Thinking Out of the Box Made Easy! The High Art of Accepting Question Marks

Do you like question marks? Then you will do well with Design Thinking. With Design Thinking you will find particularly creative solutions, for example, for pioneering innovations. You will come across insights that would never have come to your mind during classic brainstorming.

   But for that you need a virtue. Namely the patience to leave questions in the room and to work intensively with customers and users. Don’t be content with the first set of ideas. It's like a sports arch. With the right technique, you first put tension on the bow before you release the arrow. So, can you stand question marks and deal with this tension? Fine! Then let's take a look at Design Thinking.

    Many years ago, an automotive pioneer asked his customers about their mobility needs. Customers agreed that they wanted faster horses. But the pioneer continued his research and understood: "Customers don't want faster horses - they want faster individual travel, no matter how. This flash of inspiration brought the car out of niche existence and made it a mass product. Affordable cars faster than horses, so the pioneer won the race. An insight with a leverage effect that wrote automotive history.

   Such insights with leverage can be found through design thinking. "Before you think about solutions, analyse the deeper needs of your users," explains Christina Hiller, managing director of next level consulting. Design Thinking makes you patiently monitor and ask your users. They are sounding the depth until you are really sure: that's what the user wants at heart. Only then will you find the solution. And a really good solution.

Christina Hiller, like her colleague Gunter Gruhser, is convinced: Design Thinking is an effective tool for the race to the best ideas. For problem solutions, innovation and agile working with multidisciplinary teams. "We work with our customers with Design Thinking if we are looking for solutions to deadlocked problems or want to bring real innovation on the way," says Gunter Gruhser, Senior Consultant at next level consulting. His clients report back to him: finally, we find solutions and new ideas that consider the users and their needs. How liberating! This way, you find new ways and write real success stories.

But? Yes, there is a small "but". "Design thinking is not a universal tool," says Tina Hiller. It is not enough to just learn the method and take it as a checklist. Design thinking must fit in with the mission and culture of the company and the leadership. Anyone working with this method needs openness for this new way of thinking and a new problem-solving process. Many companies already have experience with it and have the required mindset. Others, we lead them gently into Design Thinking - step by step with our wealth of experience in consulting. Perhaps the automobile pioneer hundred years ago knew more: having your own car on the doorstep is not enough. Driving also needs to be learned.

Interested in Design Thinking? Get to know the method in our training "Design Thinking in Projects" or get started with agile management for creative solutions and breakthrough innovations.