A Platform for Teaching Design Thinking

Dr. Charles Burnette created iDeSIGN, a Design Thinking course for children. He freely shares this information on his website idesignthinking.com. The program began with a university course, Design With Kids, that placed design students in classrooms to help teachers conduct design projects related to their teaching goals.

Our podcast discussed teaching Design Thinking to both children and adults. In a recent blog post, A Teaching Resource for Design Thinking, I discussed the seven principles of Dr. Charles Burnette’s IDeSiGN.

1. I stands for intending
2. D stands for Defining.
3. e stands for Exploring
4. S stands for Suggesting
5. i stands for Innovating
6. G stands for Goal getting
7. N stands for kNowing

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Charles Burnette received his BA, MA and PhD degrees from the University of Pennsylvania where he was also a Research Associate doing research on the uses of information during design. A licensed, award winning architect, he became Director of the Philadelphia AIA, founding Director of the Center for Planning Design and Construction in Philadelphia, and Dean of the School of Architecture, University of Texas at Austin.  He returned to teaching to become the Director of the Industrial Design Department at the University of the Arts, both while co-directing the Design Based Education K-12 Program. The graduate program was conceived and implemented to explore the design thinking model and to demonstrate its potential in a computer support system for interdisciplinary design. 

Dr. Burnette has been a frequent speaker in European design schools and at the European Union’s Cumulus Program on Design Education, and is widely published on topics such as design management, design systems, ecological design and design education. He is now writing a book about the design model, its foundations in cognitive science and its application.

Related Information:
A Short Course in Design Thinking
Sketching an important Leadership Tool
When it comes to creativity, give me a 5 year old!
GE CMO sheds her view on Design Thinking

Is the first Lean Step in Sales and Marketing; Standard Work?

Many Lean Consultants or internal Lean Champions deal with the supply side of the equation. Sales and Marketing work on the demand side. So, you have to find common ground to introduce Lean. I think the first step is developing a consensus on Standard Work. It will meet resistance, but it is the one thing that will can have a significant impact.almost immediately. I am not talking about developing call scripts, checklist, etc. I am talking about characterizing how we do things or in other words, provide clarity. At that point, best practices will surface and a few bad ones will be obvious even to the naysayers.

Many people will want to jump into Lean Practices of Value Stream Mapping, Process Mapping and even Customer Journey Mapping as the first step, start improving a process. I think that is too cumbersome. If there is something easy to do and that has a high payoff by all means do, My First PDCA for Sales and Marketing. However, make sure you take that project outside of your Whirlwind, see Standard Work as your Whirlwind–Manage it!.

Taiichi Ohno: "Without a Standard there can be no Kaizen."

Dr. Balle: "Lean is not a revolution; it is solve one thing and prove one thing."

At a higher level, and in workshops, I use the Business Model Canvas developed by Alex Osterwalder and discussed in his book, Business Model Generation. This platform is used in many circles for Business Model Innovation, but I have found it to be challenging for many companies to document their current process using it. The nine blocks that make up this canvas provides the organization the necessary structure needed. It provides a one page document that highlights the entire Value Stream of your Sales and Marketing Process. You can find more about this in past blogs:

Do You Know the Right Job For Your Products?

What’s new in Business Model Generation? Customer Value Canvas and more

Steve Blank on the Lean Startup at Ann Arbor

Join the conversation at the Lean Marketing Lab.

Show Business Side of Service Design

Turning good services into memorable service experiences was the theme of the Business901 podcast with Adam St. John (aka Adam Lawrence) of Work•Play•Experience. This is a transcription of the podcast, Insight into the Customer Experience through Theater.

Adam is a professional comedian, business consultant and writer with a background in psychology and the automotive industry. For years he has been using expertise gained in the world of theater and film to help companies influence their customers.

 

An insightful blog about one of Adam’s favorite messages, Boom! Wow, Wow, Wow, BOOM!! Does Your Customer Experience Have A Dramatic Arc? was written by Kerry Bodine of Forrester after attending a workshop led by Adam at the Service Design Network conference last fall.

Related Information:
Gamestorming for Service Design
Service Design via a Design Thinker ebook
Do you co-create value with your Customer?
A Service Design Thinking Primer