Design Decisions

I started looking into some work by James March and the his thoughts on the decision making process. He suggests there are two basic models for making decisions.

1. We weigh up the alternatives and calculate consequences then pick the one that yields the most value. This is the standard model in economics for decision making, that assumes we are rational and make choices based on the logical outcome that benefits the individual.


2. Is decision making based on identity considerations, Who am I? What situation is this? and what do people like me do in this type of situation? This type of decision making is much more based on principles to the individual.

These two decision making alternatives were interesting summaries of decision making. It definitely supports the work I have been reading about brand thinking and consumer behavior. That people naturally making decisions partly based on logical choices, but likewise are driven by internal drives and emotions as well as self identity.

As I dived deeper into the work on decision making, there were various discussions around the decision making process and methodology, which is basically outlined as :

1. Discover the problem
2. Define the problem
3. Define the Objectives
4. Think of Alternatives
5. Work out consequences
6. Make Trade Offs

Of course suddenly it made sense to me that this of course is reflective of the design thinking process, which in itself requires many decision making choices. So it makes sense that these two areas of methodology should have overlap and similarities. The early phases of discovery, rolling into definition followed by building alternatives or prototypes, ending with analysis and making the final result. Of course as such many of the design thinking tools can be used, to help in the decision making process, such as brainstorming, the 5 whys and user research.

In decision making important things to consider are, how we frame the problem. The framing of problems and finding the right questions are going to yield different results, so getting it right early on is going to save much time and effort later. Donald Schon, has written about this issue in his book "The Reflective Practitioner". Wording can go along way to changing peoples thoughts and ideas.

Decisions are not always rational and it should never be discounted that we are emotional creatures and that may affect the decisions we make. Our ability to keep our attention on a task, remember information and clearly think about problems can also have impact on our decision making.

I am not the only one to have noticed this similarity and Dan Saffer, put together a nice slide presentation here on decision making and design.

Summarizing some of the decision theories he outlines in his presentation.

Utility Theory - Each decision has a cost or consequence, as well as a benefit. We weight the benefits against the consequences to arrive at the best choice. Sometimes though the comparisons are not objectively the same. Sometimes the decisions are subjective and then it becomes an individual choice that has other influences, that maybe less rational.

Descriptive Theory - This is about how we actually go about making decisions. It suggests we are driven by forces that try to avoid regret, like loss aversion. We rationalize our decisions to ourselves so that we do not feel regret later. One of the interesting phrases that is used is the term "satisficing" the combination of satisfying and suffice. The idea is to reach a level of just good enough, that makes it easier to make decisions, rather than striving for perfection. Considering the huge amount of data and information we have to process in modern times this is good way to optimize decision making. In his book "The Paradox of Choice" Barry Schwartz mention this problem with consumer choices being to many, "satisficing" is a potential way to avoid becoming frozen in decision making for a consumer.

Decisions surround us everyday, we have to make easy ones, and sometimes very hard ones. Along with this we sometimes have a great deal of time to make those choices and other times it has to be in a blink of an eye. What I like is that designers and design thinking methodology offers one possible way to systematically make the decision making process work in business and new product development teams. Not by guessing but by consideration, learning, building then evaluating. What is clear is that it is not always possible to know which is the right path, but having some form of process can help start the journey.

7 Sins of Innovation

Ryan Jacoby, head of IDEO NY is quoted in an article found here on 7 deadly sins he sees that affect innovation.

They are summarized as:

1: Thinking the answer is in here, rather than out there.

2: Talking about it rather than building it.

3: Executing when we should be exploring.

4: Being smart, afraid to be wrong.

5: Being impatient for the wrong things.

6: Confusing cross-functionality with diverse viewpoints.

7: Believing process will save you.

This list is definitely very pertinent to the creative design thinking process, it promotes prototyping, and building as well as risk and taking, without fear of failure. It also raises the issues with unrealistic expectations from management on innovative new products and encourages diversity in teams that are there to innovate. I like this list and it touches nicely on the major aspects of good design thinking methodologies and implementations.

Also in his talk at NYU Poly Ryan refers to a prototype as being a single question embodied. He then goes on to describes a pilot (study) as a collection of many prototypes embodied all at once, like asking many questions at the same time. What is important to innovation is to ask questions constantly in production, then trying and tweaking those results. Ryan thinks it is important to always be in Beta, constantly exploring new ideas and keeping what works. Of course this is hard to adopt because people are afraid to fail, and can be difficult to prove somethings effectiveness, does the idea scale and how much does it cost. These concerns make innovating difficult in a corporate setting. Ryan quotes that Innovation is fundamentally a human endeavor. Avoid the sins and innovation should get easier and more productive.

Design Thinking

Design thinking is an alternative way of thinking about problem solving and idea generation. It could well be one of the most important new ways of structuring new business teams and creating environments for future workers that has been put forward in recent years. The concept is not really anything new, and certainly many historical figures like Edison, Leonardo Da Vinci, and Tesla, would be in my mind classed as design thinkers. Really the newest step forward is the more formal acceptance of the process of design thinking as promoted by companies such as IDEO that produces reproducible successful results. Most people in the realm of invention and idea creation really have been practicing design thinking for centuries.

Design thinking is a really a process in approaching a problem. The basic four steps of design thinking are: 

Define the problem

Create and consider possibilities

Refine and dissect results

Repeat(optional)

Execute most successful outcome

Within each of these steps are tools and methods that help get the most out of the process. 

Defining the problem, involves a discovery phase with analysis of the problem space. At this point in the process it is critical to immerse oneself in the problem, existing solutions (if any), and the all the available resources and literature. It may also require observation of people and processes already in place. Only after a full discovery would it be worth moving onto a creation phase. At this point in the process it is worth considering tools like brainstorming on smaller parts of the problem, grouping and ideating ideas together to be evaluated as worth pursuing. Which leads nicely into to a complimentary part of the phase of creating prototypes of various levels of fidelity. To test out concepts and encourage team engagement at the early production stage. This is when things begin to really stand out as feasible and worthwhile solutions or not. Then, comes the refine and dissection of those ideas that seem most worthy. Further prototyping, and maybe some usability tests can help refine the results. repeating earlier stages may also prove advantageous. After things seem to funneling into a particular result it then becomes time to execute the most successful outcome into the final product or service.

That in a nutshell is design thinking. Again nothing completely new but really people's acceptance and corporate push for innovation has brought these now more well defined steps into new consideration. They are effective and powerful ways to generate ideas and produce prototypes that lead to more successful end products and services, when done correctly.

Other breakdowns of the steps include.

Discover, Analysis, Ideation, Prototype and Evaluate.

Define, Research, Ideate, Prototype, Choose, Implement, Learn.

In each instance you can see the common form of four basic steps.

I have some further reading here for design thinking.

You can read some more of my thoughts on prototyping here.

And some ideas on idea generation here.