Unlocking Design Thinking’s Potential

Firms can be inhospitable environments for attempts to promote a mindset for sustained innovation. Consequently, efforts to adopt design thinking as a methodology for driving innovation and an agent of mindset change are often unsuccessful and results are seldom sustained over time. There is little guidance available on optimising design thinking’s adoption and diffusion within an organisation. This paper proposes a design thinking paradigm and process that act as a beacon for new and infrequent practitioners and thereby help them transcend the plethora of methods employed. The new process positions reframing as a central pivot or gateway between old and new. The new paradigm introduces strategic suitability, of a project in respect of a firm, as a key project attribute. Strategic suitability must be a design consideration for every project at all stages of progress, so that the project’s innovation is ready for the firm where it is to be adopted, and vice versa