Design Thinking, a tool that boosts the ideas

Innovation is to change or transform something to obtain as a result an improvement or renovation. This is the origin of the idea of using the sensitivity to create projects that provide solutions to the needs of consumers, which today we call “Design Thinking”.

This methodology has become a fundamental tool in companies, and its focus is on understanding problems and creating solutions to real user needs through a viable “design thinking”, which becomes both an opportunity for consumers and a value for the market.

By focusing on people, Design Thinking seeks to meet the shortcomings from the observation of consumers, in order to achieve a correct detection of opportunities, and finally find a solution that is commercially and technologically feasible.

For this tool to develop properly, it is necessary to carry out a repetitive process that serves to adopt complex challenges to define and solve. It should be clarified that the stages of this method do not have to take place in a specific order, since during development there can be steps forward and backward to collect a large amount of information that can grow or decrease according to the phase in which the team is.

Five stages of Design Thinking

1. Empathy: By investigating the consumer’s needs, the aim is to empathetically understand the problem that concerns him/her.
2. Definition: Identify the user’s problem with all the information found in the first phase to analyze and define the central needs.
3. Ideation: Carrying out a brainstorming gives the possibility to look for various alternatives of innovative solutions to the problem found.
4. Prototyping: Identify the best solution for the need, so that the team builds economic and primitive solutions of what could be the product to be developed.
5. Testing: With the prototypes already created, they are rigorously tested and according to the results obtained, decisions on adjustments or modifications are made.

Throughout the process, the content will be refined to find a solution that meets the objectives that were outlined by the team.

BIU University has understood the importance of innovation and technological processes that nowadays generate competitive advantages, so it has created the MBA in digital transformation and business development, where students in addition to enhancing their leadership skills in digital environments in 18 months, will be able to promote the necessary changes to improve the management and direction of an organization, guiding the business strategy to the digital environment.

In addition, they will be prepared to lead and manage teams, identify fundamental aspects of a digital transformation process, as well as understand the importance of innovation to generate competitive advantages in the different fields of a real company.

As a teamwork tool, Design Thinking drives ideas and generates empathy, because based on consumer problems, it generates interaction in order to satisfy their needs.

This methodology bets on playfulness, since it is about enjoying the process and unleashing the team’s potential. Likewise, techniques are developed that set in motion analytical creativity, leveraged with visual content, which contribute to innovative and possible solutions in the real market.

The Design Thinking process is supported by techniques that help to find the necessary findings to successfully complete a project, because its phases guide the process and enhance creativity and analysis, leading to an innovative solution, which even exceeds the expectations of the working group’s solution.