Ep 186| Non linearity why its necessary in Design thinking - 8 Advantages & perspectives

Design thinking and non linearity goes hand in hand. These two words are very inevitable for a designer who are working in the product development. Right? So what does mean by nearly non linearity? Why it's important in this design thinking process particularly there are some statistics which can prove using this non linearity technique, people have made created successful products which you've not known before. To tell a very good example, the sticky notes the post its what you have in your table is coming out of the non linearity. And in this podcast I'm going to tell you the details of how it is importantly playing a role in design thinking and the eight different perspectives how you can able to find out. By using this non linearity you can create a huge difference in your product design life cycle. Okay, so take a lot of notes. Let's jump into this podcast. How many of you here were not sure about the post its story? It's a very interesting fact. In fact lot of people might have heard the 1/2 of it. See 1968 there was a scientist called Spencer Silver, okay? See this guy was a central research lead in 3M. 3M, we know it's a big industry for adhesives for industrial related products in United States, okay. So he is trying to develop a very strong adhesive for the aircraft industry. What happened is because of his failure in the experiment, this resulted in a very weakly sticky adhesive and this could be removed from the wall without leaving any residue. So this guy, you know, this pencil, Silver was finding this as a very interesting thing and he intended to use it for a specific purpose. And he, this, this particular application, he shared it with the 3m but 3m did not accept that initially and they were not having much interest over it. So certain years after that. So 3M industry, 3M industry had another scientist called Artfrey. So he attended one of Spencer Silver seminar where he understood what is this weak adhesive. So Fry, who sang in the church choir often used very small pieces of paper to, you know, mark. This rhymes in his book. What happened is the moment when he see this so he could use these paper markers that would often fall off and damage the pages. So in spite from Silver's work, you know, Fry saw an opportunity to create a better bookmark. He coated the small pieces of paper with Silver's adhesive and found that they were very much sticking to the surface but not having any strains. It was repositioned without leaving any mark. So he was really happy. In 1974, Fry&3M officially launched, you know, a product called Present Peel bookmarks. However, this product really did not gain the traction. But in 1977 the name was changed to post it notes. You know what, because of the innovative marketing campaign and the non linearity approach, this began to gain popularity. Guys, you know, rest is history. You know the sticky notes, how it has become an office supply for the every industry in the world. Every office in the world. It's innovation born out of failure. This is called non linearity, guys. If you don't understand non linearity, I hope this story would have given you a clarity. Airbnb, you know 2007, Brian Chesky and Jay Dba Jane Gbia, they were struggling to actually find an apartment. They came from apartment. They came for a design conference in San Francisco. So they rented an air mattress for that particular night to stay away. You know what, they were really frustrated because they quickly realized that the demand for this alternate lodging option was there because not all the people can afford a hotel or a stay up for a night. It costs lot of things. So they founded an industry called Airbnb with Nathan Blechel. I mean I'm not sure about his name. Blichar Siki. Okay, so lot of struggles came initially and then you know what the popularity gained through creative marketing and testimonials. Airbnb is a global platform connecting travelers with the unique accommodation features offered by the individual families. Can I tell you, this disrupted the entire hotel industry and it became a multi million, multi billion dollar company. Lot of people followed that Uber. In 2009, Travis Kalanick and Garrett Camp faced a difficulty in finding a cab. And you know what? Innovatively they have created an application to connect the drivers and the passengers in spite of lot of regularity issues. Regular what you call this? Regulatory norms and problems coming from the driver's community. They have found a very successful way to implement it and rest is history. Entire world is celebrating that. So what does it really tells you guys, when you really think in a linear way, you won't be able to find any solution for any problem or any kind of an innovation will come out. When you say A to B or B to C or C to D, it's a very linear process. Like the big problem with the linear process is it is very inflexible. It is overlooked the what you call we cannot really expect any changes happening in the long term and it discourages that innovation. So rigid kind of a process breaks like a strong wood tree flexible. And a non linear process works like a bamboo tree. You know, it flexibly moves in the air and it strongs, it keeps, it's strong, grows tall. So this podcast, why I'm telling you with some examples and stories of this branch is these people have really taken a non linearity way in order to approach and make it happen. You know, the design thinking process, something which states empathy, defining the problem and empathize initially with the problem statement and define the problem statement properly and then go for the ideation and