Tag: design thinking | Page 3 | Mariposa Leadership

December 18, 2012 / Articles We Like / HR / Talent Management / News

Sue's Top Three Reads of 2012

Happy Holidays everyone!

I thought you’d be interested in my Top Three Reads of 2012 – the leadership content that has been the most compelling for me this year: Designing for Growth; “The Power of Small Wins”; and “Why Men Fail”.

I scour Twitter every morning and love retweeting interesting articles and emailing colleagues, clients, and friends the latest-and-greatest resources.

So why these three? Here are some strands of “interestingness”:

1) Designing for Growth: book by November WiseTalk guest, Jeanne Liedtka (@DesignAtDarden)

I delved into much of the design thinking world this year to complement my own work and by offering a variety of authors, professors and consultants on WiseTalk. I think Jeanne’s approach and her book are simply the most practical of any I have come across. She translates her four questions (What is? What if? What wows? What works?) into 10 ready-made tools. I especially like the Journey Mapping tool!

2) “The Power of Small Wins”: HBR article by February WiseTalk guest, Teresa Amabile (@TeresaAmabile)

Teresa’s research approach is simply unparalleled. It’s easy to say that mood affects performance, and even the smallest of rewards and/or incentives leads to more productivity. The way she demonstrated this in her study is awesome. You’ll want to check this out!

3) “Why Men Fail”: New York Times column by David Brooks (@nytdavidbrooks)

Before you get ruffled under the collar about the title, David Brooks’ column is not about men. It’s about “being strangers in a strange land.” Whether you’re in a different country or a new company, we must be more agile and flexible.

As always, I welcome your comments and questions!

– Sue

Sue Bethanis is the Founder and CEO of Mariposa Leadership, Inc., a 15-person San Francisco based firm, which provides leadership coaching and consulting to the high-tech, bio-tech, and financial services industries. For more on Sue, view her complete bio.

December 18th, 2012|Categories: Articles We Like, HR / Talent Management, News|Tags: Best of 2012, David Brooks, design thinking, designing for growth, HBR, HR Leadership, Jeanne Liedtka, NY Times, reading list, sue bethanis, Teresa Amabile, why men fail, why women still can't have it all, wise talk|

December 6, 2012 / Design Thinking / Creativity / Innovation / Wise Talk

11/29 Wise Talk audio snippets on Designing For Growth with Jeanne Liedtka

Last week’s Wise Talk with Jeanne Liedtka was a rich and harmonious conversation. Mariposa CEO Sue Bethanis described it as “awesome”.

Check out these audio snippets where guest Jeanne Liedtka expands on her book co-authored by Tim Ogilvie, Designing for Growth: A Design Thinking Tool Kit for Managers.

In this first snippet, Sue introduces Jeanne, giving us a little background:

Listen to Jeanne’s definition of design thinking:

The 4 distinctions that Jeanne has identified for managers are:

What Is
What If
What Wows
What Works

In this audio snip, Jeanne talks about “What Works”:

Click here to access Mariposa Leadership’s Wise Talk archives, and click on “Designing For Growth” for the full audio of this session.

For more information and to buy Designing For Growth, please visit http://designingforgrowthbook.com

We welcome your thoughts in the comments section below.

December 6th, 2012|Categories: Design Thinking / Creativity / Innovation, Wise Talk|Tags: design thinking, design thinking model, discussion, Jeanne Liedtka, management, Mariposa Leadership, sue bethanis, wise talk|

November 29, 2012 / Design Thinking / Creativity / Innovation / Wise Talk

November Wise Talk Recap with Sue

Click here for the full audio recording of today’s Wise Talk on Designing for Growth with guest Jeanne Liedtka and Mariposa CEO @SueBethanis!

November 29th, 2012|Categories: Design Thinking / Creativity / Innovation, Wise Talk|Tags: design thinking, discussion, innovation, Jeanne Liedtka, Mariposa Leadership, sue bethanis, wise talk|

November 15, 2012 / Design Thinking / Creativity / Innovation / Wise Talk

Wise Talk 11/29/12 with Jeanne Liedtka

Find any innovation leader in an organization and chances are they have been practicing design thinking all along. However, leaders don’t need to be naturally talented or creatively gifted to foster business development; a systematic approach is needed to problem solve.

Design thinking starts with the ability to understand a customer’s needs and figuring out how to pilot a new idea with minimal risk. In the book, Designing for Growth: A Design Thinking Tool Kit for Managers, co-authors Jeanne Liedtka and Tim Ogilvie demystify design thinking by translating “design” from an abstract idea into a practical, everyday tool any manager can profit from.

Join us Thursday, November 29, at 12 pm PT, on Wise Talk as Mariposa Leadership, Inc. CEO Sue Bethanis talks with strategy consultant and educator Jeanne Liedtka on the ability to turn abstract ideas into practical applications to maximize business growth.

Topics for the interactive discussion will include:

• What is your interpretation of design thinking?

• You describe the design thinking process around four questions: What is? What if?
What wows? What works? Can you tell us a little about each one.

• How is design thinking beneficial to managers? How can a non-designer apply
design thinking to solve intractable problems?

