Post on 10-Nov-2021
Macromedia University for
Media and Communication
Research paper
“A Design Thinking Approach in Startups”
Examiner: Jürgen Faust
Handed in: Clarissa Amaral
Matr.-No.: M-28173
Degree program: Medien und Design (M.A.)
Munich, December 2011
Abstract
This research paper follows a discourse on design thinking and on the design thinking approach
described by Tim Brown, the president and CEO of IDEO, a major innovation and design
thinking firm. This design thinking approach consists of three main phases: the inspiration,
ideation, and implementation phase. Throughout this paper, the reader is guided through the
three phases of this design thinking approach with emphasis on the main steps and benefits of
each phase. Additionally, this essay also shows how such an approach could assist startup
businesses with their development process towards establishment. To exemplify this
methodology, the small startup company GoTeamers is discussed and suggestions is made in
order to improve the development process of the startup company via the design thinking
approach.
Table of Contents
1 Introduction to the Design Thinking Approach ................................................................... 1
2 Understanding Design and Thinking .................................................................................. 3
2.1 What is Design? .................................................................................................................. 3
2.1.1 Distinguishing Design from Science ................................................................................... 3
2.2 What is Thinking? ............................................................................................................... 5
3 Design Thinking .................................................................................................................. 7
3.1 Origins ................................................................................................................................. 7
3.2 Definitions ........................................................................................................................... 7
3.3 Design Thinkers and the Process of Design Thinking ...................................................... 8
3.4 Tim Brown’s Three Step Approach to Design Thinking...................................................11
3.4.1 Inspiration ........................................................................................................................ 12
3.4.2 Ideation ............................................................................................................................ 12
3.4.3 Implementation ................................................................................................................ 13
4 Introducing GoTeamers ................................................................................................... 14
5 Analyzing GoTeamers ..................................................................................................... 15
5.1 Inspiration ........................................................................................................................ 15
5.1.1 Improving the Inspiration Phase ...................................................................................... 15
5.2 Ideation ............................................................................................................................ 16
5.2.1 Improving the Ideation Phase .......................................................................................... 18
5.3 Implementation ................................................................................................................ 19
6 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 20
List of Illustrations and Tables
Table 1: Difference between Science and Design……….…...................................……………....4
Figure 1: Helping Designers Navigate Science………………………………….…………………....5
Figure 2: Desirability, Viability, and Feasibility……………………………………………………….10
Figure 3: The Three Phases of Design Thinking…………………………………………………….11
Figure 4: GoTeamer’s Vision...………………………………………………………………………...17
Figure 5: Storyboard....................................................................................................................18
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1 Introduction to the Design Thinking Approach It can be said that every designer share one single trait or characteristic in this world.
Regardless if one is a prestigious designer or just a beginner in the field, designers will most
likely have experienced the unique difficulty of explicating their own field of studies, research,
and/or practice. This can sometimes be a frustrating experience because of preconceived
notions that a designer’s job is simply to design things to make them look pretty. For a countless
amount of time, different people from all over the world have made similar statements in regard
to designers: “designers decorate indoor and outdoor spaces,” or “designers are the ones
behind the desk creating websites,” or “designers are Photoshop geeks.” These erroneous
presumptions exist although designers acquire versatile skills in their studies and are often able
to work in various professional fields. A designer can be an architectural, graphic, fashion,
jewelry, game, product, engineering, landscape, urban, interior, furniture, industrial, interaction,
packaging, interface, and/or web designer. Although designers can work in different
professional fields, they all have one aim: work accordingly to fulfill customer needs. This is far
beyond making things look pretty. Designers create and shape the world to make the life of the
human being easier and more pleasant. Because designers work together with people and
customers in order to fulfill their needs, it is important that each designer follows certain
processes and methodologies to fulfill the customer’s requirements.
There are many different methods designers use to operate in their field, including qualitative,
quantitative methods, touchpoints matrix method, the research method of ethnography, among
others1. The one method that this paper will closely examine throughout the course of this paper
is the design thinking method. Design thinking is highly important in terms of starting successful
companies with innovative products. Emphasizing design thinking brings originality and
creativity to startups, increasing their chance to become market leaders and global competitors.
