11 Reason Why designers need to Converge & Diverge in thinking ideas ?

There is a huge amount of statistics and facts which I can tell you why it is very important to diverge and converge in design thinking. If you really wanted to know why exactly, this podcast is going to have a clarity for you. And I'm going to give you 11 reasons why it is vital to do that. How to avoid the copycat syndrome, which a lot of designers are already doing in the market. Let's jump into this podcast. So let me give you what is mean by divergent and convergent thinking, guys. Okay, so while going along the 11 points, you will definitely get it, but I'll also give you a small insight initially. Okay, so first let's understand what is convergent thinking when you're thinking about a product solution. Like, let's say if you want to redesign something, if you go narrowly, very, very deep into a particular idea to solve this. Like, let's say if you found a way to solve the problem. Let's say if you're designing a share and table. Okay, so you found that legs are the biggest part, which you will have to solve it. So you are going very deep into leg. Like what's your competitors using leg material and why leg is important and how redesign. I can do the legs. How the comfort will be increased in leg, leg, leg. This is called converging into a particular thing. Okay. Divergent is diverting. It's like expanding. So you're thinking how you can bring new solutions to make the comfort of seating better. Okay, you're not just seeing leg, you're seeing from a whole product point of view. You're not just seeking inspiration from your competitors, but you're seeking from your other manufacturers as well, from other cross industries as well, from other different cross industries in order to find how you can solve the problem of leg. Why don't I really create something like a magneti levitating chair? Why doesn't have to always have four legs? Why don't I keep a magnetic field so that the levitation can happen and you can able to adjust your magnetic levitation through your handheld knob, which can give you maximum levitation in the air and it can give you lower levitation so that you can adjust your height by using that. Yeah, that could be as crazy like that though. The magnetic levitation got from a bullet train, which is Japanese Shinkansen. Okay, so you got the idea from the bullet train. See, this is called divergent, bringing different diverse ideas. Okay, Jagdish, you're saying converging and diverging is both important in design and can you Tell me why. That's exactly. This podcast is there. First, I'll tell you guys, you will not be biased based on somebody's opinion, okay? Because you are converging and you're diverging in your thought process. You will be having a more clarity because you're seeing the both sides of it. Okay? That's the first advantage. Why we are doing the second is your brain will be definitely emptying out. Guys, once you're doing lot of ideations at that point of time, you need to find inspirations from other field as well. You need to go deep into some area in order to find lot more clarity in that. That is why convergent and divergent is always required. Or else you will find like stagnation. You'll find. So like let's say that's it. You cannot do lot more things beyond this. Let me tell you guys, people who give priority to design thinking and creative ideas, they improve a lot. And they outperform S and P index industries by 210 percentage. 219 percentage design thinking. And thinking forward towards creative idea is more and more important. Let me tell you guys, even 80 percentage of the CEOs has said design thinking is what they wanted to really apply, but they are not doing it. And they also consciously know that if they are applying it, they will have a phenomenal improvement in their career, in their company, in their growth. That's the important of it. Okay? Third important thing is your brain connection will be very active if you are doing lot of convergent thinking. Okay. If you're going very deep. Sorry. Divergent thinking. Okay? I'll tell you why it is very important. See, whenever we are positive, we are happy. We will be more creative guys, because you will be more divergent. You will be thinking about different connections, connecting different dots. You know what Steve Jobs always cost Connecting dots is what is called creativity. So he brought in a lot of ideas to design this Apple iPhone. By integrating maps, by integrating phone, by integrating Internet, by integrating audio, he made a beautiful product which is lasting forever. Right? So that's what is called creativity. So when you're positive, you will get to connect all these things. Okay? And fourth important thing is if you are iterating a lot like let's say convergent and divergent and convergent and divergent. Slowly you will go from ambiguity into clarity. Okay, I'll tell you. Initially you'll have 50 different ideas. The moment if you converge, you will have only 5 or 10 again, if you diverge from these 10 ideas, you will have 50 different concept of the same ideas. Okay, again you can dive. Again, you can converge into few ideas, two or three. Again, if you diverge. Again, if you converge. See guys, the more and more you