[MUSIC] This is going to be the introduction to Design Thinking. Design thinking is a human centered, prototype driven process for innovation. It's human centered because it starts and ends with the unmet needs of the users that we're solving with. We prototype our ideas in low fidelity ways to make those ideas come to life so that we can get momentum and inspiration for the problems that we're trying to solve. It's a very innovative process that moves away from incremental improvement and really focuses on inspiring new ideas. Design thinking is a process, and it's a method. But it's not linear as it may look here where we move through these phases of the process. But we might move in and out of some of these phases. Where we start with learning, we go out and we gain inspiration to better understand the problem very deeply with deep empathy. So for the users to explain to us when we're trying to solve this problem, what makes them act they way they do, understanding what there saying, how they're feeling, and really getting to the heart of the matter is one key part of learning in design thinking. We then come back in and we begin to define what it is that we just found. Understand that these insights really have some meanings, some deep meaning. And then we ideate, we begin to brainstorm and come up with solutions to solve for some parts of that particular problem. We then move into prototyping, which is where we again make that problem space come to life. We have a solution that we quickly low fidelity prototype. We put it out into the world for the end user to react to, and that's the testing phase. And we iterate relentlessly. We understand deeply that it's only filling fast to succeed sooner. That's really going to get us faster toward that innovative idea coming to life. So at any given point, we may go back and forth in and out at any part of these particular process. Design thinking is a very collaborative approach, it's very experiential, and we're eternally optimistic in design thinking. We often shoot down the idea that we can't do something, and we come up with questions and opportunities for brainstorming, based on how might we? And we'll get to that further into the series. The elements of design thinking that make it such a great process for problem solving and innovation are that we begin to really learn from people. Just as I said previously, we go out into the world and we begin to understand what people say, what people think, what they do, and how they feel about that. Because often what people say and what people do don't always match up. And through interviews and observations we can really begin to understand and learn where the problem spaces are that we can begin to solve for. We find patterns in what people are saying and what people are doing. And we begin to make sense of those patterns by synthesizing our findings and creating themes for the particular problem that ones look like a specific problem and then it begins to break out into multiple problems that we can begin to really understand. We then begin to make this ideas for solutions come to life through that low fidelity prototyping part of the process, where we were able to gain momentum and create some prototype for a user to be able to test. And then we get feedback on that particular prototype, and we incorporate that feedback and we iterate relentlessly. Remember, I said that we fail fast to succeed sooner. The real elements of design thinking that are highlighted here are those elements that really seek to get to that sweet spot in the middle, that rapid innovation. So that we're considering not only what's good for business and what we can actually do but what people want. Too often, especially in healthcare, but in many other industries, we design solutions from the very beginning based on what's good technologically, what we can actually do, and what we can build, and also then, what's good for workflow, or what's good for business. What's going to generate revenue? But too often, we designed without that third circle in this Venn diagram. Where what's desirable? What do people want? When we begin to design and really go to the back-end design and understand what people want, we're more capable of designing a solution that gets to that sweet spot in the middle. And continuously iterating and incorporating that users needs into these solutions is really key. So the advantages of design thinking, as I've said, are that it's just better for people. It really does start and end with their unmet needs. It builds tangibility by creating momentum when you have something to actually look at and to react to as an inducer. It really is low risk, this method for problem solving is very low because we prototype with very little resources, little time and little money. And those prototypes are meant to fail fast, so that we can succeed sooner. This is an example of how design thinking is better for people. A company that I was trained with and currently have mentors in is IDEO. They're a premier design thinking firm throughout the country and do global work around design thinking problem solving with many different industries. They went to this company to help them solve a problem around not having a good conference call line. And when they talk to this company on the phone, the company said, we just need a new conference call, can you design a new way for us to do our conference calling? And the IDEO design researcher said, well, we kind of really need to come out and see what you're end users are doing and how they feel about their current work flow. So they did, and they went out and they spoke with this woman and said, do you know how to make a conference call? And she said, I sure do. I dial this number, I dial this number, and I put the two phones together, and that's my conference call. Now if they'd taken her word for that, they wouldn't be where they are now, which is having co-created with this company a conference call system that was very innovative. This particular user didn't necessarily understand what her unmet needs were. She was so used to the workarounds that she created, and she was quite efficient with that process. So it's better for people when you begin to start with their unmet needs, and helping them understand them themselves. As I said, another advantage is that it builds tangibility. There was a company that invited IDEO to a conference, and it was a surgical conference where some ENT or ear, nose and throat doctors were meeting. They were describing this process for this nasal shaver, and how difficult it was to use that particular nasal shaver, and when the audio design researcher said to them what is it that you actually need. They started to verbalize and describe this new device that they might like. And in fact the design researchers grabbed some supplies from around the room and said, show me what you need. That's that building momentum. That's that create into tangible thing for people to react to. And soon they landed on this marker and eraser and a paper clip and they said, it would look like this. That then moved on to commercialize and become the gyros nasal shaver that's being used today. So you can see where you can create real momentum by having a low fidelity prototype for folks to be able to react to. Another advantage of design thinking is that it really does reduce risks. There's very little risk in pulling together some supplies that you have to be able to show this new product, device, work flow or even a policy. Many times we are too afraid to put out that low fidelity prototype for people to react to. If we're developing a new work flow, or a new policy or protocol for our organization, we want to make sure that we have it really pretty and really right to be able to hand over, because it's very risky for us. We feel that our integrity might be compromised. If we hand out something that's really what we like to call the ugly baby where this particular idea is very low risk. If you can sketch something on the back of a napkin or piece of scrap paper and show it to others. They're more likely to give you the true feedback that you actually want, because you know you're going to fail first, and you're going to fail multiple times. It's that iterative process that really helps to drive us sooner toward the innovative idea that will become the final idea. This is much different than our opposing way to tackle problems, which is what we're so used to doing, which is, let's call a meeting. We've got a problem, let's get the right stakeholders around and talk about it, and assume that we know all of the important data points to be able to solve this problem, and let's generate some solutions here. And let's implement those for the end users of the system. That's oftentimes where the disconnect happens with the latent organizational decision makers and the frontline staff who are actually doing the work. Or another way that we often tackle problems is by having companies or industry or manufacturers come in and bring us new devices that say, wow, these are really going to solve all of your problems in your operating room or in your clinics. We, too often are given the solutions versus been a part of the design on the back-end to do that kind of deep research to better understand what those unmet needs are from the end users. We're seeing more and more now where industry are partnering with many organizations to go in and understand where the problem spaces are. To design with and not for the end users of that system. But design thinking really isn't just about designing products, it's really about designing new systems, perhaps. It's about designing new processes, or new ways of doing our work. Sometimes it's about designing new tools that we need to be able to do our work more efficiently or sometimes it's about spaces. Just like in my very own office, I knew I didn't like the way things were. I wasn't going to be able to work the way that I needed to work to stay creative and inspired in my work. So I prototyped what I wanted my office to look like and iterated it over multiple different weeks. And finally landed on exactly what I wanted, and that didn't take a lot of time, it was very low-risk, I didn't have to ask my manager to buy a lot of new pieces of equipment or devices. Until finally I landed on exactly what it was that I needed. So design thinking is a great way to seek rapid innovation versus incremental improvement.