Examples of major market leader companies that continuously use design thinking in their
business strategy are: Proctor & Gamble, IDEO, Harley Davidson, Four Seasons Hotels, RIM,
GE, Apple (Trainor, 2011).
1 For more information on these different design research methods see references: Brugnoli, G. (2011), Creswell, J. (2003) and Ireland, C. (2003).
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This paper will focus on the design thinking method and its fundamental tools that are applicable
to startup businesses. Before going into detail on the design thinking process, it is important to
have an in-depth understanding and formal definition of the word design to better guide the
reader in fully understanding design thinking. For this reason, the first part of this paper will
focus on understanding and defining the term design. In this chapter, there will also be a
separate explanation of the terminology behind the word thinking, which is a term that is often
used but hard to define. Then, putting the two words together, design and thinking, the next
chapter will attempt to explicate the term design thinking and how design thinking works, its
methodology and processes that help to fulfill customer needs and preferences. More
specifically, this third chapter will closely examine the design thinking approach of Tim Brown,
the president and CEO of IDEO, a major innovation and design thinking firm. Following the
design thinking discourse, the fourth chapter will provide an example of a small startup named
GoTeamers, a startup which could have benefited from Brown’s process of design thinking.
Furthermore, there will also be a detailed analysis of how the design thinking method could
have been integrated to ameliorate the GoTeamers startup. Finally, there will be a small
discussion in the conclusion about the main ideas presented and analyzed throughout the
paper.
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2 Understanding Design and Thinking In order to better explicate the process of design thinking it is important to define the term
design and the term thinking separately.
2.1 What is Design? During the 2002 Design Council's Business Week, the designer Richard Seymour defined the
word design as the following: “design is making things better for people.” There, he emphasized
that design is the primary activity focused on human behavior, simply and thoroughly user-
driven and user-centered.
In addition to Seymour’s important contribution to defining the word ‘design,’ John Christopher
Jones also added to the meaning and terminology of design when he wrote his influential text,
Design Methods: seeds of human futures. In this text, he stated that design “initiate[s] change in
man-made things” (Jones, 1970).
Moreover, well-known designer Herbert Simon, defined the term design in his foremost
discourse The Sciences of the Artificial, as the following: “Design is changing an existing
situation into a preferred one” (Simon, 1969).
Focusing on these three main definitions of the word design, it is important to highlight the fact
that scientists, as well as designers, can also “make things better for people,” they can also
“initiate change in man-made things,” or they could also “change existing situations to preferred
ones.” As an example, when doctors discover new treatments for cancer, or when they improve
on certain medications that are already in the market, they are “changing existing situations into
a preferred one.” If doctors are creating less invasive and safer surgery methods, they are
“making things better for people.” So if scientists can act like a designer, how could we draw the
line and differentiate between scientists and designers? After all, medical school is completely
different than a school of design, right?
2.1.1 Distinguishing Design from Science Distinguishing design from science is an important task in this essay because acknowledged
design definitions from famous designers could also be used as a definition for science. If both
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science and design can follow the same definition, both of them can be innovative, both operate
on the physical world, and both deals with the nature and the artificial, then what is the
difference?
Even though design and science do share certain traits, it is also possible to outline their main
differences. In order to highlight and clarify the main distinction between these two important
fields, tables and figures have been inserted in this paper to help better explicate the issue.
Table 1: Difference between Science and Design
Source: (Alexander, 1964), (Gregory,1966), (Simon, 1969).
Based on the differences presented on Table 1, it is now easier to separate scientists from
designers. One can summarize this table by affirming that scientists focus on existing matters
and behaviors while designers focus on new patters and new behaviors. Thus, it can be said
that scientists analyze existing matters and behaviors to solve existing problems and designers,
on the other hand, learn new patterns and methods in order to solve new problems.
