Leading the design practice at BP3, I have the luxury of being surrounded by an incredibly talented group of analysts, designers, and process consultants who know how critical Design Thinking is to successful process improvement and automation projects.
At times, I forget this is not the norm. One of my teammates sent me an article from Medium titled, “What Design Thinking Is and How It Is Used in Software Development”. The article does a nice job introducing design thinking. For me, it was also a good reminder that many people - even those who are deeply involved in Intelligent Automation or software development generally - may not share BP3’s obsession with the importance of design.
The article includes a definition of design thinking from renowned designer, Tim Brown:
Design thinking is a human-centered approach to innovation that draws from the designer's toolkit to integrate the needs of people, the possibilities of technology, and the requirements for business success.
I appreciate how Tim’s definition puts people at the heart of the design process. To me, design thinking has always been about taking an iterative, problem-solving approach to developing solutions that put human needs and experiences at the center of solution design. As the article notes, it involves empathizing with users, defining the problem, ideating possible solutions, prototyping and testing those solutions, and iterating further based on feedback.
At BP3, where we have worked with hundreds of leading companies to streamline and automate the processes that drive their business, I’ve seen firsthand how this approach leads to automation success. Design thinking helps to ensure the solutions developed are not only technically feasible but also desirable and viable from the user's perspective. This accelerates the adoption of new applications, reduces resistance to change, and ultimately leads to greater success and satisfaction for both users and the organization.
The same design thinking skills that are so critical for project success can also be used much earlier in your process improvement journey to create strategic clarity by giving organizations a faster way to identify their highest value improvement opportunities.
I have seen many organizations reach a point where they recognize the need to change a process that isn’t working but the path forward is not clear. These can be incredibly frustrating situations, particularly when making meaningful improvements seems to be unattainable.
At BP3, we have seen the power of design thinking and facilitation techniques to bring together business users, leadership, and IT to better understand an end-to-end process and dig into the challenges – focusing on user pain points and what the users need to overcome those obstacles. This approach helps to get an organization quickly aligned on high-level goals which can be translated into SMART objectives - giving a measurable way to gauge progress and serve as a north star to guide the project implementation.
Want to learn more about this approach? Schedule a consultation with our design experts to explore how to get more value out of your business processes.