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Narrative
Welcome to Crisis Resolutions PRO, the podcast for professionals who want to learn how to handle any crisis with confidence and creativity. I’m your host, and today we’re going to talk about the flexibility of intelligence.
What does it mean to be flexible in your thinking? How can you use design thinking to identify and solve problems in a crisis? How can you learn from the best practices of successful entrepreneurs and innovators? These are some of the questions we’ll explore in this episode.
As Steve Jobs once said, “Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” Design thinking is a process that helps you understand the needs and challenges of your customers, stakeholders, and users, and come up with solutions that are desirable, feasible, and viable. It’s a way of thinking that embraces uncertainty, experimentation, and feedback.
Tips
In a crisis situation, design thinking can help you adapt to changing circumstances, find opportunities in chaos, and create value for your organization and society. But how do you apply design thinking in practice? Here are some tips from experts in the field:
- Empathize: The first step of design thinking is to empathize with your users and stakeholders. Try to see the problem from their perspective, understand their emotions, motivations, and pain points. Use methods such as interviews, observations, surveys, or personas to gather insights.
- Define: The next step is to define the problem you want to solve. Based on your empathy research, synthesize your findings into a clear and concise problem statement that captures the needs and goals of your users. Use tools such as problem statements, how might we questions, or point of view statements to frame your challenge.
- Ideate: The third step is to ideate possible solutions for your problem. Brainstorm as many ideas as possible, without judging or filtering them. Use techniques such as mind mapping, sketching, SCAMPER, or brainstorming rules to generate diverse and creative ideas.
- Prototype: The fourth step is to prototype your ideas. Turn your ideas into tangible and testable products or services that you can share with your users and stakeholders. Use materials such as paper, cardboard, Lego, or digital tools to create low-fidelity prototypes that capture the key features and functions of your solutions.
- Test: The final step is to test your prototypes with your users and stakeholders. Gather feedback on what works and what doesn’t work about your solutions. Use methods such as user testing, interviews, observations, or surveys to collect data and measure outcomes.
These are the five steps of design thinking that can help you solve problems in a crisis. But don’t take my word for it. Let’s look at some examples of how design thinking has been used in real-life situations.
Case Studies
One example of how design thinking can help companies grow is Airbnb. The online platform connects travelers with hosts who offer accommodation in their homes. In 2009, Airbnb was struggling to attract users and grow its business. The founders decided to use design thinking to better understand their customers and improve their product. They traveled to New York City and met with some of their hosts. They realized that one of the main problems was the poor quality of the photos on their website. To address this issue, they offered a free professional photography service to their hosts, which improved the attractiveness and trustworthiness of their listings. This simple solution increased their bookings by 2.5 times and helped them grow their business exponentially.
Another example of design thinking in action is IDEO.org, the non-profit arm of IDEO, a global design consultancy. IDEO.org uses design thinking to tackle social challenges such as poverty, health, education, and gender equality. For example, they designed a low-cost toilet for urban slums in Ghana. They used design thinking to empathize with the users and stakeholders involved in sanitation services. They prototyped different toilet models using local materials and tested them with potential customers. They came up with a solution that was affordable, durable, easy to use, and attractive. They also designed a service model that involved local entrepreneurs who collected and treated the waste safely and sustainably.
These are just two examples of how design thinking can help find innovative solutions in a crisis. There are many more examples out there that can inspire and teach us.
Conclusion
To wrap up this episode, here are some key takeaways:
- Design thinking is a process that helps you understand the needs and challenges of your customers, stakeholders, and users, and come up with solutions that are desirable, feasible, and viable.
- The five steps of design thinking are empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test.
That’s it for today’s episode of Crisis Resolutions PRO. We hope you found this discussion on the flexibility of intelligence useful. Join us next time for another exciting episode where we’ll explore the flexibility of services. Don’t forget to check out our previous episode on the flexibility of character as well. Thanks for tuning in, and stay safe!
