Design thinking: Using design thinking to facilitate automation

INDUSTRIAL BAKING

Using design thinking to facilitate automation

In a time when change is the only constant, bakeries need to generate new ideas at an increasing pace and solve challenges in a human-centered manner. One of these challenges is the successful implementation of automation in the production process of baked goods. In this chapter, I describe how design thinking could improve this change process in industrial-scale manufacturing environments.

+In a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) environment, companies have to continuously adjust their existing processes to changing conditions. Otherwise, they struggle to strive and survive. For instance, comparing the Fortune 500 (the list of the most lucrative organizations in the U.S.) from 1955 and 2019 reveals that only 10.4% of organizations appear on both lists. Naturally, companies in the baking industry are not immune to potential disruption. Structural and technological changes in the baking industry have been (e.g. Storey & Farris, 1964) and still are subject to scholarly attention (e.g. Hecker et al., 2013). One significant innovation in this regard is the automation of processes. Automation is “the use of machines and computers that can operate without needing human control” (Cambridge Dictionary). Automation can optimize the baking and selling process, especially for consistent and repeatable services

However, there is no one-size-fits-all solution for how automation can be introduced within every bakery. Each implementation rather requires several adjustments to leverage the optimization potential. Furthermore, successful change in a complex, rapidly transforming environment requires a motivated workforce with sufficient leeway for responding to changes in a self-determined manner.

Due to the VUCA environment, prefabricated blueprints for managing change are of limited use. For instance, due to changing customer preferences, such as more emphasis on healthy and sustainable goods, labeling food products becomes more important. However, introducing new labels might require a new quality management system. Thus, bakeries need agile approaches that iteratively integrate new insights into the solution process along the way. One of these new approaches is design thinking, a team-based method that relies on a defined process and takes human needs into account before developing a solution (Endrejat & Kauffeld, 2017; Norman, 2013). Initially created for product and service development (due to its participatory and iterative style), design thinking is also an agile approach to implement organizational change (e.g. Elsbach & Stigliani, 2018; Endrejat et al., 2018). In this chapter, I describe the design thinking mindset and process based on the challenge of “using automation to increase speed and efficiency of the

communication and ordering between bakeries and subsidiaries”. Furthermore, I provide general recommendations for introducing this innovative approach into organizational routines.

Design thinking

Problems often arise from poor design. In this context, design goes beyond aesthetic aspects but refers to how users interact with objects or processes. Take for instance the famous ‘NormanDoors’ (named after the user-experience expert Dan Norman): These poorly designed doors let users guess whether they should push or pull. They might even have a design that tells you to do the opposite of what you are supposed to do and hence often come with a sign to correct the wrong implicit signals (Norman, 2013).

Next to these ‘simple’ design flaws, problems can also be deeply interwoven into organizational structures. In most cases, we tend to overemphasize the effect of workers on performance, while neglecting the impact of system variables. For instance, if employees have difficulties following up on agreed priorities, it is often not human inability to focus but poor design, such as a matrix organization. The matrix consists of customer segments and a functional structure (marketing, sales, etc.) and hence, employees have to serve authorities with different interests, making it hard to focus on one subject (Carucci, 2019). Serving two supervisors might be the root of the problem, yet organizations try to solve the challenge by surface solutions, such as weekly check-ins, dashboards and the likes. This is because trying to fundamentally understand the problem and frame it into a solvable solution often runs opposite to the predominant organizational culture (‘we have always done it this way’).

To overcome the forces of perseverance, more and more organizations are recognizing that a user-centered approach is necessary to design change that promotes desired behavior. Thus, one goal of design thinking for organization development is to systematize the approach of designers and turn it into a process that can be practiced in organizations. Design thinking rests on an iterative process by which a team continuously gathers new information about a given challenge (a concrete bakery challenge will be discussed below) and integrates the perspectives of relevant stakeholders into the solution process. This is particularly relevant for organizational transformation – like the implementation of automation – because it invites the workforce to co-design a change, using its expertise, and creating commitment to the solution.

However, employees’ participation and support do not emerge out of the blue or due to tokenistic surveys. Rather, design thinking involves the ones affected by a change and rests on an actionoriented mindset. As most organizations and employees spend more effort in analyzing than modifying products and processes, this new way of working might run opposite to established work routines. Hence, it is often beneficial, to start with a design thinking intro or speed-run that is based on an artificial challenge (e.g., ‘how to communicate in a country whose language you do not speak’). This provides team members with an overview of how design thinking works and lets them appreciate the value of iterative processes and fast user feedback in a playful manner.

