Design Thinking For Kids And Teens

Design Thinking can push us to be a part of creating a better future and help us to face the challenges life bring us taking the right decisions.

Kids at the schools can begin being the designers of the world’s future. They will be the influencers and the empowered to make the changes happen. Design thinking is a great tool for them to study and create solutions for the world.

Collaboration in the education is very important and design thinking for teachers is helpful to provide new solutions and creativity at the schools. Teachers have a great task, preparing people for jobs that they don’t even now exist yet, preparing for problems that don’t know where they are going to in the students’ life and preparing the careers of the students.

But also, it is very important and challenging for the future of students keeping optimism high. This is so critical! Optimism is part of our emotions and it is necessary to face continuously challenges.

Classrooms, schools and universities across the world are facing every day challenges that can be solved creatively with design thinking. This tool will help to approach these challenges with new perspectives, new ideas and new solutions.

The design process has different phases: discovery, interpretation, ideation, experimentation and evolution. Each one of them helps to put Design Thinking into action generating and developing new ideas in a well-structured way.

When we use this tool, we usually have a challenge that we should approach. After it and once we have learned something about it, we need to interpret it. With an open mind and freedom likely we will see an opportunity. That’s the moment where we can create something new and coming with new ideas. We should experiment that idea building a prototype and finally evolve it planning next steps, communicating the idea to people who can help to realize it, and documenting the process.

Design Thinking requires considering real world problems, research, analysis, coming with new and original ideas, experimentation and even building things by hand. I know it is very difficult to integrate these processes in the daily life of schools and universities.

This approach together with some important qualities of an effective thinker can motivate and inspire. We need people motivated and able to inspire others to provoke enough enthusiasm that brings innovation to success. Through this we can build some leadership skills and initiative to the students.

Meeting deadlines in a design process also requires some discipline. It is important that our students practice how to monitor the progress through classical techniques like time and project management.

Observation, asking and listening will enhance to facilitate Design Thinking. It is necessary that students obtain some abilities to interview and by this way understand the power of these three skills.

Students must learn that new information is essential for the process, so they will perform on-line research and identify experts who provide them all the necessary information to advance. At this time, they will develop deep empathy to be immersed in the user’s experiences.

Prototyping and getting Feedback are linked together in an iterative cycle that will provide the best solution. At the end Design Thinking is oriented into action. If we are able to build some objects that are tangible, they will allow students to get more feedback from users before they prepare the last and best version. Experimentation together with the failures they have are very valuable as additional information and will contribute to the success.

When students obtain feedback about their prototypes they can ask themselves, should we change our prototype? Do we need more information? Should we start again?

Kids and Teens learn best through making so if they are actively engaged designing and creating projects that help them to explore concepts they will be closer to achieve new ways of thinking and designing.

From kindergarteners to college students Design Thinking is a way to make people more effective and to get out their innate capabilities.

Leading People To Change

Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.

George Bernard Shaw

 

Have you ever been in a moment where your intention was to stop smoking or to start practicing a regular exercise or perhaps trying to lose some kilos following a diet?

If you were in some of those situations, you really know how hard it is. Changing habits is one of our difficult tasks we face sometimes in our lives. But if we want to help others to initiate changes is even more difficult than change ourselves.

Many times we turn to coaches for helping us to face changes but no matter how skilled are our coaches, we don’t see any result in our employees or ourselves. Many times this fails because we receive the right support but in the wrong time. Everyone has a different moment in which is able facing changes.

Change has an important psychological impact in our minds. Human beings also react differently when facing changes. From the ones that consider change as negative and that things may get worse to those ones so enthusiastic that consider things may get better. Change is inevitable and it is part of our lives and few changes are under control.

When we change intentionally, we likely have more opportunities to be successful with changes controlling and predicting steps and results. We don’t have magic pills and it is very important to choose the right process and strategy and also the right time to succeed. Additionally, building self-confidence will help for such success.

Many times we don’t achieve the change with a positive result because of a lack of guidance. It is necessary that we put ourselves on the hands of expert professionals in change management. Managers and leaders that have lived again and again changes in their companies. They could participate in changes as part of the coalition or even leading the change. We want to listen to professionals with the experience and knowledge that guide us in those processes of change. Muvens is an expert in Change Management helping others make the change work.

We can call change to any process that we initiate to help modify our thinking, feeling or behavior. When we take part in a change, timing is everything. We should be very sure that we are ready for a change. The risk we have to failure is high when we aren’t ready. It is important to combine the right understanding of the problem, the path to follow and the actions to be taken. All this will bring us at the right time to success.

Researchers James Prochaska, Carlo DiClemente, and John Norcross introduced a breakthrough model of the five stages of personal change:

 

  • Pre-contemplation
  • Contemplation
  • Preparation
  • Action
  • Maintenance.

By recognizing the stage of change that the company or your employees are in, you can lead appropriately to help them move to the next stage and ultimately achieve lasting change.