creative stuff and then prototype it and then test it and then reiterate, see the way in which the process has been defined. It's actually having a lot of potential in order to create an iterative approach, in order to make sure even if the system fails, it can be redefined again using the step called redefinition. Right? So this is amazing guys. The moment when I started learning design thinking process, I kind of found it very, very, what do you call it is really amazing because of the flexibility what it offers. You can solve any problem, you can find out any problem. Even design thinking is not only a solving method, it's also a finding method, Problem finding method. In six sigma in 8D approach, industrial people use it. But design thinking has its own creative edge of it. Design Management Institute told that companies who applied design thinking have 56 percentage more revenues. McKenzie found that design thinking industries have a return on investment of 3x. That's amazing guys. Now you understand Uber Airbnb, in fact Apple, in fact Ideo design thinking process, so Nike design thinking process, they are all very much centered towards it. And you can definitely understand guys, this is a next generational thinking. If you're not applying design thinking skills, it's going to be a big problem for you. People in the management, people in the technical industry, non technical, everybody is expecting the skill, how you are able to solve that particular problem. When you're given how creative you are in finding out and coming out of the what you call solution, which is out of box, so that it can solve all the problems. So that's the need of the hover. So in particular, if you listen to my earlier podcast, I've talked about design thinking in a more detailed way. And in this podcast the non linearity part is discussed. In fact, I find it really interesting because if you apply design thinking properly, you'll see there are lot of non linearity coming in. I'll tell you what are the eight reasons for it. Okay, see the first important thing is breaking that linear thinking. Research conducted by Design Management Institute found that motive strategies found that the companies that fully integrate this design thinking into their process see a 41% higher market share and 46% competitive advantage in their respective industry compared to their competitors. You know Apple approach to product design. They prioritize UX guys user experience as a first priority. That led to a revolutionary product iPhone which disrupted the entire phone industry. So every design, every change what Steve Jobs suggest or what the Apple behavioral design team which is what you call this Don Normal suggest is based on the human centered approach. It breaks that linear thinking pattern. Second is it improves and embraces that complexity. You know. A study published in Journal of Engineering Design found that nonlinear problem solving approaches such as design thinking are effective in dealing very complex engineering problems. You know, a linear process will never be able to accommodate that I already told you so problems by allowing more exploration multiple solutions considering various constraints. So an architectural firm like let's say B. Jark Ingels Group, which is one of the biggest architectural firms employs nonlinear thinking in its design process tackling complex urban challenges with most crazy innovative solution. Like you know what Amber bag waste to energy plant which incorporates a skyscraper slope and recreational space. And I've seen one of the what you call incineration industry in Denmark when I travel there. So on top of that building they had a very big skiing park. So that ski produces even a good amazing spot also for the people to hang up. And also the friction produced from the skiing people can generate the static electricity and it can be stored in a battery. See how amazing it is. So architecture, every field has that embracing this complexity. The third advantage what I'm seeing is it encourages you to think divergent, very creative, connecting the dots, you know. Stanford D School suggests encouraging divergent thinking and design thinking will really create mean will really make a creative solution for any big problem which people are not thinking about solving. Study found that team who embraced this of generated higher quality of idea produced more innovative than other people. Okay, so ideas global design thinking and consulting firm promotes its divergent thinking through brainstorming session. You can even see ideas toolkit. I'll paste that link. Also in this description you can find that their rapid prototyping way generate variety of ideas for solving this complex design challenges. So divergent thinking is very very very essential. And the fourth important reasons which I'm seeing is cross pollination of ideas. This is amazing guys. Can I tell you cross pollination if it happens only it's going to be a nonlinear design. A study published in Research Policy foundation that companies that actively seek inspiration from unrelated industries or domains or completely different domains are more likely to introduce breakthrough innovations like let's say if you are running aircraft industry you can take inspiration from a pin manufacturer. If you are manufacturing something like a book industry, you can get inspiration from iPad. So it may seem very different from outside, but when you try to draw parallels, this cross pollination of ideas leads to very very novel solution. Guys you will be out of this competition market. Not all you'll be very novel. Tesla approach to designing electric vehicles draws inspiration from industries