Dancing with ambiguity: Causality behavior, design thinking, and triple-loop-learning

Abstract

With the help of rapid conceptual prototyping and iterations, design thinking can help the fuzzy front end to innovate faster, achieve a better market fit, and generally create more radical innovations. This human-centric methodology integrates expertise from design, social sciences, business and engineering and creates a vibrant environment for interaction that promotes iterative learning cycles. An intimate understanding of who the user actually is and what the real user's needs are is central to the early stages. Three 'learning loops' have been identified based on the product development knowledge model. Learning loop 1 describes normal institutional and procedural learning. The factors that seem to influence the creative energy and output the most are physical space, the absence of fixed processes, and a practice of letting change happen. Learning loop 2 describes the design process learning of need finding and bodystorming with the help of prototypes. Learning loop 3 focuses on the informal creation and transmission of explicit and implicit knowledge. A correlation between the usage of language and the degree of change achieved could be observed, where noun phrases and questions (deep reasoning questions and generative design questions) play a major role.