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

Design, collaboration and evolvability: a conversation about the future

This paper is an exploratory conversation on collaboration, shared value, ecosystems, platforms, silent designers, the unexpected and ambiguity. It is held together by the idea of evolvability and a continuous loop of creation and design. It aims to report a journey that has no real starting point and no end in sight, and while it refers to a number of thinkers, it does not subscribe to any single school of thought. It has deep foundations in various disciplines, but remains aloof of single perspectives. It has been written as an experiment, in respite from conventional formats of producing academic text. It does, however, maintain an engagement with the serious matter of creating the future of design innovation, suggesting that we need to engage deeply with evolvability to benefit from ambiguity and the unexpected. This means moving from trying to see the future into creating it, a fine task for design

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

Intermediary roles in regulatory programs: Toward a role-based framework

This paper develops a role-based framework of intermediaries in regulatory programs. In examining the types of roles that organizations adopt in regulation and governance, we argue that roles have important implications for understanding organizational and program level dynamism and outcomes. We utilize the Regulator-Intermediary-rule Taker framework (Abbott, Levi-Faur, & Snidal, 2017a; 2017b) to describe how organizational roles can be adopted through assignment, appropriation, or promotion. We then go deeper into how intermediaries adopt a variety of different roles in key regulatory programs. We examine generic intermediary roles across programs that involve four main groups of activities: Creating and/or organizing, coordinating between programs, supporting implementation, and voicing an opinion. All in all, our role-based framework allows for a novel relational way to understand interorganizational and institutional dynamism in complex, interactive, and ever-changing regulatory regimes

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

International development cooperation and innovation promotion: a discussion paper for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of Finland

In commissioning this study on innovation and development cooperation, the Department of International Development Cooperation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland has made an important contribution to the ongoing discussion of the role, nature and opportunities that innovation could have in enhancing the current practice and instruments of international development cooperation

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