Unpacking Design Thinking:  Empathy

Unpacking Design Thinking: Empathy

When is the last time your principal, executive director or boss asked you to redesign a curriculum, program or product launch by empathizing with students, grant recipients or consumers? Probably not recently. But in a world saturated with the memes

Unpacking Design Thinking:  Define

Unpacking Design Thinking: Define

Have you ever thought you defined a problem or solved a challenge by implementing your “pet idea” — an elegant product, groundbreaking system or awesome experience? No doubt, the solution itself was probably fantastic, but did it actually address the

Unpacking Design Thinking:  Ideate

Unpacking Design Thinking: Ideate

Ideate is the space in design thinking where individuals and teams elevate and celebrate the power of possibility.  It is the transition from identifying a particular question or problem to generating a wide variety of potential answers and solutions. It’s

Unpacking Design Thinking: Prototype

Unpacking Design Thinking: Prototype

Imagine going to your next meeting with a prototype instead of a cup of coffee and notepad. The prototype is an early model or experiment to rapidly create solutions to challenges and problems already defined and discussed by design thinkers.

Unpacking Design Thinking: Test

Unpacking Design Thinking: Test

If you made it to the test space, you really do have a good grasp of design thinking. Testing is the culmination of empathize–define–ideate–prototype spaces of design thinking.  Problems have been framed and potential solutions prototyped but teams have not

The Golden Chain of Innovation: the story of the railway

The Golden Chain of Innovation: the story of the railway

Most innovations do not come about through a solitary burst of inspiration. Rather, new breakthroughs are usually links in a golden chain of innovation.  Individuals and teams connect seemingly unrelated inventions and practices, repositioning them by asking new questions that

Education Innovation for Classroom Challenges

Education Innovation for Classroom Challenges

Teachers in the United States establish “maker spaces” in elementary classrooms.  School leaders in Peru develop a “blended learning” curriculum for low income students.  Students in Singapore enroll in an “Imagineering Programme” that leads to a certificate in problem solving

Designing Systems and Experiences

Designing Systems and Experiences

When you think of design and design thinkers, do you visualize professional designers and engineers creating new products?  Is it difficult to imagine yourself in that group? In fact, design thinking is not only about professional designers creating innovative products.  Design

Visual Thinking with Mind Mapping

Visual Thinking with Mind Mapping

Visual thinking can sometimes be better than words when brainstorming, asking questions and connecting ideas previously thought to be unconnectable. And mind mapping makes visual thinking come alive.  The old saying, “a photo is worth a thousand words” is certainly

Design Thinking for Social Good

Design Thinking for Social Good

Knowledge Without Borders™ used design thinking for social good to implement a user-centered solution for a school in a poor district of Lima, Peru.   For several years I represented Knowledge Without Borders™ in a philanthropic project at the Madre Admirable