The business world has been quick to try and implement design thinking in hopes of stimulating sweeping organizational change and innovation, only to abandon it and return to old practices when it doesn’t “work.” Is design thinking nothing more than a poorly defined gimmick, or are people just missing the big picture?
Perhaps a part of the problem is that design thinking is more than just a set of tactics to be carried out, but rather a new ecology of mind. While grounded in business-minded rationality and operating within a defined set of constraints, it also contains an emotional/intuitive component that is often lost upon the more traditional thinkers. What this aspect requires is a capacity for switching between multiple perspectives and the ability to understand the world and our relationship to it, and within it, in a different way. Though there are many methods than can help develop this skill, I’d like to discuss an approach that may be unfamiliar to some: Futures Thinking.
What is Futures Thinking?
Futures thinking, or foresight, is a set of principles and practices that can be applied to solve complex problems. It combines data and trend analysis, pattern recognition, intuition, and imagination to envision desirable and sustainable paths of action. Just as Tim Brown distilled the design thinking process to : inspiration, ideation, and implementation, futurist Jamais Cascio described the futures thinking process as: Asking the Question, Scanning the World, Mapping the Possibilities, and Asking the Next Question. It’s an iterative process which helps you consider a range of possible, probably, and preferable outcomes. It’s not predicting the future, but rather taking a structured approach to understanding the potential impacts of today’s decisions and actions.
Tonight I was truly the thorn between two roses as we arranged for a real double trouble barrelled shotgun pair of guests to ROCK #MMchat19 and they were none other than Amy @
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