Design Thinking @Infosys

In line with my earlier blog post titled: "Design Thinking @SAP – Lessons for India" (12 June 2012), it is good to see the following (The Hindu, Business Line dated 21 Sep 2014): How Infosys is switching to ‘design thinking’     [Click here]

Design Commons & Uncommon Common Sense

This refers to one interesting extract by Carliss Baldwin [Source: Citings, Economic Times, 4th Sept 2014, Thursday] that lends credence to sourcing ideas from the commons for common good (while designing new infrastructure development projects). It is quite relevant for the Indian context now with its own inclusive growth and developmental challenges ahead. Here is the extract:

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Design Commons

By Carliss Baldwin

This study empirically investigates the relationship between design structure and organisation structure in the context of new infrastructure development projects. Our research setting is a capital programme to develop new school buildings in Manchester, UK.

Instead of creating a controlled, hierarchical organisation that would mirror the buildings' design structure, the Manchester City Council created a 'commons organisation', and chose to share decision-rights with local claimants.

So, each school's faculty was given rights equal to council staff to participate in the design process and to approve the school's design. In the natural resources literature, commons theory predicts that if a robust governance structure is created, this complex form of organising gives claimants incentives to contribute to the enterprise whilst dampening collective action problems....

The design commons induced teachers to communicate their knowledge, but created corresponding tensions over interdependent choices for the final design. Yet, none of the projects succumbed to collective action problems such as budget overruns or users feeling disenfranchised.... We also discuss design flexibility that was critical in reconciling differences. We describe why a commons organisation can be advantageous for production of designs.

From "Sharing Design Rights: A Commons Approach for Developing Infrastructure"

Source:
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/41654481.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

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The HBS working paper# 14-025 by Gil & Baldwin dated 21 Jan 2014 can be downloaded here => [Web link]

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The above goals are guided by design thinking for developing human-centered universal designs by using design commons. It shows the power of democratizing design for ease of implementation – which ought to make good common sense. Yet here is a common refrain: “Common sense is not so common” (Voltaire).

Just like the precepts of Total Quality Management (TQM), which some may say is common sense. Yet, organizations claiming to have adopted TQM practices continue to dismiss customer focus. Likewise, while seeking total employee involvement and empowerment, managers remain reluctant as ever to surrender control for empowering their sub-ordinates.

Recently, seeing too much positivism in the air, there was a need to share the following links (with a cautionary note) from my earlier blog posts:

Bubbles of positivism  (18 Oct 2008)

Design thinking and appreciative inquiry...  (24 May 2012)

The following excerpt from an article titled "Multicultural Critical Theory. At B-School?" is related to the above posts:

[Quote] In 1999, few others in the business-school world shared Mr. [Roger] Martin’s view. But a decade and a seismic economic downturn later, things have changed. “I think there’s a feeling that people need to sharpen their thinking skills, whether it’s questioning assumptions, or looking at problems from multiple points of view,” says David A. Garvin, a Harvard Business School professor who is co-author with Srikant M. Datar and Patrick G. Cullen of an upcoming book, “Rethinking the M.B.A.: Business Education at a Crossroads.” [Unquote]

[Source: The New York Times dated January 9, 2010 ]

Hence, as suggested quite often in my blog posts, “It is time Indian schools adopted these concepts for redefining education” – once again seen by some as application of common sense.

Yet…"Common sense is not so common"......Moving away from "Taylorism to Tailorism" is not an easy task (even though most of it is common sense). All it requires is questioning the status quo (read “old assumptions of the times past”). Perhaps "not to question" the state of affairs is considered more commonsensical - a trait that is "not so common" in a few who want to bring changes. They do this repeatedly with a hope to bring some positive changes around their place of work. Hoping that, as one senior colleague-cum-mentor said, "in each such iteration, a few fence sitters would change their ways--to become sharper, questioning, multi-minded..."---definitely a positive step toward "Tailorism" (i.e., not "one-size-for-all")....One interesting Learning Twig (click)…..[Note: The few who question are often seen as the whistle blowers – and hence gag orders are passed.]

