1.1 What needs are addressed in the Playbook?

As described in the Introduction, we wanted to write a book for all those interested in innovation, for movers and shakers as well as entrepreneurs who design digital and physical products, services, business models, and business ecosystems as part of their work. Regarding our three personas, we were able to identify three very different kinds of users who apply design thinking in their day-to-day activities. One thing the three have in common, though: All three of them want to create something new in a rapidly changing world.

Which brings us straight to our initial question:

In the individual chapters, we focus on the three personas of “Peter,” “Lilly,” and “Marc.” We hope this lets us address the needs of design thinking practitioners as best as possible.

“Who is Peter?”

Peter, 40 years old, works at a large Swiss information and communications technology (ICT) company. Peter came in contact with design thinking in the context of a company project four years ago. Peter was a product manager then. Searching for the next major market opportunity, he had already tried out quite a few things. For a while, Peter always wore red underwear on New Year’s Day, but it didn’t make him any luckier in terms of successful innovations. After this experience, he doubted at first whether design thinking was really something for him. It was hard for him to imagine that something useful could come out at the end of the described procedure. The approach seemed just a little esoteric to him.

His attitude changed after he attended a number of co-creation and design thinking workshops with customers. He felt the momentum that can come into being when people with different backgrounds tackle complex problems together in the right environment. Paired with a good facilitator who provides work instructions in a targeted manner, any group can be empowered to create a new experience for a potential user. This positive experience prompted Peter to take on the role in such design thinking workshops as a facilitator.

Owing to the workshop experience he had gotten and its successful implementation in projects, Peter was promoted not long ago. He now has the privilege of calling himself an “Innovation & Co-Creation Manager.”

He is glad to meet like-minded spirits at events such as “Bits & Pretzels” in Munich or design thinking meetings in Nice, Prague, or Berlin where he can exchange thoughts and ideas with the who’s who among digitization evangelists.

More about Peter: What is his background experience?

Peter studied at the Technical University of Munich. After graduating, he held various positions in the telecommunications, IT, media, and entertainment industries. Five years ago, he decided to move from Munich to Switzerland. Its location and excellent infrastructure convinced him to make this daring change. There, Peter met his future wife, Priya. He has been happily married for two years. She works for Google at their corporate campus in Zurich. Priya is not allowed to talk much about the exciting topics she works on, although Peter would be quite intrigued by them.

Both like to get involved with new technologies. Be it the smart watch, augmented reality, or using what the sharing economy has to offer, they try out everything the digital world comes out with. A few weeks ago, Peter had his dream of getting a Tesla come true. Now he is waiting for his car to be self-driving soon so he can enjoy the beautiful landscape while looking out the window. In his new role as Innovation & Co-Creation Manager, Peter now belongs among the “creative” ones. He has replaced his suits and leather shoes with Chucks.

Peter tried to resolve the last crisis in his relationship with a little design thinking session. Priya was very aloof with Peter all of a sudden. Peter took the time to listen to Priya and better understand her needs. Together, they discussed ways to bring more oomph into their relationship. During the brainstorming, Peter had the idea that wearing his lucky red underwear might save the relationship. But in the meantime, he had developed so much empathy for Priya’s concerns that he quickly dismissed the idea. In the end, they came up with a couple of good ideas for their relationship. Priya did wish, though, that Peter would use a different method to learn his needs besides design thinking.

Up to now, Peter had used design thinking in various situations. He learned that the approach sometimes worked very well for reaching a goal, but that sometimes it wasn’t right. He would like to get a couple of tips from experienced design thinkers to shape his work even more effectively.

Visualization of the persona

User profile of an experienced design thinker from actual practice:

Image shows Peter, Innovation and Co-Creation Manager, with creative and analytical thinking, development of new product and process, building up community, design workshop facilitator, and so on.

Pains:

Peter’s employer does not invest much in the further training of employees.
Although Peter feels quite competent by now in dealing with design thinking, he is still convinced he could get more out of the approach.
Peter has noted that, while design thinking is a powerful tool, it is not always used optimally.
Peter frequently wonders how the digital transformation might be accelerated and what design criteria will be needed in the future to be a success on the market.
Peter would like to combine other methods and tools with design thinking.
Peter is faced with the challenge of having to impart to his team a new mindset.
He would like to exchange ideas with other design thinking experts outside his company.

Gains:

Peter has a lot of leeway in his daily work to try out new methods and tools.
He loves books and all tangible things. He likes to use visualizations and simple prototypes for explaining things.
What he would really like to do is establish design thinking in the whole company.
He knows various management approaches he would like to link with design thinking.