The design thinking mindset

Design thinking rests on the optimistic, empathic, and action-oriented conviction that a solution is out there and that by keeping focused on human needs – and asking the right questions – the team will get there. Instead of presenting final solutions, design thinking involves employees in a process that helps them to understand the causes or the meaning of a necessary change. In this way, those affected are given the opportunity to contribute their views and wishes. In the common terminology of organizational science, it is a bottom-up approach: The data of the employees are collected, put together and developed into a new solution, which is then carried upwards in the organization. This approach contrasts with the traditional top-down approach in which the management specifies how existing processes are to be improved incrementally and then expects the workforce to adopt these changes.

Source: The Design Council Figure 1 The ‘double diamond’ design thinking process by the Design Council (2007)

At first glance, a design thinking team that is confronted with organizational members who are reluctant to change their behaviors might brand them to be ‘resistant’. However, attributing innovation failure to users neglects that changes can be challenging and associated with uncertainty, or indeed be disadvantageous for the change recipients. A design thinking team that responds to reluctance with confrontational language to ‘sell’ an idea might evoke employees’ reactance and thus reduce the chances that a prototype will be accepted by the intended users. In other words, sometimes ‘resistance’ is rather the product of the communication between a design thinking team and employees (Endrejat et al., 2020). Thus, design thinking does not ignore problems and challenges, but also does not demonize ‘resistance’ by change recipients and rather understands it as an expression of needs that have to be acknowledged.

This reinterpretation allows us to work together on solutions – true to the motto ‘energy flows where attention goes’. The decisive criterion is which solutions are sufficient to meet the requirements of the users. Instead of evaluating solutions according to right and wrong, it is about examining which concepts meet the stakeholder needs. In this process, it helps to think about problems without bias and to explore possibility spaces in which new products and processes can be developed.

The design thinking process

A design thinking process usually begins with a challenge defined by the management or other relevant stakeholders that see room for improvement or the need for change in a certain area. Such a challenge might be: “using automation to increase speed and efficiency of the communication and ordering between bakeries and subsidiaries”. A design thinking project consists of several phases that are necessary for a successful innovation process, from the initial challenge to the successful implementation, placing a strong focus on a detailed needs analysis. An established process model is the ‘double diamond’ developed by the Design Council (2007) that includes two phases of divergent and convergent thinking, respectively (see figure 1).

Divergent means that new directions of thinking are explored in order to gain as much data as possible about the concerns of the employees. During convergent thinking, this data is structured and, if necessary, reduced to define clear needs and solution ideas. Both ways of thinking can be found in the needs analysis as well as in the solution phase (thus the name ‘double diamond’). In the first step (discover), the design thinking

team gathers as much information as possible about the perspectives of their colleagues (divergent thinking) and then focuses on a few central concerns that they would like to solve (define). In the subsequent solution phase, various options and possibilities are thought through to take the needs of the employees into account (develop), and select and develop a promising proposal (deliver). Each of these steps is described in the following sections.

Discover (divergent thinking) In the first process phase, the design thinking team tries to gain a deep understanding of users’ perspectives, preferably on vivid insights that are gained through observation, interviews with colleagues as well as subject matter experts. During this phase, the team acts like anthropologists that observe a foreign culture and learn about the rites and processes practiced in the organization in a non-judgmental manner. By taking such a role, the design thinking teams question taken-for-granted-beliefs (‘we have always done it this way’) and learn new nonanticipated facts (e.g. sales of baked goods depend on the weather) as well as the concerns of change recipients. One concern might be that employees in the subsidiaries fear that algorithms developed at the headquarters take away their control to order new products spontaneously, for instance, due to a regional holiday.

Define (convergent thinking) After collecting a lot of information during the discovery phase, design thinking teams have to focus on the relevant insights. Key needs of employees could be phrased into “How to…” questions, such as “How to make employees feel safe that they keep their jobs?”. After structuring the employees’ needs, the transition from the needs analysis to the solution phase takes place. Often, this goes along with re-framing the challenge or focusing on the most relevant aspects. Usually, the users’ key needs are translated into "How might we ...?" (HMW) questions. A HMW question consists of only three words but these are carefully chosen to guide the team into a creative trajectory. How. Implies that solutions exist and that there is a possibility the team can find them. Might. Suggests that hypothetical solutions are being developed and gives permission to explore unorthodox avenues (underlined by the subjunctive). We. Assigns responsibility to each team member and facilitates collaboration necessary to generate results.