Design and the future of business education

This refers to the Forbes article on the future of business strategy and the need to integrate design thinking [See article titled “Michael Porter and Clayton Christensen Are Both Wrong About Finding the Future of Business Education” by Marty Neumeier; dated 12 June 2014]. Also see discussions initiated by Alfredo M. @Design Management Institute: Should design be part of business strategy education? NOTE: As suggested by one discussant “Fortune 500 businesses, national security, governance, energy....and heath care constituents, can all use Design Methodology which is an accessible design thinking framework.” [Steve B., Director of Strategic Planning and Design at Abrams Learning and Information Systems, Inc.]

Here are some excerpts from the Forbes article by M. Neumeier:

• Porter’s argument for building an integrated brand is that copycats would have to recreate the whole brand to compete with Harvard’s online program. “Any competitor wishing to imitate a strategy,” he says, “must replicate a whole system.” Yet copycats are rarely the biggest threat to leading brands. The real threat is more likely to come from purpose-built organizations, unencumbered by legacy beliefs, that correctly imagine the future of education. They wouldn’t bother replicating Harvard’s system. They would render it irrelevant.
• This is where Christensen is strong. He knows that education is ripe for disruption, saying that “half of the United States’ universities could face bankruptcy in 15 years.” Necessarily, his approach is opposed to Porter’s.
• Christensen would set up the [online education] program as an independent business unit, allowing it to learn from experience without the need for immediate profits or slavish brand alignment. He sees innovation as something that unfolds over time on the public stage: You put out a cheap product that serves an unmet need, get some traction with it, improve it, begin to raise the price, and meanwhile start looking for your next disruptive innovation. It’s a Darwinian, way-of-the-world model of competition. What it doesn’t acknowledge is the potential of design to speed up this evolution, all the while keeping hard-won learning—and embarrassing mistakes—out of the public eye. Design can create disruptive innovation much faster and much more surely than a thousand monkeys with a thousand dry-erase markers. And it shouldn’t take a thousand years, or even a thousand days, with a talented team. 
• This [article] does not lessen the valued contributions of Porter and Christensen. Both professors are lighthouse figures in the world of business strategy. The Times simply used them to illuminate an irony—that the leading school for business strategy can’t agree on its own strategy. But there’s a bigger point. Their shining contributions lead straight to the need for design, not just in products and services, but in business models, organizational culture, and, yes, strategy.   

Also see: Design Thinking @SAP – Lessons for India

[NOTE: The highlighted text is based on the definitions of creativity, innovation and design in the book Design in Business by Bruce and Bessant; where design is defined as the purposive application of creativity throughout the process of innovation] 

NDA - Design in India

With the BJP-led NDA winning the elections the prospects of having a promising National Design Agenda once again looks bright. The pre-2005 “originally drafted” National Design Policy now needs to be wholeheartedly adopted for the betterment of the country.  This will definitely boost design and manufacturing initiatives within the country. 

Stakeholders in Odisha can now actively facilitate the establishment of a Multi-disciplinary Design Institute for the greater benefit of the state. It would be really rewarding to all the stakeholders when they see a poor state deriving the maximum benefits by putting "design" upfront (as envisaged in the original draft National Design Policy) while solving its various socio-economic problems. This new school must aim to overcome the limitations of the already proposed design school of IIT Bhubaneswar. 

Some Google-search useful links (accessed on 17 May 2014)):

·         India Design Council (www.indiadesignmark.in/about/india-design-council) In pursuance of the National Design Policy announced by the Government of India on 8th January 2007, the Central Government has constituted the India ...

·         U.S. National Design Policy Initiative (www.designpolicy.org/) Apr 12, 2010 - The site supports an initiative to develop at U.S. national design policy for economic competitiveness and democratic governance.

·         The economic rationale for a national design policy ... - Gov.uk (https://www.gov.uk/.../the-economic-benefits-of-a-national-design-polic...) Aug 13, 2010 - Reviews three different rationales for a national design policy body, and assesses five broad activities of this body from each of these different ...

·         National Design Policy Improves Competitiveness (www.dcdr.dk/uk/.../national-design-policy-improves-competitiveness)... design promotion, design education and a national design policy may improve a ... China and the UK had prepared for competing in the knowledge society, ...