outside automotive, you know what such as aerospace. That resulting in the over air software updates and autonomous driving capabilities. You know what Tesla offers you a over air update. So that's the beautiful feature which is coming from the aircraft industry. So mean I can keep on giving you stat and example but the point is non linearity is a must guys. See embracing the failures and iterating it. Harvard Business Review found that if you learn from your failures and it's crucial for improving your innovation further companies like Google, Amazon encourages experimentation and iteration and they make a user centric product and services. They encourage that 3M's postage notes, we already talked about it, right? So 6th is cultivating an environment of non linear thinking. See you need to really make that environment happen around you a survival. McKinsey found that creating an environment which is conducive for this in this innovation are most likely to outperform the competitors. This includes culture in the openness, the collaboration, the risk taking. See how Amazing it is? Google's 20 percentage time policy allows employees to spend a portion of their work weeks on projects of their choosing. You know they'll go into their own projects or a liking of their project. So it kind of fosters their creativity in a lot more way outside their core responsibilities. So I've given you a lot of case studies guys, the success stories in fact the Airbnb story in fact we talked about the post. Its so it's all in this picture. And the eighth important advantage I could see is looking into the future. See as technology continues to advance like the AI is taking over and there is a growing demand for this nonlinear thinking guys to address very complex problem. Why are you thinking always about solving problem for a banking app? Why don't you think of solving a problem for a climate change, for poor poverty, for uneducation, for healthcare, for urbanization. So innovations such as 3D printing, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, biomimicry, design thinking, all these things could be applied with the new possibilities of tackling these issues. Can I tell you guys, The Allen Myth MacArthur foundation promotes this circular design thinking which aims to eliminate this waste and Promote sustainability by redesigning the products and system to function more natural ecosystem. So by incorporating this, let me tell you guys, you and your team will have a totally non linear approach towards design thinking. If you really wanted to get a clarity in this, go and apply for one real activity. You will know what is this? Design non linear thinking. Design thinking in a nonlinear way. I will give that case study also. So before that let me give you an example what kind of a problem statement you can keep to do that. Non linearity may be. You could treat this as a small assignment. So think about like let's say you can take a very easy example. So think about your water bottle. Okay, so you've been used, okay. Think about showering in a bath. Okay? You are taking a bath in your shower every single day. You're using tap water mug bucket. I don't know the way in which you bath, but some people use what you call bathtub to bath. So that's pretty much the ways we are thinking to bath ourselves, right? Can you really find out thousand years before how people have really took bath? Can you really take this up a small activity and find out apart from the traditional way of bathing, what else you can do to bath? Okay, one idea I'll give you guys. Think about animals. How do they bath? You can draw inspiration from there. Think about how people bath thousand years before, collect some research data and see it in Google and then write me in this podcast. It takes five or 10 minutes to do this research. But if you are able to do this, I'm sure you will understand what is mean by non linearity and how you can able to apply in your field. Okay, your answers are more welcome guys. I mean I'm interested to really see this answer. See the more you practice like this non linear way of seeing the problem and trying to draw parallel between different industries and trying to find out, you will see new neuron patterns coming inside your brain. You will see new connections which is not there before you are thinking in the problem ideation session or brainstorming ideation session. So you will start thinking more, more, more creatively in order to solve a problem which nobody's ever thinking. So I wish you all the best for applying this non linearity and let me know in this podcast description and I'll choose the lucky winner who gets this gift from me because I read every comment what you guys are posting. Almost 30 country people are listening to this podcast. I would love to read each and one of your comments and reflect on that. And also if we found your comments is really interesting and we'll exchange a gift. We you will be really surprised for that. Okay, so to close this podcast, let me tell you, if you really apply this non linearity, you'll break the linear thinking pattern. You'll embrace the complexity, you'll encourage the divergent thinking, you'll have an encouragement of cross pollination of ideas. You'll have lot of failures and iteration. You'll cultivate an environment of non linear thinking and you will have a future which is solving more than a problem design more than a product design industry is solving. So this is the reason guys, I'm recording this podcast. I hope you love this. If you find this useful, give me a best star rating in Apple and Spotify and see you in another episode. Thank you so much guys. We'll stay connected. Bye Bye.