Grand Designs

Few organizations, says IDEO CEO Tim Brown, are set up to allow much creative collaboration, and even those are often afflicted by a culture that mishandles the results. “Too many ideas that get through to the market make it there because somebody senior is the one sponsoring them,” he says, “not because they’re necessarily the best ideas.” Brown looks to “design thinking” as an answer: incorporating designers’ problem-solving and idea-generation methods into a traditional organization, working with—and occasionally against—traditional R&D. The idea is to broaden horizons and instill a more innovative orientation, especially in a period of economic crisis. “In times when we’re scared,” Brown remarks, “we tend to get tunnel vision, don’t we?” He elaborates on design-thinking concepts and practices in a new book, Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation, and in this Q&A.

Check out the current issue and more at www.tcbreview.com!