What an amazing couple of days in Rochester, Minnesota.

Ok that was like 3 weeks ago.

highlights form the trip:

1.
Teach Design Planning overview for SPARC Director Ryan Armbrusters Innovation in Health Care course at University of Minnesota

2.
Finish User Insights write up for Research and Demo course at Institute of Design.

3.
Hang out with design and health care experts to get insight into health care now and as it relates to innovation.


The class
The opportunity to introduce Design Planning tools and methods and dazzle their starry little eyes with the great new way is addictive.

It was amazing to hear what these Master of Health Administration students wanted to get out of the course. It shows how people see Design as way to touch people and serve them.

"I would like to understand how to begin a process of change in an organization. I feel that things are so rooted in staying the same that I need a spark to make a difference."
Organizational change

"I would like to learn how to better scope new projects and initiatives. Projects tend either to be too big to complete or too small to make a difference."
Understanding the scoped of the problem

"I would like to learn how design can be relevant to the health care industry."
How can user centered design help?

"I would like to learn how to pick an innovation team."
Developing teams

"I need to figure out how to channel my creativity and make it more disciplined."
Capturing the value of insight

"I would like to learn more about user observation and how it can help my call center."
Better understanding users

"How can I make my practice more user-centered?"
Better understanding of users

"I would like to learn about the process of innovation."
New tools to make change

"How can I wake up the creative side of my brain? I feel that it has been turned off for so long that it might not know how to wake up."
Help seeing opportunity

"How can I add value through user centered design?"
Helping people to have a better experience

"How can I take this process to a non-traditional market?"
Finding new opportunities

"How can this process be used in the creation of new policy?"
Making systemic change


2. User Insights Paper

Clustering, analyzing, and synthesizing baby! Got it in at the last minute.

3. Hang out with Design and Health Care experts

Ok life for a Design Planner doesn't get much better than this.

Speakers reception:
I got lucky there was a delayed flight so I was able to have dinner with the events speakers. Wow. Some very cool lively people. We retired to some bar at the Marriott down the street for one last drink. Well for me. Old people can party!

Anyway, favorites were Larry Keeley at Doblin, Keith Strier from Deloitte + Touche, Linda Dewolfe from VHA, Gerard former CEO of Ritz Carlton and now CEO of Henry Ford Health Systems and Dan Buchner from Design Continuum.

The big take away was the astoundingly obvious fact that health care is sooo far behind in service. The great news is there is a rumbling for change. I asked the folks at Henry Ford how they justify the added expense of patient experience services. They believe they have no choice but to provide human centered services to compete. Nice to hear. Apparently they are building a $400m
"north woods lodge" facility outside of Detroit. Sounds like a good reason to get sick.

Tags: design_thinking, innovation

Since no one seems to know what I do as a Design Planner I thought I would take a crack at defining it for myself and others.

Introduction to Design Planning: The short

Design
Changing to a desired state.

What is Design Planning?
Design planning methodology is a convergence of design thinking, business analysis, and social science tools.

Design thinking is a structured approach to the design process that breaks design into common elements such as research, ideation, prototyping, etc. to explore and develop concepts.

Business analysis tools such as landscape analysis, SWOT analysis and McKinsey's 7S's help define trends and opportunities.

Social science tools like ethnographic research, human factors analysis and sociology that leads to a better understanding of people.

All of the disciplines meet at the need / desire to provide value to people.

People create value through their needs and businesses exist solely to deliver that value.

Combining knowledge uncovered from using design thinking, business analysis, and social sciences creates a rich understanding of a problem and opportunities to solve problems and find new opportunities.

"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." Albert Einstein

All solutions developed in the Design Planning process are user centered, meaning that they seek to serve the needs of each individual avoiding the one size fits none syndrome.

Innovation is the desired outcome of the Design Planning process.


Why learn Design Planning?
Life is increasingly complex due to increased ability to travel, advanced technology and abundant information that leads to more choices with each passing second.

In a time when people can make anything Design Planning helps to understand what should be made.

The difference between what can be made and what should be made is called the “innovation gap”.

Learning Design Planning tools will help people to gain a generalists perspective so they can see many sides to an issue. This is important because when only a few tools for analysis and synthesis are used all the time it makes the solutions the same. When you are a hammer everything begins to look a bit like a nail.


Who are Design Planners?
Design Planners are problem solvers.

They are naturally curious which leads them to have a breadth of knowledge.

Typically Design Planners, like most people, have found a lens through which they view the world. Often that lens is graphic design, engineering, computer science, and or architecture. This makes them experts in that area. Thus they are "T" shaped.

They can and should come from any background. Diversity brings new perspective.

Design Planners do not have to be world class graphic designers, have a deep understanding of ethnographic studies nor do they have to be world class strategists. Competency and expertise helps but the most important part is to understand the value of those tools and processes and use them in basic ways. Combining them for perspective is the critical competency.

Design Planners do have to be world class thinkers and problem solvers who know how to find the tools and resources they need to solve a problem. They must be omnidexterous. They must collaborate with others well. No longer a lone genius time of invention. Complexity has changed this. It takes teams of people to create innovation.

Design Planners can specialize. They can be strategists, communication designers or product designers. Other variations include experience designers, service designers or design researchers.

The following is a diagram from Institute of Design Professor Jeremy Alexis which was posted to his blog D Log

Tags: design_thinking, design_planning

Marc Gobe, Desgrippes Gobe, was gracious enough to speak to us at the Institute of Design 2 weeks ago. Marc brings a deep background in branding and advertising. Redeveloping products like Coke, Evian, Victoria's Secret and Banana Republic.

Clearly at the helm of a large and successful branding machine Marc presented key concepts of emotional branding and the role it plays in the consumers mind. His slides were simple and direct. Oddly old fashioned but with the Desgrippes Gobe star details all over them.

At any rate, he made some great points about reaching out to touch the customer. This follows close on the heels of my previous post about Starck's visceral manner of speaking about products. My favorite part was his dissection of the brand as a "champion" for peoples lives. Once soap solved the problem of the dirty child. This made the child out to be the problem. Which problem do you want your brand to be in the middle of? Careful about getting between mother and child. Now the strategy is to encourage the child to go out and live. To be dirty and its soap that allows that to happen. All of a sudden it is a champion. This the extension of the classic example of people not buying drills but buying holes. People want outcomes not products. Experiences not platforms. So in the case of soap people are buying life not soap. Pretty great.

There was an interesting hesitancy from the students in the room to engage in a dialogue about branding. We are taught to dissect the problem with structured planning methods to understand the base of the problem before creating options but Marc cut right through all of that to the meaning.
He seemed to see the human factors, field research as important but only a minor part of the battle summing up the role of designers, "Designers are not just for making form. They are incredible filters for what's going on in society." It was slightly annoying to hear the design research process being under cut by Gobe but it is clear he is a visionary and leader. He sees the final outcome of the process in real human terms. His passion did not position him to have a tools discussion it positioned him to have a human discussion. Very exciting. If anyone was at Institute of Design's Design Research Conference and heard Darrel Rhea from Cheskin speak you may remember his call to leadership. Whether Gobe's is the exact moel for that or not I think he has an empathic vision which we could all learn from.

A final point of interest was the way in which he prototyped the opportunity for Victoria's secret to move into the adjacent space of lotions and perfumes. He put regular product from the drug store into the Victoria's Secret store and waited to see if it would sell. It did. They launched.

Tags: design_thinking