Bruce Gay Principal Consultant| Astrevo LabsPittsburgh, Pa, United States
In early May I provided a webinar for the PMI community on the topic "Design Thinking & Project Management". One of the themes I heard from the attendees was concern around introducing design thinking at their organizations and on their projects. Some cited the need for middle management "buy-in" to ensure success. Others noted schedule pressures or not having reasonable knowledge about the process as key factors for not adopting Design Thinking.
My question for the forum -- What are barriers to adopting Design Thinking at your organization?
** Thanks in advance for your responses as this will help inform my Part 2 webinar on this topic. **
-Bruce Saving Changes...
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Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
The problem is when some very usuful things becomes into buzzwords. That is the case of desing thinking. As you know, this is not a new term or discipline. People that becomes from software use it from years. What we need (I use the term "we" because all people that try to use this type of things in their work like me could be jeopardizes by buzzwords) is to say to all people that they are using desing thinking each day in they real life. No more than that. So, retrurning to your point, the barrier is imposed from some people that try to sell an idea like something magic when the idea is there in the outside world and it is being used right now. Saving Changes...
Bruce Gay Principal Consultant| Astrevo LabsPittsburgh, Pa, United States
Sergio - good point. Let me re-phrase my question:
What are barriers to adopting procedures and frameworks, such as Human-Centered Design (HCD) and Design Thinking, at your organization?
Specifically, what prevents your organization (or project team) from using observations to determine the true underlying issues and user needs (aka “Problem Defining”) and then addressing those needs through an iterative procedure of ideation, prototyping, and user validation.
Thanks,
-Bruce Saving Changes...
Greg GithensAuthor, "How to Think Strategically." Executive & Leadership Coach| Catalyst & Cadre LLCLakewood Ranch, Fl, United States
One barrier is this: conceptual thinking is hard work, and people would rather not do the hard work that is needed. Specifically, they need to develop the habits of putting effort into understanding the context of the situation before they start to develop solutions.
Along with this, organizations tend to reward for outcomes and not for the quality of decisions that are made. Saving Changes...
Usually it's "just" organizational culture what hinders any change. Apart from that, DT is not applicable to every field, but that is why there are so many different approaches and why we should be able to chose the appropriate one accordingly. Saving Changes...
Bruce Gay Principal Consultant| Astrevo LabsPittsburgh, Pa, United States
Christina & Greg - Good insights. In my research, organizational matters keep coming up as the top barrier to adopting human-centered design or DT at an enterprise. Thanks. Saving Changes...
Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
Why an organization has to start using something? Becuase it will solve an organizational problem that arrives when needs of transformation arrives. Why a need of transformation arrives? Because the organization is an open and adaptable system that must change when the environement changes. So, no matter what you need to implement, you will face allways the same problems and the situations you are describing above. That is because, to talk about a role, the business analyst role emerges years ago and from now (in fact more than 6 years ago) the PMI is pay attention to it. The first thing a business analyst has to do is to perform a whole organization analysis. Time ago I wrote an article that was considred as "best practice" by the IIBA and the PMI (link below). The important thing is you will face this type of situations ever.
http://www.projectmanagement.com/blog-post...-right-solution Saving Changes...
I agree with Christina that this is not about adopting a single method, but is generally dictated by the organization's (and individual's) disposition toward change and innovation. Saving Changes...
