Design Thinking is an approach that has been evolving since the 1960’s and was popularised in the 1990’s when IDEO, a US based design consultancy, formed.

 

It’s an approach to creative problem solving that private sector organisations have been using to design and sell products and services for decades. It’s applied by following an iterative process focussing on understanding a problem and rapidly moving to potential solutions that can be tested in order to gain more understanding that in turn helps redefine the problem.

Design has often been seen as a luxury. A nice to have. But we’re seeing more and more organisations investing in Design Thinking and putting it at the core of their business. They’re realising that if they don’t spend the time understanding the people they’re developing products and services for, their product or service won’t be used and won’t survive.

 

Digital technology has been a big factor in this. The competition for people’s time and attention is increasing daily. New apps, games and wearable technology means that you need to engage people immediately or risk being forgotten and lost amongst the noise.

 

So Design Thinking plays a key role to help organisations think differently and spot the opportunities to stand out, be noticed and be remembered.

 

The rise of Design Thinking

 

In the last few years we’ve seen Design Thinking take hold in the public sector driven by digital transformation programmes like the UK’s Government Digital Service and the Canada Digital Service. These are some of the world’s leading governments acknowledging that they need to think differently about the public services they provide.

 

It’s their response to the ever expanding ways in which people interact with public services.

 

Again, digital technology is a big driver for this – as the public’s expectations of a good services are elevated by their experiences with products and services from the likes of Amazon and Google, they’re becoming increasingly critical of services that don’t offer the same levels of satisfaction.

 

Design Thinking in the Charity Sector

Now Design Thinking is becoming increasingly popular with charity organisations. They’re not just catching up with the latest trends for the sake of it, they’re realising the true value of Design Thinking and how it can help them in their mission to improve the lives of others.

 

So why is Design Thinking a good approach for charities?

 

It can be applied to anything

Design Thinking has become synonymous with other approaches like User Centred Design (UCD) and User Experience Design (UX) which have traditionally been focussed on products. But Design Thinking is much broader than that. It can be applied to anything – Services, Products, Teams, Organisations, Events and even just everyday life. And that’s why it’s great for charity organisations because they often don’t focus on just one product or one service but a whole host of support mechanisms and relationships.

 

It focuses on people

Like User Centred Design, Design Thinking is an approach that places people at it’s core and helps identify the right solutions to the problems they face. Which is perfect for charities because as organisations, they only exist to find the right solutions to the problems people face.

 

It’s more affordable than you think

Charity organisations run on a much tighter budget than most, so it can be even harder to justify spending money on design.

 

But that’s changing. Where design has traditionally been something that charities outsource to specialist agencies and consultants, Design Thinking is something that they can do themselves.

 

Design Thinking isn’t a stand alone product or service that can be bought, it’s a way of working, a cultural approach for a whole organisation so it needs to come from within. It’s no longer about choosing the right company to hire, but about hiring the right people with the right mindset.

 

It’s not just for designers

Hiring the right people with the right mindset doesn’t mean hiring a team of designers who do it all. Design Thinking is an approach that anyone in any role can use and apply to the problems their solving. From fundraising and marketing to finance and HR – all of these areas of an organisation can benefit from taking a Design Thinking approach.

 

Embedding design across the organisation like this allows for new projects to be worked on with cross-functional teams – different people from different areas of the organisation coming together, bringing their own areas of expertise to solve problems.

 

Design Thinking in action

 

At Good Things Foundation, we’re realising the benefits of taking a Design Thinking approach.

 

When I joined the organisation 18 months ago, Design Thinking, specifically Service Design, was seen as something brand new. Something that people were wary of. It felt like the new Design Team had been hired as an internal design agency.

 

But we soon recognised that our job wasn’t to do all of the design ourselves but to help the whole organisation apply Design Thinking to everything we do.  We have a small team of experienced designers but are committed to building the capability across the whole organisation, not just a be a specialist team who other teams outsource their Design Thinking to.

 

And it’s working. We’re not finished. We’ll never be finished. For Design Thinking to always be part of the organisation’s culture we’ll need to continually apply it and improve the way we do it. It’s not something that happens overnight, but if you start small, and trust in the process, it’s amazing how quick the approach can start to seep into everything we do.

 

To help us make sure this change in the organisation continues, we need to make it sustainable. We’ve developed a set of Design Principles that help guide us and we’re in the process of developing a Design Thinking Toolkit to make the tools and techniques accessible to anyone in the organisation.

 

Design Thinking for positive change

 

We’re starting to see examples of how Design Thinking is resulting in some brilliant innovations in the charity sector.

 

Printed by Us is an example of how Design Thinking can take an initial idea and turn it into a life changing opportunity.

 

It started when founder of social enterprise The Level Collective, Mark Musgrave, wanted to explore how a TOMS style One for One approach could help him invest in the local community.

 

The first idea was to add a range of ethically made enamel mugs to the Level Collective store and for every one sold, give a thermal flask to a rough sleeper.

 

Before going any further, Mark knew that this idea was based on a huge number of assumptions. So he set about understanding more about the homeless community in Sheffield, the services and support already available to them and whether his idea was a sensible one.

 

The feedback was unanimous. This was not a good idea.

 

But that didn’t stop Mark. He simply continued to iterate through the Design Thinking process. Each time redefining the problem and refining his ideas. Several iterations later, Printed by Us was born – A new social enterprise running screen printing workshops for people in Sheffield who may have experienced homelessness and other complex issues. Collaborating with local artists to create unique artwork, then hand screen printing the artwork and selling the prints to fund more workshops.

 

Design Thinking helped Mark go from giving a physical object that may or may not be used, to providing invaluable opportunities for people to learn new skills and develop confidence that can help them make positive changes in their lives.

 

So, what does it take to bring Design Thinking into the charity sector?

 

Trust

Trust in the process. Not that the process will get it right first time but trust that it will get you much closer to the right solution than you would without it. And then trust that you can continue to refine and improve through further iterations.

 

A commitment to people

It’s important to have a good relationship with your service users. The people who you’re supporting. Design Thinking requires a good understanding of them and the problems they face, so the closer you can work with them, the better you will be able to understand their challenges.

 

A commitment to learning

Design Thinking is a form of experimenting and experimenting means you might not always get it right. Being able to look at things that haven’t worked and take lessons from it is invaluable to learning more and continually improving ideas and solutions.

 

The right mindset

Having an open mind to what’s possible. Having a fixed mindset leads to the using the same old ideas to solve the same problems. Having a growth mindset allows you to approach a problem without knowing what the solution might be. In order to embrace Design Thinking, you need to not be bound by what you already know and prepared to take the time to explore new ideas and learn along the way.

 

How can we make this the norm?

If we’re to help the charity sector take advantage of Design Thinking we need to help the people working in the charity sector become Design Thinkers. To help them trust in the process, involve the people they’re supporting, be experimental and develop the right mindset.

 

As professional designers, we need to step up and take responsibility and put our expertise to good use. We need to break down the exclusive nature of what we do. We need to stop doing design for charities and start doing it with them.

 

At Sheffield Design School, that’s exactly what I’m trying to do. Working with organisations to help people across their teams to develop the skills and confidence to apply Design Thinking to their own work – by getting in there with them and helping them do it for themselves.

We’re developing a network of experienced designers who are willing to give their time to help charities solve problems and build Design Thinking into their work. We’re setting up our own TOMS style One for One offer that will match Designers to Charities and provide a platform for them to start building the Design capacity throughout the sector.