This is a transcript of my interview with Clark Kellogg on the subject of Design Thinking:
Gary: OK, I’m here today with Clark Kellogg, and Clark is a partner at Collective Invention which is a social innovation consulting firm that helps organizations imagine the future and identify tools and programs to achieve it. He’s also an instructor at UC Berkeley Department of Architecture and School of Business where he teaches design thinking classes and where he and I met working on a project together. So thanks for joining me today Clark.
Clark: Happy to be here Gary.
Gary: So, what is design thinking and how is it different than analytical thinking?
Clark: In essence, it’s a process of problem solving that takes into account all kinds of different feeds and insights. Analytic problem solving is based on known data and information. Design thinking tends to be a little more holistic in the way it approaches problems and it brings in more simultaneous thinking processes and celebrates the wide, weird ideas as potential solutions, not so much that they are the solutions but as hints and insights that may to contribute to a better solution than simply linear analytic solving.
Gary: Is it less rigorous than analytical thinking?
Clark: In the minds of many it is. In the minds of those of us who are practitioners of it, it is extremely rigorous, very process oriented, and we have a very specific kind of roadmap to follow as we go through these processes, so I would no, it’s no less rigorous. If anything perhaps, it’s equally rigorous.
Gary: Wow. So what are some of the advantages of design thinking over more traditional creative problem solving techniques that a small business might use such as brainstorming, focus groups, or the proverbial employee suggestion box?
Clark: Yeah, well the suggestion box remains a really great source of information and insight. I would say to answer your question, all of those aspects that you spoke about – brainstorming, creative problem solving – are elements of design thinking and we use them in design thinking all the time. The idea that design thinking is something distinct and foreign and odd is really not true. It’s a very specific way of looking at a problem, of framing a problem, then going about solving a problem, and in that process, we brainstorm, we use suggestion boxes, and we use a lot of different other inputs to craft a better kind of solutions.
Gary: One of the lessons that I learned going through this process in the Haas at Work project was this idea of diverging and converging. Can you share maybe an example of how that works within the design thinking process?
Clark: Well, absolutely. Diverging and converging are two process descriptions and the key insight around those two is that you can’t do them both at the same time. Let me give you an example. Most often when you’re in a conversation or in a brainstorming mode, you’ll see rules of the road around the room in which people say “defer judgment”, or “build on ideas don’t be critical of them.” The process of diverging ideas is really that way of generating as many solutions as possible, not so much looking for quality as we are quantity and later on we have processes called converging which is an analytical frame in which to put those. Most often what happens is people diverge and then start to converge too quickly, so we’re judging ideas before they actually have developed very much.
Gary: OK. In one of your workshops you said humans are good at solving problems, but not so good at figuring out which problems to solve. What do you mean by that?
Clark: Well, we are by nature real good tinkerers, particularly I think, Americans. And we look for problems to solve, and humans are great at finding a need and filling it, as Henry Kaiser used to say. What we’re no so good at is understanding the nature of the problem going in so we are solving a problem that A) needs to be solved and B) fits into a longer term view, not just a short term expediency of getting the urgent taken care of, but looking at it in a longer frame, so that what you’re doing in the short term actually contributes to the longer term health and viability of, in this case, your business.
Gary: So, I was reading an article last night and somebody gave the example of rather than giving the assignment to design a chair, give the assignment to design a suspension device from the floor. Is that an example of how you frame a problem that you go about solving, and if so, how do you know when you’ve framed the right problem that you’re solving for?
Clark: The example is instructive in that it demonstrates a different way of seeing a problem, i.e., a chair, which when you and I think of chair, or probably anybody watching this, we think of a four legged device with a horizontal surface that you put your body into. The idea of creating a seating device – a place for humans to rest in a certain kind of position – is a reframing of the notion of a chair. The idea of chair brings up a very particular set of visual imagery that I know of, that you know of, and probably people listening to this know of. The idea of framing that as a solution that will support the human body opens up a whole lot of different ideas. Now you may come back and end up with what looks like a chair. But the journey of discovery around that may, and often does lead to, deeper insights about the nature of our preconceptions.
