‘Design Thinking’ approach to messy problems may be the best solution

Australia is on the cusp of massive change in its Defence force structure and planning. Adopting the Design Thinking approach may be just what is required to navigate a new era of significant change.

Adopting the Design Thinking approach may be just what is required to navigate a new era of significant change.

Australia is on the cusp of massive change in its Defence force structure and planning.

For the first time, we will acquire nuclear-powered submarines which will severely test the organisational culture of Defence and its established procurement practices.

The nation will face unprecedented demand for technical and design skills as we plan to build nuclear submarines in Australia.

The management approach known as Design Thinking goes some way in matching ability with ambition. It is not for the faint hearted.

Design Thinking is the name given to a relatively new way of approaching messy and unstructured problems. As a management theory, it defies concise definition. Its history draws on several disciplines, from architecture to psychology.

In essence it begins with the experience of those likely to be affected by it. This is a radical departure from traditional linear management, which typically starts with current capability.

Design Thinking starts with where you want to go. Its outcome is the production of something that does not yet exist. No wonder organisations find it difficult to conceptualise, let alone implement. Defence is starting to grapple with it as a planning process – a challenging task for an institution historically bound in bureaucratic procedure.

Paul Davidson headshot for dinkus

First, defining exactly the problem being addressed is critical. This seems obvious but in practice is difficult in uncertain environments with complex and “wicked” unstructured problems, rather than just complicated problems. Design Thinking begins with careful and empathetic understanding of the customer’s experience when interacting with the organisation.

“Customers” are both internal employees and external clients. In Defence, the design approach requires an understanding of the long-term capability of the various programs and not limiting its thinking to the date a platform may be delivered. Problem framing is as critical as problem solving. Threat needs to be clearly understood.

Second, opportunities need to be created for stakeholders to bring their ideas forward. Defence organisations have rarely been culturally or procedurally adept at this. Hierarchy and tradition often constrain creativity. Innovation requires courage, not just to consider new ideas, but to abandon old ones, if progress is to occur. It needs an open mind.

Third, prototyping the idea by testing and refining it are essential steps prior to implementation or deployment with evaluation of participant’s feedback. At this point, resistance is usually expressed by opponents as “we already do this, so what’s new?” Most organisations plunge into project management, repeating familiar errors, thus nullifying creativity. Design Thinking must precede project management.

What may appear to be undisciplined brainstorming must precede disciplined planning. As axiomatic as this may sound, the attractions of a premature action orientation of planning doing may be so strong as to contaminate the processes of Design Thinking, and thus block its benefits. Traditional management thinking may make the self-limiting mistake that asks only “what?” and “how?”, and even “how quickly?”, instead of the more challenging “why?”, or more particularly, “how can we do this differently?”

To bring forward genuinely innovative ideas by Design Thinking requires skill sets not always associated with the traditional management processes of planning and co-ordination. It relies on emotional intelligence at least as much as on logic and operational acumen. Resistance to even the most meritorious ideas is to be expected, if only because these by their very nature are likely to threaten the status quo. It requires creativity and innovation in a design culture, but also a focus on benefit realisation. Control and creativity must be balanced.

Reflexive thinking and uncomfortable examination of prejudices are likely to be required before progress can be made. Because novelty might be welcome but change resisted, this is almost certain to prove unpopular, and threatening to hierarchy and doctrine. The degree of opposition will depend on the rational and emotional attachment to the familiar procedures of business as usual. Rather, openness of mind and adaptability of practice are critical.

Defence professionals admit its effectiveness, even though it threatens traditional top-down military doctrine. Defence strategy is typically built on a project management approach. By contrast, Design Thinking is unencumbered by the primacy of tasks and milestones; it addresses ideas and genuine innovations.

To do this, Design Thinking is a complex and multidisciplinary activity, using interviews with stakeholders to encourage contrarian free thinking explicitly outside the organisation’s accepted procedures, regardless of how successful these may have been in yielding predictable and desirable outcomes.

Project management methodology has its obvious attraction for goal attainment and objective achievement, but may inhibit innovative input and participation by critical stakeholders – especially those charged with implementation, and those end users intended to experience the realised benefits. Project management should not be used during the Design Thinking phase, because its linearity of logic and structure likely inhibits originality, and creativity – and so is antithetical to Design Thinking. By all means, use disciplined project management, but use Design Thinking first.

The forthcoming Defence Strategic Review could dictate major changes in the Defence organisation. If so, then adopting the Design Thinking approach may be just what is required to navigate a new era of significant change.

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Dr Paul Davidson is a consultant specialising in organisational structure and performance.