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Design Thinking

by | Comments: 7 | July 18, 2007

At OSCON next Tuesday evening, Michael Tiemann will lead a training session on Design Thinking. In a nutshell, Design Thinking is an approach to planning and problem solving that extends a familiar metaphor of “design” (as in graphic design, or architectural design), to, well… everything. I first heard the meme in connection with Stanford University’s d.school, and have watched it gain traction over the years. If you have any experience with Meyers-Briggs personality categorizations, I think of Design Thinking as an INFP approach to problem solving, while more traditional approaches are closer to ESTJ. (Which probably has a lot to do with why I find Design Thinking so appealing.)

Michael’s OSI blog has a good introduction to Design Thinking, with a recommended reading list to get you started. You might also be interested in the practical session Wednesday night, applying the Design Thinking process to planning the future of the OSI.

  • http://opensource.org/blog/8 Michael Tiemann

    Thanks for the plug!

  • http://blog.rebang.com csven

    Sorry. While I suppose as an Industrial Designer (with a military background and engineering degree) I’m supposed to be a big supporter and cheerleader for “Design Thinking”, I’m not. And here’s why: http://blog.rebang.com/?p=1231 .

    btw, I’m not a fan of Bruce Nussbaum either.

  • Swashbuckler

    Great, just great…

    I’m an INTJ so I probably do both equally poorly…

  • http://michaelbernstein.com Michael R. Bernstein

    The last link is broken. There are nodes 169 and 171, but no 170. Was it deleted?

  • http://radar.oreilly.com/allison Allison Randal

    Apparently it was deleted (it worked earlier today). The same schedule information is repeated in 171, so perhaps that’s why they deleted the earlier post.

  • http://blog.rebang.com csven

    Apologies. Wrong link above. Perhaps Ms. Randal would be so kind as to replace it with this one -

    “Why “Design Thinking” Makes No Sense To This Designer” – http://blog.rebang.com/?p=1231

    - and delete this comment afterward.

  • http://ic-pod.typepad.com/design_at_the_edge/ Jim Rait

    If you subject yourself to a “proper” 360 degree” Myers Briggs you will find thet 4 letters don’t really help… I was regarded as a design thinker and I am an ENTP/J. Many of the industrial designers I knew wouldn’t do a M-B assessment and those that did didn’t fit your profile. An in-depth look at M-B scores can be revealing. For instance the reason I get a P/J rating is because my scores along this axis are either at the P end or the J end with nothing in-betwen.. bath tub shape… many designers do this on other axes too!
    So the mean score does not reflect a bell-shaped distribution clustering around the mean score. there are better ways of describing the shift from tactical design management to strategic design leadership that account for sffinity and other social dimensions which have greater weight in leadership and followership