Gary: But one of the key concepts in defining that problem as I understand it is that it really focuses on the consumer, who’s going to be using the device, whether it’s defined as a chair or as a suspension device. So how do you go about getting that type of consumer input into the process early on so that you know you’re solving for a real need that a consumer has that ultimately will benefit from it, and in some cases pay for a new product associated around it?
Clark: Well, there’s lots of techniques for understanding the marketplace. Focus groups are one of those, that we probably aren’t as fond of as some others. The real way of looking and understanding needs is to go talk to people. We call it ethnography. It is through observation, and through interview, mostly on a one-to-one basis, and it asks a different kind of a question which is “what are your needs?” not “what is your solution?”
Gary: So one last question before we wrap up. Is design thinking a tool for people who have real serious problems, or is it something they can use kind of proactively to envision the future, or is there kind of a use in between or for both of those cases?
Clark: At the end of the day, when I talk to my mom about what I do for a living, she said to me once “Well, it kind of sounds like what you sell is common sense.” And I have to agree that we put it big into a lot of big names, but at the end of the day, the idea of solving problems in a way that makes sense in the moment, that is in the urgent, but also makes sense in the important. That is, we frame things in the short term and they have a known impact on the long term. Design thinking is common sense in that once you come up with a really good solution to a problem, and it’s obvious that it’s a good solution, it does feel like common sense. You often say to yourself “Ahh, why didn’t I think of that sooner?” Well, it’s complicated to think of good solutions quickly, but when you find those things, they do feel like they’re obvious. And to me, the best solutions are the ones that at the end of the day, you say to yourself “That is so obvious I should have thought about it sooner.”
Gary: Do they become obvious because they were right in front of you, or because you’ve learned something from another industry or other companies that you may not be monitoring on a regular basis, or this whole notion of crashing ideas comes into play here, so does the obviousness and the ultimate solution you pursue usually come from the outside, or is it more something that is right in front of you?
Clark: Well insight is elusive and it does come from lots of sources. Oftentimes, the answers are a combination, as you say, crashing ideas together from another industry or another business sector. Sometimes they come about by your observation of need and users, and understanding. And sometimes they happen in the shower. So the idea that they are, that there’s one particular source, I think is not so much the important piece as that they come together through a variety of sources, and the thing is you know it when you’ve found it. And this is an elusive kind of data point, but you do, you just kind of know it. You can then measure that against all kinds of metrics that you develop, particularly in a business setting, and they click off on that measurement. But you also, and any entrepreneur will know this, you just kind of know it when it comes along. Then you can measure it and prove it. We often talk about we buy with emotion and justify with fact. That’s very much, I think, a description of the design problem solving process.
Gary: That’s a great description. So if somebody wants to learn more about design thinking, do you have some suggested resources they can look at or…
Clark: Well, there’s two that I am very fond of and that I recommend a lot. One is a book by Daniel Pink called A Whole New Mind which talks about the functions of our brains and contributes to how we understand design thinking. The second one is a book called Design Thinking by Tim Brown of IDEO. And Tim’s book goes a long way to describing a lot of things that we’re talking about here. And of course, IDEO is quite well known for doing this kind of work.
Gary: Right. And if somebody wants to speak with you or get ahold of you, is there contact information you can provide?
Clark: Well, I’d be happy to talk to anybody about my favorite topic. My email address is clark at collectiveinvention dot com. And you can even call me at 510 388-2967. And if you’re in the neighborhood, come over to Wurster Hall at the UC Berkeley campus. I’m frequently on the 5th floor in the Cal Design Lab.
Gary: I know that area well. So Clark, thank you for taking the time to speak with us about design thinking and hopefully some entrepreneurs out there will get inspired to create the future that may not be as evident for them at today’s time.
Clark: I bet that will happen, and you’re right, it is elusive.