Design Thinking

Chapter 11Developing Design Thinking: GE Healthcare's Menlo Innovation Model

Sarah J. S. Wilner

Wilfrid Laurier University

Introduction¹

Designers are trained in their field's logics, but many organizational members with a stake in new product development have had little, if any, exposure to design thinking's precepts. Yet if design is important to firms' value creation, we must consider ways in which its practices might be instilled beyond the design department. To provide guidance and inspiration, this chapter looks inside one maverick internal design studio's efforts to embed design thinking within one of America's oldest (and among the world's largest) companies: General Electric (GE). Tracing the development and implementation of the studio's Menlo Innovation Ecosystem, I examine the process, challenges, and outcomes of creating an internal design thinking innovation program.

Thomas Edison's Menlo Park research laboratory is often credited as being the first industrial research and development lab. Several important innovations emerged from within it, including incandescent bulbs and phonographs. More than a century later, the legacy endures: invention and innovation continue to be central to GE's culture and operations, a strategic perspective captured in the organization's slogan: “Imagination at Work.”

11.1 GE Healthcare's Design Organization

The design studio at the heart of this story is part of GE Healthcare, a strategic business unit headquartered in the United ...