I just finished reading Erika Hall’s updated version of her book “Just Enough Research.” As a designer and strategist, I do research all the time and have done so for over 20 years. I found Erika’s book refreshing, informative and critical. Critical as in every designer who does for research as part of their jobs should read this book.

If I would focus on one major thesis of the book it would be this: rigor. Hall makes the compelling case that good research, whether done by a professional or amateur demands rigor. And that rigor stems primarily from discipline and…

Last December I had the pleasure of holding a Savvy Design breakfast seminar together with a previous client of mine, Apoteket. Apotekets Product Development Manager Carola Edsman and I spoke about the launch of their new service Apoteket DosPac that provides pre-packaged medicine for people with chronic ailments who need to consume several pills per day.

Carola and her team contracted with us at the now defunct Transformator Design to help them figure out how to bring an existing service targeted toward institutional customer to a new consumer market. The service, Apodos, served large and local health care institutions. Apoteket…

I just finished Dr. Max McKeown’s “The Innovator’s Book” — a short, energetic treatise on, as he puts it, “rules for rebels, mavericks and innovators.” Dr. Max’s book isn’t a how-to, nor is it a playbook people can implement into organizations. Rather it is a collection of reminders for change makers who typically face long odds, waves of resistance and general inertia in creating innovative solutions. The truth is that for those who dedicate their work to making significant positive changes there are never enough reminders or inspirations.

A new decade. One hundred years ago we entered into the Roaring Twenties, a decade of change and wild highs that ended in catastrophe. Despite the many statistics showing how things have improved in the world over the last 20 years, the future feels tenuous if not downright dangerous.

What to do?! Can any individual really make a difference in these fast-changing times?

People will continue doing what we’ve been doing: we’ll keep our heads down, we’ll show up to work to do the work we’re assigned, go home and enjoy friends and family, and hope for the best. A…

I’ve trained a lot of people in human-centered design. I’ve used lots of different tools and methods. I’ve used different types of training scenarios although I’m clearly partial to working on real projects. It’s in those projects, training internal teams to innovate or training entrepreneurs to develop new business models, that I see most clearly the difference between those who succeed and those who don’t.

It has nothing to do with smarts. I train lots of smart people in design thinking who develop quite poor solutions. It has nothing to do with “creativity” (or rather what people seem to expect…

Turn those design tools inward

It’s always rewarding to help organizations change their way of working to be more customer centric using design thinking. Like any change or transformation initiative, it has its ups and downs. One thing we notice is that employees feel jazzed up to use the design mindset and tools for creating better client solutions. One thing we sometimes forget is that they can use the same tools internally, with co-workers, staff and leadership, often to great effect.

In a typical capacity building engagement, we need to make sure that people have room to reflect and anchor their learnings. One way we…

”Our organization wants to work in a more customer-centric way. We feel we need to innovate more.”

When we start working with clients, this is often our starting point. How do we shift ways-of-working to spend more time understanding customers and solving their challenges in unique ways? We’re digging into and starting to change the “way things get done” in organizations, sometimes referred to as “culture”.

I spend a fair amount of my work day training, teaching and coaching people to use design thinking and service design. My team and I typically work with teams of people working on real…

This tweet really stuck with me, kind of like a social media earworm. I can’t tell you how much I’ve seen and experienced (and done myself!) over the years. It’s made me come to this conclusion:

Designers should stop trying to show that they are the smartest person in the room. Design’s superpower is asking better questions. Yet put designers in client meetings and most will spend their times talking and explaining to clients their clever ideas, findings, and beliefs. So much talk, so little listening.

Many people believe that designers like explaining so much because they really, really want…