These images were originally published last year in my internal IBM blog, but I thought it would be nice to share it externally, after a recent conversation I had with my designer buddy Tracee.
This is the dawn of design at IBM. There is not only a new IBM Design organization, but also a new way of thinking/working spawned by “IBM Design Thinking.” People have been using design thinking methodologies for a long time, but never have we been formally introduced to it inside IBM. Until now.
Design Thinking requires Thinking
This is how many product teams function today:
So how do we get out of this mode of constantly putting band-aids onto our broken products? At some point we have to start back from the beginning.
Design Thinking – Focus on the User
The most important part of IBM Design Thinking in my mind is the “Discover and Envision” phase. We are good at Defining the Mission and Building and Refining, but we need some help in the initial design phases when we’re trying to wrap our heads around what the problem is and how we can solve it. Here is the gist of what that Discover and Envision phase looks like.
Design Doing – Great works take time!
Those of you who are traditionally schooled designers already know of this process. But in the crunch of releases and conferences and customers, we too often rush through or shove it aside because we don’t have time. If we spend the time doing this up front, we’ll have less problems in the build/refine stage and we won’t run into the issues we see a lot today. Doing great design takes time.
“YOU CANNOT SHORT CIRCUIT THE PATH TO GREATNESS.”
– Phil Gilbert, General Manager of IBM Design
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