Four dimensions in learning design thinking: Capabilities, constraints, collaboration, and the diffusion of ideas

Over the last few years, design thinking has been indicated to be an approach for making sense of complexity by focusing on collaborative work and interdisciplinary approaches. That being said, the concept itself and its applications still remain fluid and emerging today, posing an immediate question for education: How to educate design thinkers and what is the foundation of thought that this learning should be based on? This paper examines four foundational dimensions of design thinking in terms of the needed capabilities, the world of constraints that restricts the application of capabilities, the nature of collaboration, and the diffusion of ideas. The foundational work of Sen in the area of capabilities and constraints is linked to Deleuzian thinking about concepts, collision, and affect in the area of collaboration and the rhizomic diffusion of ideas in order to form a wide framework of thought that serves as a foundational base for design thinking

Collaborating for collective value: a mentoring perspective

Innovation today is seen to be driven by the cooperation between individuals in innovation ecosystems, but significant inertia, sub-optimal structures and understanding of how and why collaboration is practiced in many cases blocks innovation. In this conceptual and exploratory paper we argue that achieving high value added innovation requires mentored transitions through which low value market pricing relational models are replaced by communal sharing ones that enable high joint value creation. Through relational models and stakeholder theory and three illustrative case studies, we propose that design thinking methods can support these mentored transitions through the development of individual and social capabilities, enabling integrating, translating and expanding roles in the mentoring process. The paper contributes to the knowledge and application of relational models in innovation ecosystems through the mentoring perspective and the application of design thinking in developing high value added innovations

Using design thinking to improve strategic decisions during collaborative sensemaking

Human cognitive limitations affect strategic decision-making. One of such effects is emergence of cognitive biases, deviations from rationality in judgment. These biases can negatively influence an organisation's capability to capture and utilize new ideas, thus inhibiting innovation. Researchers have documented different strategies for mitigating cognitive biases – and many of them overlap with the ones emphasised in design thinking. However, research so far does not offer any specific “recipes” for mitigation of cognitive biases. This paper links together research on challenges of strategic decision-making, cognitive biases and design thinking. The paper investigates the effects of applying design-thinking tool in collaborative sense-making stage, within a small business team, aiming to mitigate confirmation bias. The study indicated that newly introduced design-thinking tools did not have the expected positive influence on decision-making. The research contributes to the field by developing a new framework on how to identify and mitigate confirmation bias in strategic decision-making

The IDBM book 20/5

This book is designed to give an insider’s view of the programme that bonds together people with very different backgrounds and knowledge, forms strong connections between industry and academia, and provides opportunities for future innovators to grow and find their own way to professional excellence. We look at the structural features of the program, explain how design, business and technology fit together to create extraordinary value, how students work together and gain new knowledge and hands-on experience, what it means to be a team player, and how to operate in a multicultural and interdisciplinary environment. International and local Finnish companies work with IDBM to explore and solve open-ended challenges to create new opportunities and rethink design and technology-driven business. Through the case projects, we show how collaboration works within the community that gathers together industry, students, alumni, professors, and the university as a whole. The book outlines the key IDBM course offering in design, business and technology and lists the industry projects and thesis work done in the last five years. We have also added a selection of research papers to illustrate the type of on-going knowledge creation that the community engages in across a wide range of topics, the common denominator being the use of design to create value

FrontEnd Toolkit: a toolkit to transform IDEAs into intelligent action

This FrontEnd Toolkit is about applying Design Thinking to transform new ideas into innovative products, services andbusinesses with an impact. The front end development of new user and customer-oriented solutions is a key opportunity aswell as a significant challenge for organizations and success is built on collaborative approaches. The overall objective is to help policy- makers, project owners, and managers as well as their stakeholders to design and implement projects with real impact. The Toolkit helps to establish an idea’s key value to stakeholders, and supports planning for the creation of high impact projects. It assists in defining complexity, cost, delivery, functionality,and future upgrade potential of a concept and creates new opportunities for partnerships. The Front End innovation is all about purposefully combining different skills, disciplines, and resources with knowledge related to the local innovation ecosystem to gain insights that inspire and help shape a new, valuable offering. The process of creating this constellation of elements involves understanding emerging opportunities,client and user mindsets, needs and expectations. It also involves making sense of the competitive environment, the social and individual constraints and enablers that drive the acceptance and up take of new products, services and business models