• What advice could you offer a corporate leader or manager that might doubt their
own ability to innovate and foster growth inside their organization?

• What is one example of a simple tool that a practicing manager can use right away?

We welcome you to join this month’s Wise Talk teleconference and submit your questions for discussion. Sign up and be entered to win a copy of this month’s leadership resource, Designing for Growth: A Design Thinking Tool Kit for Managers. One lucky listener will be announced at the end of the talk!

November 15th, 2012|Categories: Design Thinking / Creativity / Innovation, Wise Talk|Tags: business, design thinking, design thinking model, discussion, Jeanne Liedtka, sue bethanis, wise talk|

November 8, 2012 / Book Reviews / Design Thinking / Creativity / Innovation

Book Review: Designing For Growth

Designing for Growth: A Design Thinking Toolkit for Managers by Jeanne Liedtka & Tim Ogilvie

Head: (4.5 of 5)
Heart: (4 of 5)
Leadership Applicability: (5 of 5)

Practicing managers don’t have much time for buzzwords and platitudes. Managers are doers, and when they hear about a promising solution, they want to know how to do it. Design thinking is one of those topics that has burst onto the scene accompanied by lofty promises but precious few practical details.

Designing for Growth: A Design Thinking Toolkit for Managers is the book that provides those details. It goes beyond the theory and philosophy of the recent books on design thinking, showing you how to apply design thinking in a step-by-step way to solve complex growth opportunities. This book translates the fundamental promise of design thinking into a straightforward set of tools that the practicing manager-without any design training-can use immediately to create growth and innovation. The design thinking process described in this book is built upon four questions:

What is? – Exploring the current reality
What if? – Envisioning alternative futures
What wows? – Getting users to help us make some tough choices
What works? – Making it work in-market, and as a business

The book contains 10 ready-to-use tools — each aligned to one of the four questions. These tools include visualization, brainstorming, customer journey mapping, value chain analysis, customer co-creation, rapid prototyping, concept development, assumption testing, and the learning launch. This book will help you discover strengths you already have, develop some new ones, and give you the tools and templates to be an instant brown-belt in design thinking.

Mariposa Leadership is very excited to welcome Designing For Growth author Jeanne Liedtka to join CEO Sue Bethanis on this month’s Wise Talk. Join us on Thursday, November 29th from 12-1pm PT as they plan to discuss the ability to turn abstract ideas into practical applications for optimal business growth. To sign up for Wise Talk and submit your questions, please visit our website.

For more information and to buy Designing For Growth, please visit http://designingforgrowthbook.com

We welcome your thoughts in the comments section below.

November 8th, 2012|Categories: Book Reviews, Design Thinking / Creativity / Innovation|Tags: business, design thinking, design thinking model, discussion, sue bethanis, wise talk, women|

November 1, 2012 / Articles We Like / Design Thinking / Creativity / Innovation / HR / Talent Management / Wise Talk

The Cultivation of Leadership and Design Thinking

Leadership team development is at the forefront of growth and as a business scales, it must do so in a way that is smart and sustainable. In addition to executive coaching to assist organizations with growth, today’s successful leaders need to embrace tools and methods for innovation and problem solving. Design thinking is one of those methods and a proven approach to growth.

In the article, Design thinking and the new language of leadership, *Tim Ogilvie conveys the process of design thinking through a narrative about an executive and his business travel experience.

He identifies three design thinking tools for leadership:

Journey mapping
Visualization
Co-creation

Journey mapping, also known as empathy, is a way to walk in your customer’s shoes, to see the world from their perspective, and is the most fundamental way in which the design process differs from an analytic process. Rather than breaking things down and tweaking the trouble spot, design thinking seeks to build up something new while framing it in a holistic context.

Once you’ve mapped the customer’s journey, leaders become problem-solvers, immediately seeing new possibilities. The problem is: Will the customer see them the same way?

To help solve this, leaders can implement Visualization, also known as ideation — the process of forming and testing ideas in planning, ad-hoc, and research and development activities. Essentially, it’s a tool to create clarity and transparency for collaborative work. This can be done through various methods – gamestorming especially, provides numerous possibilities.

That being said, visualizing a new result is only part of the process. Co-creation, also known as prototyping, is a tool that lets the market tell companies which solution works best. This is the results driven aspect which shows the progress that’s been made. Co-creation is used to engage customers directly in “playing with the future” so we can discover what will truly meet their unarticulated needs.

No mater what the business is, using these design thinking distinctions, leaders can meet the needs of their customers and provide a better product or service before a problem or unmet need becomes common. Leaders who design the growth of their organizations and innovate in such a way will keep themselves on the leading edge of thought. And in the long run, the effort it takes to do research and development using design thinking will in turn save you time and resources.

So, what are you waiting for?

We welcome your thoughts in the comments section below.

*Tim Ogilvie is CEO of innovation-strategy consultancy Peer Insight and co-author with Jeanne Liedtka of “Designing for Growth: A Design Thinking Tool Kit for Managers.” We are very excited to welcome co-author Jeanne Liedtka to join Mariposa CEO Sue Bethanis on this month’s Wise Talk, Thursday, November 29 from 12-1pm PT where they plan to discuss the ability to turn abstract ideas into practical applications for optimal business growth. For more info and to sign up, please visit our website.