Jobs-to-be-done:

Peter has internalized the design thinking mindset., but sometimes, good examples that would help to change his environment don’t come easily to him.
Peter enjoys trying out new things. With his engineering background, he is open to other approaches to problem solving (whether quantitative or analytical).
He would like to become an expert in this environment as well. He is looking to connect with like-minded individuals.
Peter experiments with design thinking.

“Who is Lilly?”

Lilly, 28 years old, is currently working as a design thinking and start-up coach at Singapore University of Technology & Design (SUTD). The institute is one of the pioneers in design thinking and entrepreneurship for technology-oriented companies in the Asian region. Lilly organizes workshops and courses that combine design thinking and lean start-up. She teaches Design Thinking and coaches student teams in their projects. In tandem with that, she is working on her doctoral thesis—in cooperation with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology—in the area of System Design Management on the subject of “Design of Powerful Business Ecosystems in a Digitized World.”

To divide participants into groups, Lilly uses the HBDI® (Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument) model in her design thinking courses. Productive groups of four to five are formed this way, each one of which works on one problem statement. She has discovered that it is vitally important in each group to unite all modes of thinking described in the brain model. Lilly’s own preferred style of thinking is clearly located in her right half of the brain. She is experimental, creative, and likes to surround herself with other people.

Lilly studied Enterprise Management at the Zhejiang University School of Management. For her master’s degree, she spent a year at the École des Ponts ParisTech. As part of the ME310 program and in collaboration with Stanford University, she worked on a project there with THALES as an industrial partner, which is how she became familiar with design thinking. During this project, she visited Stanford three times. She liked the ME310 project so much that she decided to attend the University of Technology & Design in Singapore. There, Lilly became known among faculty for her extravagant flip-flops. SUTD students were less enthusiastic about them.

More about Lilly: What is her background experience?

Lilly has great in-depth theoretical knowledge of various methods and approaches and is able to apply them practically with her teams of students. She is good at coaching these teams but lacks understanding of actual practice. Lilly offers design thinking workshops at the Center of Entrepreneurship at Singapore University of Technology & Design. Frequently, people from industrial enterprises who want to learn more in terms of their innovation capability or better understand the topic of “intrapreneurship” take part in these workshops.

Lilly lives in Singapore and shares an apartment with her friend Jonny, whom she met during her year in France. Jonny is an expat who works for a major French bank in Singapore. At first, Jonny thought Lilly’s flip-flops were somewhat freaky but, at this point, he likes that little splash of color on her.

To maximize success, Jonny sees great potential in user-centered design and his bank’s pronounced orientation toward customer interaction points. He is enormously interested in new technologies. The thought of what they might mean for banks fascinates and unsettles him at the same time. He follows events in the fintech sector very closely and has identified new potentials that might result from a systematic application of blockchain. He wonders whether such disruptive new technologies will change banks and their business models even more fundamentally than Uber changed the taxi sector or Airbnb the hotel industry—and, if so, when such changes will take place. The core question for Jonny is whether a time will come when banks as we know them will cease to exist altogether. Either way, banks need to become more customer-oriented and make better use of the opportunities that digitization offers than potential newcomers. Jonny is not afraid of losing his job as yet. But still, a start-up together with Lilly might be an exciting alternative. Jonny would like to see his bank apply design thinking and internalize a new mindset, but this is nothing but wishful thinking thus far.

Lilly and Jonny would also like to set up a consulting firm that applies design thinking to support enterprises with digital transformation. They are still looking for something unique that their start-up could offer in comparison to conventional consultancy firms. In particular, they would like to address cultural needs in their approach to consulting. Lilly has observed too many times how the European and American design thinking mindset failed in an Asian context. She wants to integrate local particularities in her design thinking approach: the attitude of an anthropologist, the acceptance of copying competitors, and the penchant for marketing services more quickly, instead of observing the market for a long time. Something else makes them hesitant to implement their plan: They are bit risk averse because next year, once Lilly has completed her doctoral thesis, they want to get married and raise a family. Lilly wants three children.

In her free time, Lilly is active and creative. She often meets with like-minded people she knows from the SkillsFuture program, which is a national program that provides Singaporeans the possibility to develop their fullest potential throughout life, regardless of their starting points; or from events such as “Innovation by Design,” which was funded by the DesignSingapore Council. They develop concepts for, among other things, adapting the space and the environment of the country to the needs of people. Lilly is especially intrigued by digital initiatives and hackathons that come into being through real-time data from sensors, social media, and anonymized motion profiles of mobile devices. Singapore is a pioneer that brings the design thinking mindset actively to the entire nation, not least with the “Infusing Design as a National Skill Set for Everyone” campaign.

Visualization of the persona

User profile of an experienced design thinker from the academic environment:

Image shows Lilly, design thinking and lean start-up coach, doctorial thesis, research in field of agile methods, coaching student teams, set up and maintain contact with other design thinking experts, and so on.