The PDMA Handbook of Innovation and New Product Development, 4th Edition

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO FACILITATING A DESIGN THINKING WORKSHOP

Wayne Fisher

This chapter outlines a practical approach to facilitating teams through the Design Thinking process to develop new products and services. PDMA’s comprehensive handbook on Design Thinking (Luchs et al. 2015) clearly outlines the use of Design Thinking in implementing a systematic, more creative, and human-centered approach to innovation. This chapter assumes a basic understanding of Design Thinking principles and focuses on the role of the Design Thinking facilitator in the days leading up to, during, and following an immersive Design Thinking workshop. These best practices were developed by the author during his career at Procter & Gamble and are primarily within the context of the Consumer Products industry. However, these best practices have held up well in over 10 years of consulting practice in Business-to-Business, Health Care, and Non-Profit organizations.

This chapter describes:

• A typical design and commonly used tools for a Design Thinking workshop, including problem definition, idea generation, and idea selection/evaluation
• Techniques for actively engaging target customers throughout the Design Thinking process
• Examples of how Design Thinking was used to solve a broad range of business challenges

32.1 Design Thinking and Innovation

One helpful definition of innovation is ...