November 1st, 2012|Categories: Articles We Like, Design Thinking / Creativity / Innovation, HR / Talent Management, Wise Talk|Tags: business, coaching, design thinking, design thinking model, executive coaching, growth, HR Leadership, Jeanne Liedtka, leadership, Mariposa Leadership, Tim Ogilvie|

October 17, 2012 / Design Thinking / Creativity / Innovation / Wise Talk

Q&A with Saul Kaplan on Business Model Innovation

Listen to these audio snippets from our September teleconference, Wise Talk, where guest Saul Kaplan discusses some of the ideas behind his book, The Business Model Innovation Factory.

In this first snippet, Saul talks about how you must become the disruptor, or else you will be disrupted:

listen to ‘Becoming the Disruptor’ on Audioboo

In this snippet, Saul explains that the key to an innovative business model is experimentation, willingness to fail, and to try more stuff:

listen to ‘Experiment and Try More Stuff’ on Audioboo

Click here to access Mariposa Leadership’s Wise Talk archives, and click on “Business Model Innovation” for the full audio of this session.

We welcome your thoughts in the comments section below.

Gamestorming Game: Design Thinking Through Empathy Mapping

In his book, Gamestorming, Dave Gray along with co-authors Sunni Brown and James Macanufo share more than 80 games to help you break down barriers, communicate better, and generate new ideas, insights, and strategies. They have identified tools and techniques from some of the world’s most innovative professionals, whose teams collaborate and make great things happen. This book is the result: a unique collection of games that encourage engagement and creativity while bringing more structure and clarity to the workplace.

One of the very quick (20 minutes or less) and incredibly helpful games included in the book is creating an Empathy Map as a tool for Design Thinking.

The goal of the game is to gain a deeper level of understanding of a stakeholder in your business ecosystem, which may be a client, prospect, partner, etc., within a given context, such as a buying decision or an experience using a product or service.

Here’s how it can go:

1. Start by drawing a circle to represent the person and give the circle a name and some identifying information such as a job title. It helps if you can think of a real person who roughly fits the profile, so you can keep them in mind as you proceed. In keeping with the idea of a “profile” think of the circle as the profile of a person’s head and fill in some details. You might want to add eyes, mouth, nose, ears, and maybe glasses if appropriate or a hairstyle to differentiate the person from other profiles you might want to create. These simple details are not a frivolous addition — they will help you project yourself into the experience of that person, which is the point of the exercise.

2. Determine a question you have for that stakeholder. If you had a question you would want to ask them, or a situation in their life you want to understand, what would that be? You might want to understand a certain kind of buying decision, for example, in which case your question might be “Why should I buy X?”

3. Divide the circle into sections that represent aspects of that person’s sensory experience. What are they thinking, feeling, saying, doing, hearing? Label the appropriate sections on the image.

4. Now it’s time for you to practice the “empathy” portion of the exercise. As best you can, try to project yourself into that person’s experience and understand the context you want to explore. Then start to fill in the diagram with real, tangible, sensory experiences. If you are filling in the “hearing” section, for example, try to think of what the person might hear, and how they would hear it. In the “saying” section, try to write their thoughts as they would express them. Don’t put your words into their mouth — the point is to truly understand and empathize with their situation so you can design a better product, service or whatever.

5. Check yourself: Ask others to review your map, make suggestions, and add details or context. The more the person can identify with the actual stakeholder the better. Over time you will hone your ability to understand and empathize with others in your business ecosystem, which will help you improve your relationships and your results.

Mariposa Leadership is very excited to welcome Gamestorming author Dave Gray to this month’s Wise Talk where he and Sue Bethanis will discuss the innovative alternative to brainstorming – gamestorming! They will also have a chance to discuss Dave’s new book about how to keep your business on the leading edge, The Connected Company.

Sign up for Wise Talk and join the conversation on Tuesday, October 23rd from 2-3pm PT!

Ask Mariposa: What is Design Thinking?

Bethany asked:

Design thinking seems to be central to generating new ideas and creating a more innovative environment – but what exactly is it, and how can I apply it to my corporation?

Sue Bethanis, CEO responded:

The DT model is 1. customer empathy, 2. brainstorming, 3. prototyping, and 4. implementing. This can be applied to many problems in a corporation, but primarily we want to use it when we are solving problems related to internal or external customers. 1. Great product designers, for example, use keen observation skills to really understand customers in their environments. Similarly, any problem we are trying to solve, it’s important that we see like an anthropologist. 2. Brainstorming can be applied to any problem as well; great design thinkers generate scads of ideas to get to a couple of good ones, 3. Then, they prototype and test; and then iterate some more in designing a product, service or an experience. 4. Finally ideas are only as good as their application, so taking a prototype to implementation requires a good relationship with your users/customers, and getting feedback. Good luck!

Share your thoughts on this response in the comments section below, and ask us anything here: http://blog.mariposaleadership.com/ask-mariposa/