services responsiveness) and on professionals (professional well-being, assessment of teamwork and perception of teamwork climate). Approximately 100 health professionals working on the selected teams and 2000 patients will be recruited. Statistical analyses will include descriptive statistics and comparative analysis of the impact observed according to the strata of interdisciplinarity. Fixed and random multivariate statistical models (multilevel analyses) will also be used.</p> <p>Discussion</p> <p>This study will pinpoint to what extent interdisciplinarity is linked to quality of care and meets the complex and varied needs of cancer patients. It will ascertain to what extent interdisciplinary teamwork facilitated the work of professionals. Such findings are important given the growing prevalence of cancer and the importance of attracting and retaining health professionals to work with cancer patients.</p

Absorbing customer knowledge: how customer involvement enables service design success

Customers are a knowledge resource outside of the firm that can be utilized for new service success by involving them in the design process. However, existing research on the impact of customer involvement (CI) is inconclusive. Knowledge about customers’ needs and on how best to serve these needs (articulated in the service concept) is best obtained from customers themselves. However, codesign runs the risk of losing control of the service concept. This research argues that of the processes of external knowledge, acquisition (via CI), customer knowledge assimilation, and concept transformation form a capability that enables the firm to exploit customer knowledge in the form of a successful new service. Data from a survey of 126 new service projects show that the impact of CI on new service success is fully mediated by customer knowledge assimilation (the deep understanding of customers’ latent needs) and concept transformation (the modification of the service concept due to customer insights). However, its impact is more nuanced. CI exhibits an “∩”-shaped relationship with transformation, indicating there is a limit to the beneficial effect of CI. Its relationship with assimilation is “U” shaped, suggesting a problem with cognitive inertia where initial learnings are ignored. Customer knowledge assimilation directly impacts success, while concept transformation only helps success in the presence of resource slack. An evolving new service design is only beneficial if the firm has the flexibility to adapt to change

The Effects of Managerial Values on Social Issues Evaluation: An Empirical Examination

This article suggests that due to the value-laden nature of social issues, managerial values, as a framework or schema, play an important role in the social issues evaluation process. Our data show that there is clearly a relationship between the issues managers evaluate as important and the values of those managers, with values being defined according to the Carroll typology—economic, legal, ethical, and philanthropic. It was apparent that the values held by the managers sampled determined how various sets of issues—community, political, and regulatory—were evaluated in terms of importance. This result suggests that the issues evaluation process, which should be objective, is not.Yeshttps://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/manuscript-submission-guideline

Design thinking and design doing: Describing a process of people-centred innovation

The research forms part of the author’s long-term enquiry into the challenges of implementing Design Thinking (DT) and its relationship to Inclusive Design (ID), something that has been understudied and under-researched. Both fields advocate research with users and have a history spanning decades, but they have remained largely separate in terms of academic research and practical application. The author was approached by the series editor for his expertise at the intersection of ID and DT. “State of the art” DT ideas and approaches were evaluated through study of circa 50 recent academic publications, papers and journal articles. Field research was based on personal leadership of over 70 ID projects with government, business, and the voluntary sector leading to frontline discoveries and insights. Peer-reviewed academic publication, conference presentation, and keynote delivery helped test ideas before making the link between ID and DT and delivering the publication. This 13,000 word, sole-authored chapter outlines gaps in the long-term effectiveness of DT, outlining five principles that aim to engender a more sustainable approach by aligning it to ID. These five ideas give an overview of newly-articulated frameworks, tools and methods for academic and industry application. The chapter sets a context for 16 other chapters within the publication and establishes the need for more empirical research to link between DT and ID. The ideas in the chapter have been used to direct practice-based research projects and education programmes at the RCA as well as organisations in its network. 700 Hong Kong civil servants have been trained using these ideas, alongside numerous industry organisations including Tata Consulting Services and Panasonic