Thomas
Edison created the electric lightbulb and then wrapped an entire industry
around it. The lightbulb is most often thought of as his signature invention,
but Edison understood that the bulb was little more than a parlor trick without
a system of electric power generation and transmission to make it truly useful.
So he created that, too.
Thus
Edison’s genius lay in his ability to conceive of a fully developed marketplace,
not simply a discrete device. He was able to envision how people would want to
use what he made, and he engineered toward that insight. He wasn’t always
prescient (he originally believed the phonograph would be used mainly as a
business machine for recording and replaying dictation), but he invariably gave
great consideration to users’ needs and preferences.
Edison’s
approach was an early example of what is now called “design thinking”—a
methodology that imbues the full spectrum of innovation activities with a
human-centered design ethos. By this I mean that innovation is powered by a
thorough understanding, through direct observation, of what people want and
need in their lives and what they like or dislike about the way particular
products are made, packaged, marketed, sold, and supported.
Many people
believe that Edison’s greatest invention was the modern R&D laboratory and
methods of experimental investigation. Edison wasn’t a narrowly specialized
scientist but a broad generalist with a shrewd business sense. In his Menlo
Park, New Jersey, laboratory he surrounded himself with gifted tinkerers,
improvisers, and experimenters. Indeed, he broke the mold of the “lone genius
inventor” by creating a team-based approach to innovation. Although Edison
biographers write of the camaraderie enjoyed by this merry band, the process
also featured endless rounds of trial and error—the “99% perspiration” in
Edison’s famous definition of genius. His approach was intended not to validate
preconceived hypotheses but to help experimenters learn something new from each
iterative stab. Innovation is hard work; Edison made it a profession that
blended art, craft, science, business savvy, and an astute understanding of
customers and markets.
Design
thinking is a lineal descendant of that tradition. Put simply, it is a
discipline that uses the designer’s sensibility and methods to match people’s
needs with what is technologically feasible and what a viable business strategy
can convert into customer value and market opportunity. Like Edison’s
painstaking innovation process, it often entails a great deal of perspiration.
I believe
that design thinking has much to offer a business world in which most
management ideas and best practices are freely available to be copied and
exploited. Leaders now look to innovation as a principal source of
differentiation and competitive advantage; they would do well to incorporate
design thinking into all phases of the process.
Getting
Beneath the Surface
Historically,
design has been treated as a downstream step in the development process—the
point where designers, who have played no earlier role in the substantive work
of innovation, come along and put a beautiful wrapper around the idea. To be
sure, this approach has stimulated market growth in many areas by making new
products and technologies aesthetically attractive and therefore more desirable
to consumers or by enhancing brand perception through smart, evocative
advertising and communication strategies. During the latter half of the
twentieth century design became an increasingly valuable competitive asset in,
for example, the consumer electronics, automotive, and consumer packaged goods
industries. But in most others it remained a late-stage add-on.
Now,
however, rather than asking designers to make an already developed idea more
attractive to consumers, companies are asking them to create ideas that better
meet consumers’ needs and desires. The former role is tactical, and results in
limited value creation; the latter is strategic, and leads to dramatic new
forms of value.
Escrito por Tim Brown e publicado na Harvard Business Review em Junho de 2008.
