Interpretations of design thinking across a large organization

PROCEEDINGS OF INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON ENGINEERING DESIGN, ICED19, Proceedings of the Design Society : International Conference on Engineering Design, Volume 1, issue 1

Abstract

Design thinking has a prominent role as established corporations ramp up innovation efforts focusing on user needs. Current literature provides a plethora of definitions for design thinking with variations in tools, methods and cultures. This study aims to identify differences in perception and maturity of design thinking across different contexts within a large corporation. The results are based on a thematic analysis of nine semi-structured interviews with industrial and user experience designers in the case company, operating in different countries and three different organizational contexts: lone designers of a region, unit-embedded design team managers and global-level design managers. The results echo the literature in finding no uniform definition of design thinking. Instead, it was seen as a continuous scale of practices, cognitive approaches and mindsets aiming for stronger user-centrism in the organization. Practices and maturity varied between contexts, indicating that to strengthen the role of design in an organization, a deep understanding of the context is crucial for a successful implementation.

Keywords

design practice, design management, organizational processes, design maturity

DOI

10.1017/dsi.2019.400

Citation

Kosmala , M , van der Marel , F & Björklund , T 2019 , ' Interpretations of design thinking across a large organization ' , Proceedings of the Design Society: International Conference on Engineering Design , pp. 3929-3938 . https://doi.org/10.1017/dsi.2019.400

Permanent link to this item

https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:aalto-202001021304

Collections

[article-cris] Insinööritieteiden korkeakoulu / ENG

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