From this discussion, the difference between science and design can then be illustrated in a
two-way process (Figure 1), with the theoretical statement that both scientists and designers are
interested in solving problems and acquiring knowledge, nevertheless, both scientists and
designers go by opposing means and opposing goals. Additionally, it has to be mentioned that
Science Design
Focus on existing structures
Focus on new structures
Problem-solving behavior
Inventive behavior
Analytic
Constructive
Concern how things are Concern how things ought to be
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the term science in this chart focuses on the scientific discipline of fundamental research.
Certain exceptions, e.g. applied research, where the goal in science can be as well to solve a
problem and not to learn, for example developing more efficient engines for an automotive
company, are excluded from this definition of science.
Figure 1: Helping Designers Navigate Science
Source: (Hastrich, 2011)
If the difference between science and design can be clearly outlined, then designers do not
have to “turn design into an imitation of science” (Cross, 2001). Scientists and designers can
continue to be innovative and original in their findings in their own field of study and/or practice.
Now that the difference between scientists and designers has been clarified, we can follow to
the next section of this paper which will focus on the word thinking.
2.2 What is Thinking? The clarification of the term design thinking requires a definition of the second term thinking.
However, thinking is a problematic term to comprehend and define. After all, what is thinking?
Cognitive scientists are trying to answer this question. Every rational being thinks, logically or
illogically, processing stored information, with knowledge or with language. Yet, how can the
word thinking be fully defined? Merriam Webster defines the term as “the action of using one’s
mind to produce thoughts” (2011). However, this definition is still very generic.
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A more detailed definition is given by Andrei S. Monin. He starts with the definition of a complex
system as basis for the ability to think: “A complex system (CS) is defined as a set of elements,
with connections between them, singled out of the environment, capable of getting information
from the environment, capable of making decisions (i.e., of choosing between alternatives), and
having purposefulness (i.e., an urge towards preferable states or other goals)” (Monin, 1992).
These three elements – getting information from the environment, being capable of making
decisions and having purposefulness in them together with the ability to connect all three
dimensions are requirements for being able to think.
Monin also defines the process of thinking in more detail: “Thinking is a process that takes place
(or which can take place) in some of the CS and consists of (i) receiving information from the
environment (and from itself), (it) memorizing the information, (iii) the subconscious, and (iv)
consciousness” (Monin, 1992). The ability to store information is another central element of
thinking to take advantage of past information and in case of humans, experience. However, the
fact that subconscious and consciousness are both involved in thinking, demonstrates that it is
difficult to give a narrow definition of thinking.
From a medical perspective, thinking always involves the two hemispheres of the brain and
uses the connection between them (Glatzeder, Goel, & Mueller, 2010). This emphasizes again
the fact, that thinking includes using given information which can be logical, but also including
experienced feelings and emotions.
To conclude, the term thinking involves a conscious or subconscious process that consists of
getting information from the environment and making purposeful decisions based on stored
information that can include facts or feelings.
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3 Design Thinking 3.1 Origins Before analyzing the term design thinking and describing the design thinking process, it is
important to give a brief background on the history of the term. It was Herbert Simon that first
introduced the term design thinking as a way of thinking in his major book The Sciences of the
Artificial, 1969. Later in 1973 and in 1993, respectively, Robert McKim and Rolf Faste expanded
on the term, defining and commercializing the idea of design thinking and its original benefits on
creation. Peter Rowe's 1986 systematic approach in his book Design Thinking became one of
the primary literatures on design that explained the design thinking term with problem solving
procedures in urban planning and architecture. In these past years, design thinking has been a
highly discussed term in the realm of design but also in the realm of business (Davy, 2012).
3.2 Definitions It remains true that there is not one single definition that every single design researcher will
agree on when it comes down to defining the term design thinking. It can be said that further
academic literature on design thinking has to be published in order to have a full consensus of
the genuine meaning of the term. For some design researchers, the term has become such a
broad concept that design thinking could be possibly applied for anything or everything. Nigel
Cross, one of the most well-known design researchers, echoes this idea when he states that
design thinking has become a “common-place concept that it is in danger of losing its meaning”
(Cross, 2008).
