10 years back I founded my third company – it was before the newspapers could spell the word “Internet”. It turned out to be a Internet-consultancy company, and when I left it in 2000 the unit I founded was grown to around 60 people. We merged the company into one of those big players at the time – and over night we turned out being aprox. 2000 people in the same company.
Those where the days….;-)
Since then I wished to learn something about what happened – creating a language for it. So I took a Master in Management Development, which part wise consisted of studies on personal leadership, business development and a lot of psychological stuff…..dealing with people, leading them – and your self – through massive change.
The past 3-4-5 months a lot of buzz has been created in the blogsophere around the term “Design Thinking”.
Why?
I also find it interesting and maybe it’s THE term for creating sense around what design can add to doing meaningful business - in the broadest sense.
As I see it there is nothing new under the sun – the new thing is though that “Design Thinking” encapsulate many different disciplines, Management, Design, HRM, Strategy, Innovation, Ethnography and a lot of others…..
Then again – looking back to the “old” days it came down to being openminded - again in the broadest sense - agile and alert on change. So is “Design Thinking” = “Change Management” in every aspect? Product/Service, Processes, Culture/identity?
Something like that – I think 
But I’m also sure that I missed something – please tell me what.
Interesting times we live in and I’ll look forward being part of the discussion – maybe a topic for the CPH127-Summit next Spring?
One comment so far
Hans, I think the surge of “design thinking” in management and business can be compared to the passage of simple mass produced products to designed & thought through products.
Roughly two decades ago companies, their businesses and their business model were determined by the industry they were in (e.g. airline industry -> flag carriers). Today the sphere of possible business (model) designs has exploded (e.g. airline industry -> no frills, flag carriers, partial ownership, air taxi, etc.).
New methods are required because building competitive companies becomes more complex due to the growing sphere of possible new combinations & business designs. Looking to design thinking seems straight forward.
I think design thinking brings in new methods of fostering creativity, of involving people, of visualizing and drawing the relationship between things & objects…
Just some thoughts, Alex