How Leaders Can Use Design Thinking to Identify Quick Wins

Design Thinking requires two things that don’t always come naturally in Government initiatives: empathy and rapid change. However, Government leaders are constantly challenged to identify and implement Quick Wins to inspire their workforce as they solve big challenges.

It is difficult (and sometimes time consuming) to fully step into another’s experience, donning their views and shouldering their burdens, just as it can be difficult to pick up a change of pace when the pace of new ideas builds up, but the capacity to implement them is limited by time or budget. And in the Government – which is often driven by structure, legacy, and tradition – it can be challenging to break the mold and find new and better ways to do things.

To successfully generate and try new ideas following a Design Thinking approach, we need collaboration among diverse participants to hold us accountable, challenge our natural defaults, and keep us energized through what is often a demanding process.

While there are many methods to implement Design Thinking, Arc Aspicio’s unique approach is tailored to the Government’s specific challenges. Of our five phases of Design Thinking: Empathize, Frame, Explore, Prototype, and Implement, collaboration is key and is especially necessary in the Explore phase. During this phase, diverse teams of Government, stakeholder, and industry participants iteratively generate, assess, and mature ideas. Collaboration enhances the ability to identify and address barriers and constraints – and at the same time bring outside views unencumbered by some of these challenges to identify breakthrough ideas.

Without collaboration in the Explore phase, unchallenged viewpoints, limited ideas, and isolated solutions may result. Government leaders must assemble a diverse team of open-minded thinkers that include decision makers and those that can provide alternative viewpoints, provide an environment that fosters creative thought and guards against groupthink, and encourage a large range of average to seemingly crazy ideas, comparing them to others while fluidly discarding bad ideas and building good ideas.

A full suite of resources exists to provide helpful frameworks and tools to manage team collaboration, limit group think, foster creativity, and identify implementable solutions. Examples include: Divergence and Convergence, Affinity Diagrams, Rolestorming, Questioning, Mind Mapping, and Associating. Specifically including diverse stakeholders in these activities further generates innovative solutions.

Using specific tools increases the value and power of collaboration to explore solutions that have never been considered before. These solutions can result in immediate quick wins for leaders in a new or acting role, or leaders who are facing challenges with a workforce focused on how they have always done things and can also establish a foundation for a creative culture and inspired workforce that is encouraged to take risks and try new ways of working.

About Arc Aspicio
Arc Aspicio is a management, strategy, and technology consulting firm that takes a mission-oriented approach to complex client challenges. As a rapidly growing company, Arc Aspicio has a bold strategy for 2016-2018 that drives growth through new capabilities in strategy, design, human capital, data analytics, information sharing, cybersecurity, and strategic communications. The company is known for a strong, collaborative culture that values gratitude – for its clients and its great team. And, #welovedogs! Follow us on Twitter @arcaspicio or learn more at www.arcaspicio.com.