converge and diverge and iterate, I'll tell you, your fluctuations will reduce a lot. Your clarity in your concepts will become even more high because you are seeing both sides. You're seeing the divergent side, you're seeing the convergent side. Okay, so third point, what I told you is your brain focuses on positive connection. That's also a good reason. But on the other hand, if you're focusing on divergent and convergent both, it will help you narrow down. See guys, design is always about ambiguity. How you're able to solve it through your design thinking is what will bring you lot more clarity. Okay, so the fifth important thing is, I'll tell you guys, there are a lot more cross functional applications. People who are designing designed nail polish brushes. No, it's very difficult for somebody to take the nail polish, what you call container and apply it same in their fingers, right? You need some finger to hold your nail polish also. So how do you do that? There is a container, a small container which you can just put like a ring in your finger so that your nail polish hangs down. And you can able to put that brush into it. And then you can able to polish with your thing. You don't have to keep it down. Okay? So because it will fall down. So the point is it will be very easy for you to access it from your nearby finger. And then it will have a multi purpose also. So you can use that to cap it, you can use that to paint it. See, same your finger. You are utilizing it for both the functionalities. And the thing is, you can use your notepad to keep your pen nearby. Okay? Many times people forget pen, they carry only diary to their office. Many times people forget this particular, what you call diary. And they have only pen. So pen and diary is very inevitable for people to have it, right? So how do you keep it together? So why don't you design a diary in a way so that it can hold your pen also? See, see this is all there in the market. But think of how people would have thought it initially when bringing it into the market. That's what is called convergent and divergent thinking. Bringing different ideas, right? Let me tell you guys, the big reason why you have to do convergent divergent is it saves a lot of your time, it saves a lot of your efforts. Because right now, if you're not converging and diverging and thinking clearly. You will be biased in one opinion and later you will have to design version two product which can solve better solution. Later you need an extensive team to think towards it, to solve it in an even more better way. See guys, it saves a lot of time, I'm telling you. Okay, seventh important thing is you would have covered lot more possibilities and probabilities because you are divergently thinking. You're convergently thinking, you're deeply thinking and then you're variedly thinking. It is really good, guys. 10 designers are thinking in the same times what output you will get you one person can bring if you're using convergent and divergent thinking in a very appropriate way. Okay, so think about it. It is the nature of design, guys. It's a biomimicry, It's a law. Nature evolves by iteration. Nature evolves by lot of mistakes. Nature evolves by number of possibilities and probabilities. Then and only the successful evolution happens. And if you apply it for design, that's why it's good to always say fail fast, fail more, fail fast. Because you'll have a better solution. IDEOS founder, I think IDO senior designer David Kelly always tells that. Iterate, iterate, iterate. Fail fast, fail fast, fail fast. He has written a book called Change by Design. Okay, so it's by Tim Brown and David Kelly has written Creative Confidence. Both of these books tell this. Fail fast, fail fast. So try and read it out. This eighth important thing is you will go much deeper, guys. See, when you are using a negative side of your brain, which is like a danger side, negative response, negative emotion. Like let's say if you are trapped in a well inside which you are getting low oxygen, if you are not coming out of this particular well in one hour, your story is, Gautam, you died. That's it. Now what your brain will do, your brain will only focus on trying to find a mechanism to escape. Trying to find a way to come out. Try to find a way to climb. Try to find a way to get oxygen. Try to find a way to communicate to others. To get to know. See, now you're deep, deep, deep, deep, deep. You're going. So our brain is a super organ, guys. It gives you a positive side and negative side where you have to flip it carefully and use it. See, we have been evolved by surviving from our predators, right? Our enemies and all. So we use that negative sight in our brain to focus on killing our predators. And then we are escaping that, okay? Killing our preys. And then we are escaping from that. We have been ancestrally, we've been doing it for years of a number of years and thousands of years before we did for evolution. But now we can use that consciously to dive deep into one topic to design a lot more solutions in that by this you will not go random, you will go very, very specific as it's a beautiful trait. Okay, so ninth important thing is this habit builds your brain to think in a more genuine way. Genuine way is like thinking both direction convergent and divergent. It's a very good habit that you're building, guys. See guys, let me tell you once if your brain starts to expand in this direction, it will never come back to the normal. So you are evolving as a person by practicing convergent and divergent. 