By selecting and merging the most relevant “How to…” questions (convergent thinking), the design thinking team creates a tangible HMW question. In our example the question could be “How might we combine algorithms and the expertise of local employees to increase the efficiency of ordering processes?”

After the team has defined the key challenges, it moves from the problem definition to the solution phase (i.e. the second diamond).

Develop (divergent thinking) To generate creative user-centered solutions for the defined HMW question, the team is encouraged to think out of the box (what wows?) because employees seldom think up but rather tend to tame down. For this purpose, design thinking teams use various creative techniques such as brainstorming or -writing, the six-thinking hats (a method of approaching the challenge from different perspectives (=wearing different hats), developed by Edward de Bono in 1999), or mash-ups (a method that creates new insights by forming associations between unrelated domains). Conducting a mash-up round usually consists of four stages: 1. Think about a category that is as far away as possible from the situation of your challenge (e.g., your challenge is about a hospital, so for the mash-up you choose ‘amusement park’ as the unrelated category). 2. List as many elements as possible that belong to your chosen category (i.e. amusement park with the elements roller coaster, snack stand, mascots, photo box, etc.). 3. List as many elements as possible that belong to your challenge category (i.e. hospital with

the elements waiting room, chief rounds, hospital beds). 4. Combine the elements by mixing the two columns to create new products, services, and ideas. For instance, a hospital might now offer a VR experience in its waiting room or the healing process is documented as a photo story.

During this ideation, team members should defer criticism and then build on each other’s ideas to arrive at new and unexpected outcomes. In our example, the team might come up with solutions like: + Customers order via the homepage of the subsidiary which is integrated into the development of ordering algorithms. + There will be training so that the staff of the subsidiaries can write the ordering algorithms. + Introducing a competition between subsidiaries about who produces the least waste. + The engineers of the algorithms will offer a monthly office hour to receive feedback from the employees working in the subsidiaries.

Deliver (convergent thinking) In this phase, the design thinking team has to select and focus on ideas it considers promising to proceed. During this step, the ‘wow’ ideas are rendered into ideas that work and could be integrated into organizational structures. A key aspect of design thinking lies in prototyping in order to quickly generate solutions. The goal of prototyping is to collect feedback from users if the solution path goes towards a desired direction (see figure 2). Prototypes not only test an idea but also generate more knowledge about the needs of the employees. This agile approach takes into account that we cannot predict the effect of measures in complex systems but only understand them retrospectively.

For the challenge of combining algorithms for the bakeries ordering processes and the expertise of local employees, the team might decide to progress the idea of “providing training so that the ordering algorithms can be written by the staff of the subsidiaries”. While prototyping the agendas for such types of training, the team might receive feedback that the content of the training would be too detailed and complicated. Instead, the employees might wish to gather a basic understanding of the working modes of algorithms. So the IT department could produce a short video that explains the algorithm modes.

Discard

1

Develop

3

Learn 2

Test

Source: Endrejat P. C. Figure 2 The basic steps during prototyping

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Furthermore, the design thinking team might learn that this rendered idea fits well with the office hour idea (employees provide feedback to the algorithm engineers) but it would suffice that these take place quarterly.

Recommendations for the implementation of design thinking

After elaborating on the design thinking mindset and process, I want to conclude with three general recommendations that should be considered while integrating design thinking into organizational routines. These are (1) start with a team of motivated members with interdisciplinary backgrounds (2) have a bias towards actions, and (3) apply design thinking for challenges that offer leeway to generate solutions.

Start with a team of motivated members

It is usually not sufficient for a transfer of the design thinking mindset into an organizational culture if the management decides top-down that employees must now work more ‘innovatively’, for example, by hiring a chief designer and declaring design thinking to be a top priority. Training only leaders within a company in design thinking might even have a negative effect on the teams’ operational capabilities (Kurtmollaiev et al., 2018). Thus, I suggest that the management creates the conditions for designated design thinking teams to change the organization from within. Although managers can participate in the team, design thinking coaches should ensure that hierarchical differences do not hinder the creative work process, e.g., through unevenly distributed speech shares. To avoid potentially obstructive group constellations, I suggest that the management acts as the client that offers feedback for an internal design thinking team, but is not part of the team itself.