Amo voce Vaatelainaamo, mas algumas coisas podem melhorar: Analise de motivacoes, barreiras e facilitadores em servico finlandes de compartilhamento de roupas

Este artigo apresenta os resultados de pesquisa realizada com usuarias de um servico finlandes para o compartilhamento de roupas (Vaatelainaamo), cujo objetivo foi compreender motivacoes, barreiras e oportunidades para a adocao de praticas de consumo na Economia do Compartilhamento. A pesquisa fundamenta-se sob o paradigma interpretativo e estudo fenomenologico enquanto metodo, utilizando-se de questionarios abertos como tecnica de coleta de dados. Dentre os resultados, podemos destacar que o fraco sentimento de copropriedade, o descuido no cuidado com as roupas e a indisponibilidade de produtos e do servico sao fatores que prejudicam a relacao das usuarias com o mesmo. Por outro lado, as principais motivacoes para a adesao ao serviço sao: a consciencia ambiental, a valorizacao da producao local e a oferta de acesso a itens considerados caros, permitindo a possibilidade de experimentacao, associada ao prazer de utilizar roupas diferentes com menor impacto ambiental. Assim, Vaatelainaamo oferta uma solucao ambientalmente e economicamente benefica para o estilo de vida das usuarias, promovendo o sentimento de pertencimento, que e o fator principal para elas amarem esse servico, ainda que alguns aspectos possam ser melhorados

Impact in networks and ecosystems: Building case studies that make a difference

This toolkit aims to support the building up of case studies that show the impact of project activities aiming to promote innovation and entrepreneurship. The case studies respond to the challenge of understanding what kinds of interventions work in the Southern African region, where, and why

Making an interdisciplinary difference: Twenty years of design, business and technology at Aalto

This book focuses on the process of creating and educating innovation leaders through specialized programs, which are offered by leading academic schools. Accordingly, the book is divided into two parts

Design discourses of transformation

The aim of this article is to develop knowledge and understanding that supports critical conceptual interventions in design innovation theory and practice. Existing discourses of design are dissonant and paradoxical, for example positioning design as at once value-free and virtuous. We explain various instances of dissonance by establishing relationships between modes of design, design discourses, and knowledge systems. We map and interpret four design discourses, revealing the plural, dynamic, and mutable nature they share. Our understanding of design in the context of social transformation varies according to how we relate to knowledge systems, how these are produced through discourses, and how the two inform distinct modes of design. We argue that dominant discourses and entrenched knowledge systems must be consciously and actively upended. For this, we present a framework for transformative action to foster encounters across discourses and engender new critical expressions of and interventions in design theory and practice

Case study: Industry, innovation and infrastructure (SDG9): Designing for dilemmas: A change agenda for infrastructure

In this chapter we examine key dilemmas for design in the area of industry, innovation and infrastructure (Sustainable Development Goal 9) through three illustrative examples of large and complex projects in Mozambique, Vanuatu and Sri Lanka. Each of these projects had a significant infrastructure component in health, education and shelter, respectively. In order to examine further the observed tensions and dilemmas in the projects, we propose adopting a theory of change perspective on infrastructure and design framed through the theory of fields. We present a framework of thought using multilevel and ecosystem elements, product service systems and service ecosystems and taking into account the cultural and institutional context. We propose a design agenda for infrastructure as a step towards framing the understanding of the dilemmas of change and design in the context of the inherently political, incremental and disruptive institutionally driven agenda-setting that is inevitable in processes of innovation, infrastructure build-up and the restructuring of production systems in emerging economies