Although the term design thinking can be broad for some and difficult to define, this section of
the paper is an attempt at formally defining the term. Thomas Lockwood, the president of the
Design Management Institute (DMI), tries to describe design thinking as “essentially a human-
centered innovation process that emphasizes observation, collaboration, fast learning,
visualization of ideas, rapid concept prototyping, and concurrent business analysis, which
ultimately influences innovation and business strategy” (Lockwood 2010). Furthermore, the
acclaimed design researcher, Jürgen Faust, also tries to define the term as a “directive
cultivation of intuition, imagination, and inspiration to solve a problem” (Faust, 2011). In addition,
Tim Brown, the president and CEO of IDEO, defines design thinking as “a methodology that
imbues the full spectrum of innovation activities with a human centered design ethos” (Brown,
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2008). Moreover, Cross also tries to summarize the definition when he presents design thinking
as “comprising abilities of resolving ill-defined problems, adopting solution-focused cognitive
strategies, employing abductive or appositional thinking and using non-verbal modeling media.”
(Cross, 2008)
Summarizing all this definitions mentioned above, design thinking can be further defined as a
human centered design approach that seeks to solve problems through a creative visual
communication strategy. This is the final author’s definition based on the compiled knowledge
from the statements above.
Because defining the term design thinking can be a fussy subject due to the lack of written work
on the topic, and to some extent, due to the unclear definition of the word thinking, this paper
will switch focus to the design thinking process to show how its methodology can help improve
fulfilling customer needs and preferences when it comes to starting up a business.
3.3 Design Thinkers and the Process of Design Thinking When discussing the process of design thinking, it is important to mention Nigel Cross’s paper,
Design thinking as a form of Intelligence. In his paper, he presents an interesting study of the
brain activity that is relevant to design thinking. In Cross’s essay, it shows that brain activities
differ between the right and left hemisphere. After conducting several experiments, the study
concludes that specific areas of the right hemisphere of the brain are consistently activated
when one undertakes design thinking processes. Accordingly, the study also shows that
damage to the left hemisphere of the brain often results in loss of speech capability, while
damage to the right hemisphere of the brain often results in in the loss of design and artistic
abilities.
Cross reviews brain imaging studies to analyze design thinking because his fundamental beliefs
are centered on design thinking as a different form of intelligence. Cross states in his text:
“Design thinking does not necessarily mean that some people ‘have it’ and some people
do not. Design ability is something that everyone has, to some extent, because it is
embedded in our brains as a natural cognitive function. Like other forms of intelligence
and ability it may be possessed, or may be manifested in performance, at higher levels
by some people than by others. And like other forms of intelligence and ability, design
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intelligence is not simply a given ‘talent’ or ‘gift’, but can be trained and developed”
(Cross, 2008).
This statement from Cross is significant because it demonstrates that everyone and anyone has
the ability to be a design thinker. He confirms that design thinking is a way of thinking that can
be developed and trained; it is a form of intelligence, not an aptitude, nor an inborn talent. Thus,
it can be concluded that design thinking methods utilize strategies that can be applied by
professionals of all disciplines, not only by designers. This is important information to know
when starting up a business, since most of the time small startup businesses do not have
designers in the management and often not at all on their team. Here, it can be concluded that
creative startup ideas, do not come from creative design genius, creative and innovative ideas
come from a human centered and an interactive approach done through an extensive process
of design thinking. Such a process tends to involve long hours of prototyping and user testing
(Brown, 2008).
As previously mentioned, design thinking has become an attractive subject to the designers and
also to many managers and leaders of several market leading companies, including Proctor &
Gamble, IDEO, Harley Davidson, Four Seasons Hotels, RIM, GE, and Apple. Because it is such
an important tool that has been helping business around the world, great thinkers such as Tim
Brown, have been constantly working on dispersing the term design thinking among society.
Back in September 2009, Brown gave a remarkable speech in the global TED (Technology
Entertainment and Design) conference about design thinkers. He stressed that designers
should be thinking less on the final product but more on the design thinking process and
approach. Brown also affirmed that design thinking begins with integrative thinking: balancing
desirability with viability and feasibility (see Figure 2).