Change is complex. It is easier to move forward if the recipient is ready and willing to change. By avoiding a onesize-fits-all approach to lead your people, you can increase your likelihood of success.El progreso es imposible sin el cambio, y aquellos que no pueden cambiar sus mentes no pueden cambiar nada.

George Bernard Shaw

 

Design Thinking With Culture Differences

We are used to the developing of new products and innovating in different areas of our companies but, have we ever considered that cultural diversity and multiple countries can make a difference when designing our products and processes?

When we implement an internationalization process we have to scale our businesses considering our customers, products and even our business model. We also have to defend our position in new economies and compete with strong local players.

Our great weapon, although some managers can think different, is innovation. If we have for example a product very innovative that really fits the market where we are implementing our strategy to internationalize, we really have a great competitive advantage.

When we develop an innovation culture inside our organizations we can discover more easily profitable business opportunities. Design thinking can help us bring new products to new markets taking into account cultural differences like own language, different dress, traditions, lifestyle, designs, food, customs.

Before you start with a session of Design Thinking try to define between three to five characteristics of the culture or country you want to develop your organization. Above that, you can also consider which industries are in development or with very positive perspectives of growing to decide that internationalization process.

To be successful in other countries and cultures you need your organizations to operate excellently. Most economies are demanding extremely high quality products, so you should not consider second level brands to move forward in new emerging markets or in developing economies.

Design Thinking will help you with the appropriate approach with your customers in those markets. In the case of applying the five steps of DT you can improve considerably the results in the market. DT is a great tool for it. So empathize with your customer. It is very important to observe it in the work and market place. Define the real topic. Brainstorming and creating new and innovative ideas. Don’t lose time, prototypes are key in this stage. Time to test all what you created, obtain feedback, and iterate.

When you are in a different market, events happen in a different way as we can expect. Observing behaviors of the markets and customers will be crucial to be successful. We will gain the cultural differences they have if we compare with ours. In our Design Thinking process, we must consider all those differences to be really innovative facing market challenges. I would recommend that our managers, marketing staff and sales organization become in charge of the observation activity. It will feed them with relevant information.

Putting in practice all we learn with Design Thinking brings us to emphasize in benchmarking with our local competitors. How important it is to observe local and foreign competitors! They will give us new ideas in our offer portfolio.

We need very flexible organizations to face the challenges other markets can offer us. So, think always when you involve your team in a Design Thinking activity where cultural differences could affect your decisions. Don’t try to introduce your customs in different countries. Try to adapt your way to those other cultures.

Testing and trying ideas, obtaining the right feedback from the market and your customers and then iterating will be essential to be successful with your development in other economies.

Technology, Digital Transformation, Glocalization and Cultural Diversity will shape the new business landscape of the future. Don’t hesitate to learn and prepare to go beyond your borders. The world is not so flat.

Changing The Way To Design Processes

Currently technologies, digital transformation, industry 4.0, new software to face changes in processes are demanding companies that are either gaining or keeping competitive advantages. But something it doesn’t change is the necessity to apply continuous improvement in our organizations. This will help to manage change as part of corporate life.

Managing change in organizations require a continuous education of our corporate managers, managers, middle level and the whole organization. It is very important to consider some basics at the time a process change is successful. Sometime to underestimate those basics can drive companies to fail.

Once is defined what we want to change and the scope of the change action, the first aspect to consider is the timing for the design process. This should be well defined, not too wide but not too fast. At the same time, we must focus all the change in the output that creates the value proposition the customers.

Latter we must communicate the changes we are implementing to the whole organization. We must consider all the areas. The critical factor most often ignored is the need to take the message to the entire audience – people must be engaged with the project, because it is upon their actions that success depends.

It is very important that the workforce is completely integrated in the strategy of the company, know the importance of the processes and the performance levels expected to understand perfectly well the changes and the sense of them. This will contribute to support the actions of change that organizations implement.

We can build a successful and simple road map to implement the change and re-design process:

a). Process owner will be the one motivating the change. He will be responsible to communicate to the organization the sense and reasons to implement such changes and also will push with the courage and determination get the end with success.

b). We will look for the right Project Leader to re-design the process who will define the team member. That team must be able not only to drive the changes but can also work together in a cohesive way being very effective.

c). Assigning the adequate resources, facilities, technological to handle the project effectively.

d). Main goal will be to eliminate activities without added value and generate extra costs, mistakes and delays.

Before we start with any change implementation in re-designing processes we must check that we are able and ready to face a process transformation. We should check aspects as leadership, culture, experience and management skills.

Too often individuals spend a significant amount of time fixing things that have gone wrong, on top of just performing the tasks and processes that make up their ‘day job’. That’s why many times organizations have to initiate a more radical change in an organized way.

It is also necessary to define the right key performance indicators that fulfil some requirements:

1.- Aligned across all the organization

2.- No gaps in the measures applied through the organization hierarchy

3.- Used to drive improvement

 

Finally, new processes or changed ones must be approved and finally implemented properly. Consolidation and sustainability will guarantee the results and success of processes.