Global Manufacturer Gains Inspiration for Innovative Human-Centered Product Design
Global Manufacturer Gains Inspiration for Innovative Human-Centered Product Design
Industry: Manufacturing Enterprise
Location: Global
Tactic: Human-Centered Design Skill Simulation
Results
Increased knowledge of design thinking tools by nearly 50%
Broadened understanding of human-centered thinking and customer-centric innovation efforts
Brainstormed new design thinking approaches within product design
The Challenge
The product design team of a global manufacturing company needed inspiration. They wanted to spark innovative approaches to enhance their designs and gain a competitive edge in the market but weren’t sure what steps to take to develop this thinking within their team.
The team leadership had experienced the value of human-centered design thinking, an approach that empowers participants to apply empathy-based analysis tools to form unique user insights. With a human-centered design approach, participants learn to apply the creative tools of brainstorming, prototyping, and testing to refine their human-centered solutions.
They began exploring options for human-centered design training to support a market research work stream and came to Bridge Innovate for help.
The Solution
An ability to continuously innovate – create and scale new solutions successfully – differentiates market leaders from their competitors. Design thinking provides teams with the tools and techniques to help organizations be innovative. With design-thinking tools, teams can create great solutions that are desirable for users, technically feasible, and financially viable.
Design thinking organizations start with a deep understanding of the customer to help them quickly generate and test numerous ideas to learn their way to great solutions. The approach begins by finding opportunities through framing a question, gathering inspiration, and synthesizing for action. Then, as a group, you find creative solutions through intentional brainstorming, applications, and testing.
So, we scheduled an in-person half-day session with the product team at the Bridge Studio to train them in design thinking tools, present empathy-based exercises, and run the ExperienceInnovation Noble Tree Simulation that would allow the team to practice these principles.
To kick off the session, the group learned the fundamentals of design thinking and then divided into four teams to run the Noble Tree Human-Centered Design Skills Simulation. In the simulation, the different teams acted as imagined consultants asked to help Noble Tree, a chain of 51 hotels and resorts in 14 countries. Noble Tree suffered a direct loss of nearly 2.7B last year primarily due to the surge in home-share services. The four teams were asked to compete to form and present innovative solutions to retain and grow customers for Noble Tree using the design-thinking approach.
Then, following the simulation, they regrouped to brainstorm and reflect. With the facilitation of Bridge, the product design team reflected on learnings from the session and discussed applications, uncovering new processes and innovations as a result.
The Results
Through the Design Thinking Simulation session, the client gained an understanding of essential design-thinking tools. Using a pre and post-session growth assessment, participants reported significant knowledge growth, increasing their overall understanding of human-centered design thinking by nearly 50%. More specifically, they reported a better understanding of empathy-based tools, insight formation, brainstorming tools, and tools for prototyping, testing, and iterating a design.
Participants reported the session was “very eye-opening” and provided them with a “different perspective of thinking and collaboration.” One participant noted in their post-session survey that the session “really opened [his] eyes to understanding the true need of the customer and how to approach a solution proposal.”
The team especially recognized the importance of making time to brainstorm during the design process. Ultimately, the product design team walked away with new design skills and processes to spark innovative thinking within their team and the necessary tools and templates to enable fresh design approaches.
Partner with Bridge to brainstorm innovative solutions and inspire your organization through Human-Centered Design Thinking. Contact us to set up your own session today.