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Figure 2: Desirability, Viability, and Feasibility
Source: www.ideo.com
Desirability accounts for the human seek, viability accounts for scalability in business ideas, and
feasibility meaning achievable, no technical impediments. Interpreting this image, it can be said
that innovation through the design thinking process can happen only if desirability, viability, and
feasibility are involved, not otherwise.
Following the discussion on the design thinking process, Brown also commented that design
thinking is always human centered, it may integrate technology and economics, but the ideas
always start with what humans need or might need in the future. He also mentioned that it is
vital to understand culture before starting with the design thinking process. In addition, learning
by making while fast prototyping, was also a way he commented about to develop leading and
creative ideas. He concluded his speech by affirming that design thinking should thoroughly
explore the active engagement of the consumers, not just as consumers, but as developers as
well.
According to Brown, a clear example of design thinking has occurred in 1879, when Thomas
Alva Edison created the first version of what we now know as the light bulb. Edison envisioned
how people would want to use what he made and he engineered the light bulb towards this
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insight. Because of that, Edison’s invention is seen as one of the earliest approaches to design
thinking (Brown, 2008).
3.4 Tim Brown’s Three Step Approach to Design Thinking Now that the reader had an understanding of design thinking and who are the design thinkers, it
will be important to focus on one design thinking process instead of a broader view. Thus, the
following sections of this paper are dedicated to Tim Brown’s approach to the design thinking
process and how his approach can aid startups, e.g. GoTeamers. In order to have a more clear
understanding of his design thinking process, a clear visual aid was added to this paper to
illustrate this approach. This concept (Figure 3) of the design thinking process has been
developed by Tim Brown to help his audience better visualize the design thinking model. In this
approach, design thinking is portrayed as a continuous three step process: the first being
“Inspiration”, the second “Ideation”, and the third “Implementation” (Brown, 2008).
.
Figure 3: The Three Phases of Design Thinking
Source: Brown (2008)
I.
Inspiration
II.
Ideation
III.
Implementation
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3.4.1 Inspiration Brown affirms that a major part of design thinking is the inspiration phase. At the inspiration
phase, design thinkers look for opportunities in the market, what has changed and what should
change. They observe the world to find what people are doing out there, how they are thinking,
what they desire and what they wish for. They collect insights by looking at the major problems
in society and try to solve it. They talk to the end-users for collecting even richer and more
provocative ideas. They capture a research based analysis of the target customer to precisely
lay out what the customer wants. In this inspiration phase, design thinkers are often able to
identify opportunities by paying very close attention to the “extreme” users in society, those
being children and elderly people, because designers often do not tend to incorporate the
specials needs of these users in their products and services. By focusing on these polarities and
making a good use of it, new businesses can be highly innovative and successful.
In addition, during the inspiration phase, there should be one appropriate working environment,
one single working room that is comfortable and accessible to all team members. Lastly, in this
phase the recruiting process should occur, it is important here to recruit people from
interdisciplinary programs—people with different backgrounds, to have a diversified team
(Brown, 2008).
3.4.2 Ideation At the ideation phase, design thinkers brainstorm. During the brainstorm phase, they collect
relevant information, sketch, and produce creative formworks. At this stage, design thinkers
work strongly with visual aids. They often work with colorful sticky notes that can be rearranged
as necessary in any type of wall or board. In this phase, it is extremely relevant to place the
customer, the end user, in a visual journey through the business idea (Brown, 2008).
At the ideation phase, it is important to start prototyping at the early stage of the project, start
experimenting with sketches and with new technologies. This is the phase to generate, develop
and test the idea. While prototyping, it is important to constantly seek feedback from your end-
users. In terms of budgeting, design thinkers don’t limit themselves with the calculated costs
and funding for the project, they think big and innovative (Brown, 2008). If the project is
innovative and creative, there will be the funding for it regardless of the costs.
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3.4.3 Implementation The implementation phase is the time to execute the vision, to market the business, to spread
the word around. To continue the process of design thinking, the implementation phase loops
back to another inspiration phase. After running through all the phases and steps involved in
starting up a business, it is very likely that design thinkers will have other innovative ideas to
work again through the inspiration, ideation and implementation (Brown, 2008). By analyzing
this never ending cycle illustration, one can say that design thinkers never stop generating
innovative ideas.
