Case Study

Design thinking

IBM trained more than 100,000 employees in a methodology whose first step is to listen.

United States

Design thinking as a formalized methodology emerged from the work of the product design firm IDEO and the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford University, known as the d.school. David Kelley, the founder of IDEO and a professor of mechanical engineering at Stanford, opened the d.school in 2005 with a grant from the German software entrepreneur Hasso Plattner.1

The methodology structured the creative process into five stages: empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test. The first stage, empathize, required designers to understand the needs, experiences, and motivations of the people they were designing for, before proposing any solution.

The intellectual roots of design thinking predate the d.school by decades. Herbert Simon's 1969 book The Sciences of the Artificial described design as a way of thinking applicable to any problem, not only to the creation of physical objects.2 In 1987, Peter Rowe published Design Thinking, the first book to use the term as a title, examining how architects and urban planners approached problems.3

IDEO and Kelley popularized the approach outside the design profession. A 2008 article by Tim Brown, the CEO of IDEO, in the Harvard Business Review introduced design thinking to a business audience as a methodology for innovation.4

Corporate adoption was rapid. Companies including IBM, SAP, and Procter and Gamble established internal design thinking programs. IBM trained more than 100,000 employees in the methodology.5 Business schools added design thinking to their curricula. The approach spread to healthcare, education, and government.

Critics noted that the formalization of design thinking into a five-step process stripped it of the ambiguity and iteration that made design practice effective. Natasha Jen, a partner at Pentagram, argued in a widely circulated 2017 talk that design thinking lacked the critical feedback mechanisms that distinguished rigorous design from post-it-note brainstorming.6

Timeline

1969

Herbert Simon describes design as a general way of thinking in The Sciences of the Artificial.

1987

Peter Rowe publishes Design Thinking, the first book to use the term as a title.

2005

David Kelley opens the d.school at Stanford with funding from Hasso Plattner.

2008

Tim Brown introduces design thinking to a business audience in Harvard Business Review.

Endnotes

1 Stanford University, "About the d.school," Hasso Plattner Institute of Design.

2 Herbert A. Simon, The Sciences of the Artificial (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1969).

3 Peter G. Rowe, Design Thinking (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1987).

4 Tim Brown, "Design Thinking," Harvard Business Review, June 2008.

5 Doug Powell, "A New Study on Design Thinking Is Great News for Designers," IBM Design, 2018.

6 Natasha Jen, "Design Thinking Is Bullshit," 99U Conference, 2017.