10th important advantage is you'll find lot more connectivity, you'll find good network, you'll find lot of creative things happening in your project so that your company, your client, your customer will have a lot of benefit because you are a more potential person to bring lot more connectivity because your brain now started thinking in that direction. The 11th important advantage is it helps you really solving a big problem. When you're working in a problem statements like industrial safety, health hazard, spacecraft design, aircraft design, you know, because you are force fitting your brain to think in a safety aspect. How a person will really work if he is flying in a mid air and all of his controls are lost while he is riding a like let's say Airbus, like let's say Boeing 737 flight. And how you will design a emergency management system for that pilot and you are the designer now, now tell me. So you will have to simulate yourself in that situation and then you can bring. Okay, I'll put a eject button, then I'll come out of this flight. Okay, I'll go and interact and tell the customer in the flight, passengers in the flight that everybody has a parachute, everybody has a life jacket. Now I'm flying on top of the sea, everybody can escape. See that calmness will come for the pilot once. If your interface is very clearly designed, if some emergency happens, if your driver, your pilot is also getting in an emergency mode, and if he is not knowing how to do exactly what is a protocol during emergency time, then we have failed as a terrible designers to communicate to the pilot what to do in that particular crisis time. It's not a failure of pilot guys, it's not a failure of Airbus, it's not a failure of anybody. It's a failure of a designer who is not thinking in that direction to help the pilot to react in that emergency time. This is what Don Norman very carefully says. You need to design for people who are in a emergency crisis management. So understand the importance of this convergent divergent thinking. Guys, I've given you powerful 11 steps, 11 important reasons why it is important. So think and immediately apply it. Okay? Don't just listen to this podcast and leave. Take an action point immediately implement it in your next activities in your projects and you'll see a surge of differences. Let me recap you gu. Okay. First advantage is you will have a. You will not have a biased opinions bringing driving your designs. Second is your brain will get stagnated and that's why you have to use convergent and divergent thinking. Third is your brain connection and executive center will go in a very positive direction so that you will find a lot more creative divergent ideas. Fourth is you will have lot more iterations done so that your ambiguity will move into clarity which is very important for a designer. Fifth is I've told you some case studies like using the same product into a different different applications wherein you can use notepad as a pen, nail polish along with the container in your finger stand. And six is it saves a lot of time and effort. Seventh is you would have covered a lot more possibilities and probabilities which is the nature of design. And your design would have covered a most robust solution so that years of iterations will happen in months of time. And eight is you will go much deeper so that your creativity, your. Your depth in thinking will be good. Ninth is it will widen your perspective in your brain and you will build a great positive connection. And that's a tenth step by building building positive connections with your network and bring more good habits as a designers that will add a great perspective to your products. And 11th is it helps you solve a problem of emergency crisis management of the designs when it comes to aircraft industry, industrial safety, spacecraft, everything. Okay, so this is advantage guys. If you want to really know more, if you want to really know how to practice it. I have a method called idea cards. Okay. I have a method called fast rapid ideation technique where I help you all this convergent divergent thinking. I have a two hours of masterclass also to teach students deeply in this context. If you wanted to come into my mentorship program to learn a lot more things like this and get results in less than three months to want to become a fresher in design who would have never known before anything in design. It takes me three months for you to get your results, guys. But if you're already a designer, if you want to get 2x3x salary growth, I have a specialized exclusive program for you. So send that email. Dfcdesignforchangemail.com me or my team will help you out to get into my program if you're only serious. Okay, I hope if you're listening to this podcast, you're definitely serious. Take action. Take action. Because listening to this podcast will not change. Taking action will change. 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