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4 Introducing GoTeamers In this chapter, the reader will be familiarized with the business model and concept of the
startup GoTeamers, which will be further analyzed in terms of Brown’s design thinking process.
It will be important to give some general information about the company before analyzing the
benefit this three phase design thinking approach has on the development and processes of
such a startup company:
GoTeamers is a mobile application platform that combines the successful business model of a
well-known social media company such as Facebook with the additional benefit of creating
groups and organizing activities with interesting people one might not know of. Having its main
focus on sports activities, this application allows the user to connect with all the people in the
community and not only people one is friends with, like on Facebook.
The application is configured with a user-friendly interface which automatically eases the
process of organizing activities, e.g. users that want to play soccer at two o’clock on a Sunday
in a certain sports facility can see free vacancies at nearby facilities and can also see other
users who are interested in playing at the same time and place.
GoTeamers target active people looking to participate in indoor and outdoor activities. It
involves males and females, located in the city of Munich or in the suburbs of Munich.
The start-up is run by seven Master students with a strong international background that
experienced the need to be active and meet new people in a foreign country. The project is now
on the ramp up phase, ready for implementation. A click dummy prototype is already developed
and the founding team is looking for potential investors to financially assist in launching the
product.
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5 Analyzing GoTeamers 5.1 Inspiration Before GoTeamers came together, a group of more than twenty Master students from the
Macromedia Hochschule für Medien und Kommunikation (MHMK) researched ideas that could
be innovative in today’s modern society. All students had different ideas and the ideas were
focused on the problems they had in their daily life. The students focused on searching for ideas
online and they forgot to engage in thorough market research so as to outline the market’s
needs and desires. The students did not observe people in the streets, they did not talk to
people individually, as randomly about their current problems and things they would like to have
it changed in today’s society. At the beginning, the students thought about addressing the
children and elderly demographic as one of their first ideas, e.g. creating an Ipad application for
elderly people. At the end, however, all of the students decided to focus on the target group
between 18-60 years old. They ended up not focusing on the extreme users of society.
5.1.1 Improving the Inspiration Phase In this case, there are a few major key points that should be addressed in order to improve the
inspiration phase in the process of generating business ideas. The MHMK group of students
should have been focused less on the final product and more on the end user, they should have
gone out in the streets after the lecture period and they should have talked to the end-users at
this inspiration phase for collecting even richer and more provocative ideas. They should have
created a questionnaire containing questions such as the following:
1. What problems do you encounter in your daily life?
2. What products/services do you seek?
3. What products/services would better your life?
4. What changes do you want to see in the future in regards to media and technology?
Besides asking questions to people outside of the class, the students should have observed the
world outside, how people shop, how people communicate, how people socialize, etc. The
students should have focused less on researching online and more on researching outside.
They should have continued to work with the extreme users, develop more ideas around these
users, maybe have continued with the elderly idea, or have the idea adapted for children.
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5.2 Ideation During the ideation processes, the group of MHMK students participated in three different
brainstorming sections which finally led to four major ideas. One idea was to create a mobile
application that would assist Munich residents to find parking spaces around the city. A second
idea was to also create a mobile application that would scan pieces of clothes and suggest
similar items in different stores around Munich. A third idea was to develop a website that would
indicate bio shops situated near to the user’s location. The fourth idea was GoTeamers, which is
the startup company that this paper has been using as an example.
The seven students that grouped together to form GoTeamers were coming from a similar
background. All seven students were coming from a different city than Munich and they
experienced the need to be active and meet new people in the city.
In this phase, the team started to brainstorm name for the company. Names included All4one,
Group You, Grouped by You, Join Us, Team Me, Teamme, Teamed Up, Teamed, Gather Up,
Form Up, among others. The GoTeamers name came about when the team found out that all
the other domains with .com were taken.
Most of the time, the group sketched and brainstormed in different white boards, they rarely
used sticky notes that could have been rearranged, if necessary, in any type of wall or board.
