Four reasons Design Thinking training will change the way you work.
Design Thinking is an effective mode of tackling challenging business and social problems of any kind. Today, it’s tough to find a company or industry that hasn’t used design thinking methods to improve their way of working and creating products, services, or experiences.
“Design thinking is a non-linear, iterative process which seeks to understand users, challenge assumptions, redefine problems and create innovative solutions to prototype and test. The method consists of 5 phases — Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype and Test and is most useful when you want to tackle problems that are ill-defined or unknown.” — Interaction Design Foundation
And, while many major companies like IBM and USAA have built in-house design thinking teams, not every group or organization is ready for that commitment or investment.
If you’re curious about getting exposure to design thinking so you can start working in more productive, innovative, and customer-centric ways, you might want to invest in Design Thinking training. (At Voltage Control, we design custom engagements for our clients who wish to learn about Design Thinking.)
If you’re considering investing in Design Thinking, you might be wondering: what will I get out of Design thinking training? Here are four benefits and outcomes from Design Thinking training:
1. You’ll Learn Top Job Skills for the Future
2. You’ll Be More Successful
3. You’ll Understand Your Users or Customers Better
4. You’ll Prototype More and Guess Less
Want to train your team in design thinking? Voltage Control offers private training tailored to the needs of your team. Please reach out to hello@voltagecontrol.com for a consultation.
Keep reading below to find out more about each of these benefits.
4 Reasons to Consider Design Thinking Training
1. You’ll Learn Top Job Skills for the Future
Design thinking skills, which prioritize collaboration, customer research, and iteration are some of the top abilities that people need for today’s (and tomorrow’s) workplace. The top skills for the 21st century have been described as the 4 Cs: communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity. These four skills are vital components of any design thinking training.
Not only that, but companies are actively seeking out employees who have these critical skills. In an article called “Is Design Thinking a Skill?”, Dr. Deborah Sliver, Karen Bemis, and Sue Weston cite a fascinating statistic: “Between 2016 and 2018 there was a 200% increase in jobs seeking design thinking compared with a 6% increase in all positions.”
Four of the top skills for the 21st century are: communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity.
2. You’ll Be More Successful
Another reason to consider design thinking training is that there are undeniable business outcomes for companies that work in this way. Check out this stat: “When design principles are applied to strategy and innovation, the success rate for innovation dramatically improves. Design-led companies such as Apple, Pepsi, IBM, Nike, Procter & Gamble, and SAP have outperformed the S&P 500 over a 10-year period by an extraordinary 211% according to the 2015 Design Value Index created by the Design Management Institute and Motiv Strategies.” — Creativity at Work
Design-led companies such as Apple, Pepsi, IBM, Nike, Procter & Gamble, and SAP have outperformed the S&P 500 over a 10-year period by 211%. -Source: Design Value Index.
Here’s another compelling statistic: “Salesforce’s sales team…has embraced design thinking in its sales discovery process and has realized a 100% increase in revenue growth as a result.” These stats show that design thinking leads to the concrete outcomes and big pay-off that companies are always seeking.
3. You’ll Understand Your Users or Customers Better
Design thinking is a method that prioritizes empathy, above all. Having compassion for your clients, customers, or users is paramount; design thinking teaches that we should make decisions based on user needs, not what’s easy, cheap, technically-possible, or what the boss thinks is important. This attitude is what’s known as being user-centered or human-centered.
“The User-centered design (UCD) process outlines the phases throughout a design and development life-cycle all while focusing on gaining a deep understanding of who will be using the product.” — Usability.gov
Through design thinking training, you’ll learn how to start projects by understanding your users better. You’ll learn how to make business and design decisions from that vantage point. Fundamental to this is learning how to conduct user research and ethnographic research. You’ll learn how to talk to your users to understand their lives, needs, desires, and pain points.
Start our Design Thinking Foundations course today!
Learn and practice Design Thinking to help your team solve problems and seize opportunities.
4. You’ll Prototype More and Guess Less
“For human-centered designers, Rapid Prototyping is an incredibly effective way to make ideas tangible, to learn through making, and to quickly get key feedback from the people you’re designing for.” — IDEO.org
Along with the importance of user research, design thinking training teaches you how powerful the practice of prototyping can be. The idea behind prototyping is that, instead of building a full product or app, you quickly draw up a simulation of your design — whether that’s a sketch or a prototype created using a prototyping tool like Figma, Sketch, or Framer.
Your prototype is something concrete and real that you can show to customers to get feedback so you can refine and iterate on your design to make it better. When you get into a prototyping mindset, you can move quickly and gain invaluable insights into your product.
These are four massive benefits that a team can get out of Design Thinking training. If you decide to engage, we think you’ll find that it’s an exciting, collaborative, and insightful way of working. If you want to know more, please get in touch with us!
Do you want expert help with Design Thinking Training? Let’s talk.
Voltage Control designs custom engagements for clients, including design thinking workshops, innovation sessions, and Design Sprints. Please reach out to us at hello@voltagecontrol.com for a consultation.
We also host regular meetups, boot camps, summits, and virtual workshops–from Professional Virtual Facilitation Training to our annual Control the Room Facilitator Summit. To sign up or learn more.
