Our Founder's Journey with Design Thinking

Today, we have Carol Wong, Founder & CEO of Innothink Advisory shared her journey with and perspective of Design Thinking when she discovered and acted upon it for almost a decade now!

Continue reading below to explore what she has to share with us.

PERSONAL IMPACT BY DESIGN THINKING

Design Thinking has certainly changed the way I work. I often apply the various techniques that I have learned in different situations — even to situations that do not have a project or challenge format.

For example, I tend to use a lot more Post-it notes to capture my thoughts or ideas so that I can arrange my thoughts or ideas in various orders. Furthermore, various brainstorming techniques I learned from Design Thinking have provided me with more options to consider during brainstorming sessions.

The rapid prototyping of ideas is another great way of working. I like this a lot, given that I can try out and quickly discard ideas that do not work so that I can move on to prototype new ones.

From my own experience, I believe that Design Thinking can best be cultivated by self-motivated individuals. Immersion in a two-day (at the minimum) program will develop one’s ability to apply Design Thinking in both one’s personal and work or business life.

Design Thinking is not necessarily used only for creating innovative products or services. Tools and techniques learned can be applied in one’s daily routines. The challenge is the ability to identify the right methods or tools to be applied in which situations.

THE FUTURE OF DESIGN THINKING

From my point of view, Design Thinking is continuously attracting the attention of future generations as the process provides them with the opportunity to create awesome ideas based on their individual passions. Given that these individuals from Gen-Y or beyond are more knowledgeable due to information or knowledge access via the internet, their career aspirations tend to be greater and they expect to be empowered in developing and implementing new ideas for their organisations.

Companies will be expected to have Design Thinking values in order to attract and retain future talent. I therefore foresee that there are significant opportunities for Design Thinking to expand in the future. It will become one of the core competencies/skills within leading innovative companies. Design Thinking will not be seen as only a methodology for creating innovations, it will become a prerequisite skill of future talents. Besides technical or academic qualifications, Design Thinking skills, such as solving complex problems, empathy fieldwork, brainstorming, prototyping and pitching are core skills that will add significant value to an individual’s profile. The methodology itself will be broken down into behaviours and values for talent competency development. This is where I truly see Design Thinking being brought to the next level in the future.

Let us know what your thoughts are on Carol’s perspective! We will be interested to hear how Design Thinking has impacted or will impact your life, and what you envision the future of Design Thinking will be for our generation and beyond.

Join our community of Innothinkers here to stay updated on all things Design Thinking and share your journey of Design Thinking with us :)