An example of a GoTeamers sketch can be seen on the following page:
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Figure 4: GoTeamer’s vision
Source: Compiled by GoTeamers members
At this ideation phase, GoTeamers prototyped but rarely did user testing. They did not
constantly seek feedback from the end-users. Throughout the ideation phase GoTeamers did
not have one appropriate working environment, one single working room that was comfortable
and accessible to all team members.
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5.2.1 Improving the Ideation Phase When founding GoTeamers, major parts of the Ideation process were missed. On this phase, it
was extremely important to have a visualization of business idea, paying close attention to the
customer and to the main service of the business. Instead or in addition to just creating a
drawing of the business plan in the board (Figure 4), GoTeamers should have used design
thinking in design service, for example, they could have created a storyboard to visually narrate
the business model and its process. A storyboard is a professional way to explain the business
model to customers, investors, or other major stakeholders, see Figure 5.
Figure 5: Storyboard
Source: http://www.servicedesigntools.org
By just looking at the drawing GoTeamers created, it would be difficult to interpret the business
model and the service the business wants to provide. In the drawing (Figure 4) there was no
starting point and no ending point for the audience to follow. The storyboard (Figure 5), on the
other hand, narrates and illustrates every single step of the business process from beginning to
end. Here there would be no need for further information to be added verbally to explain the
business process.
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In regards to prototyping, GoTeamers should have finished the clickdummy quicker and should
have performed several user testing. Lastly, GoTeamers should have worked in one single
room, which would contain all the sketches, prototypes, sitemaps, wireframe, persona, and UI
design that the group had been working on.
5.3 Implementation The GoTeamers startup business is now on its ramp up phase. A click dummy prototype was
developed and the founding team is looking for potential investors to financially assist in
launching the product. The required investment to develop and launch the GoTeamers app on
IOS mobile devices is estimated to be €36.339,00. Before GoTeamers enter the marketplace,
they should start promoting their business and spread the word about what they have been
working on.
Independent from the question if the company is established or not, it is very likely that the team
members will loop back to another inspiration phase. After running through all the phases and
steps involved on starting up a business, and after learning from their mistakes, it is very likely
that GoTeamers team members will have other innovative ideas and use the valuable
framework of the design thinking phases explained in this paper. If they will be working together
in the same group is uncertain, but if they want to succeed, they should closely follow the three
design thinking steps approach described in this paper.
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6 Conclusion In this paper, the reader was familiarized with design thinking and the fundamental tools that are
applicable for startup businesses. In order to understand design thinking and how design
thinking works, this paper first presented to the reader formal definitions of design and thinking.
Then, putting the two words together, design thinking was described—its methodology and
processes that could help improve fulfilling customer needs and preferences. More specifically,
this paper closely emphasized and examined the three step design thinking approach of Tim
Brown, inspiration being the problem and opportunity that urges the seek for new solutions;
ideation as following the process of brainstorming, development, and user testing; and
implementation as the final execution of the product/service into the market.
Following Tim Brown’s methodology on design thinking, the reader was then introduced to the
small startup company GoTeamers. From there, the chapters guided the reader to Tim Brown’s
design thinking process that could have benefited such a startup company. These last chapters
demonstrated flaws in the GoTeamer’s business structure and process and indicated better
human centered design approach solutions, with a stronger creative visual communication
strategy.
To finalize, it has been shown that companies that incorporate the design thinking in their
innovation processes have become market leaders. If startups could follow Brown’s three steps
of design thinking processes phases: Inspiration, Ideation and Implementation, it could increase
their chances to beat the saturated market. Startups that use the design thinking approach are
driven by a search for customer needs that are not yet fulfilled by existing products and services
in a structured way (Inspiration). The likelihood to identify undiscovered customer needs is
increased and new markets are more often identified. Furthermore, design thinking also helps to
further a customer-oriented development of the product design (Ideation) and to make sure that
the final products meet the customer requirements in an optimal way (Implementation).
Consequently, the phases of Inspiration, Ideation and Implementation are essential steps that
teams should follow when starting up a business. Design thinking can transform the way
products and services are developed in businesses, adding more customer benefits and
business value. Innovation means differentiation, therefore design thinking should be
incorporated into all phases of the process.
21
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