Attention should be paid so that the design thinking team has an interdisciplinary composition to account for the complexity of organizational challenges. Interdisciplinary teams consisting of members with different professional backgrounds, representatives of different departments, and demographic heterogeneity enable different perspectives on a task. These open up a new scope for action so that the possibilities for problem solutions become more diverse.

Next to an interdisciplinary background, I recommend that challenges are tackled by employees that volunteered – or even applied – to become part of the design thinking team. Design thinking is a new way of solving challenges that requires a lot of tolerance for ambiguity: In the beginning, we do not know what the solution will look like. This way of working might not suit every employee. Further, work-to-rule performance will not suffice, as motivation and self-determination are necessary throughout a project. Hence, it is necessary to select team members carefully to ensure the success of the first design thinking projects. Otherwise, design thinking might become another fad that fails to promote change. According to Rogers’ (2003) curve of diffusion, innovations follow the pattern that the vast majority must first see that something new works. It is a common pattern that new things are first picked up by small groups (early adopters) before the majority follows and ‘skeptical’ people are motivated to try out and implement something new.

Working with designated design thinking teams does not mean that the rest of the organization is not involved in the process. On the contrary, the entire design thinking approach relies on change recipients’ information and feedback when defining needs, and verifying that the solution design is moving in a promising direction. To turn all affected employees into co-researchers, the design thinking team can generate different prototypes and let the other employees vote for the best way to change. Digitalization can further promote participation. For instance, digital platforms can be the medium to display storyboards, ideation outcomes, and prototyping results. These outcomes can be shared easily with colleagues to integrate them into the design thinking process.

A bias towards action

The term design thinking might suggest that there is a focus on ‘thinking’ rather than ‘doing’. However, the opposite is true: like its older

sibling action research (Lewin, 1947), design thinking brings ‘cognition’ (research/thinking) and ‘behavior’ (action/design) together rather than separating them. As mentioned above, prototyping (the iterative process of production, testing, and learning) is an existential component in design thinking. Rather than spending a lot of time designing an idea, prototypes are used to illustrate an idea’s core. These first drafts are presented to stakeholders so that they can give feedback on whether the solution path points in a direction worth striving for. Therefore, design thinking tends to enable ‘doing’ instead of spending a lot of resources developing the perfect plan.

Successful companies combine the ability to create new products and services (exploration) with an administrative counterpole that focuses on revenue (exploitation; March, 1991). Unfortunately, most organizations pay more attention to exploitation than exploration (Endrejat & Kauffeld, 2016). The bias towards action inherent in design thinking shifts this focus towards exploration. Rather than planning and deriving hypotheses, design thinking sets out to test assumptions. Complex challenges cannot be solved like mathematical problems but we can waste much time overanalyzing the pros and cons of every solution, without asking our users. Thus, like a shark that has to keep moving to breathe, a design thinking team has to keep momentum and operate in the field to flourish.

Apply design thinking for challenges that offer leeway to generate solutions

Design thinking can only work if there is some leeway in what the final solution might look like. For instance, if the management already has in mind which software they want to apply, inquiring employees’ opinions without consequences might even have diametrical effects on their motivation and supportiveness (Endrejat & Meinecke, 2021).

Design thinking is optimistic, constructive, and experimental. Thus, it is necessary that organizations allow experiments to fail as well. Organizations have to tolerate a certain degree of uncertainty (i.e. tolerance for ambiguity) because if the final product or process is already clear in the beginning, it will generally not be an innovative solution. A design thinking team must therefore not fear serious consequences if a project does not succeed at the first attempt. To this end, top management has to create a climate in which employees feel psychologically safe and that also allows for mistakes. Organizations are usually rational and numbers-driven. Thus, it makes sense to select change projects for the introduction of the design thinking approach that have not yet been worked on in order to avoid the fear of comparison references, limiting the creativity of the team.

Furthermore, the leeway to generate solutions is necessary to take employees’ concerns and fears into account. Automation can make processes more efficient, especially by taking over repetitive work. Alternatively, automation can lead to a loss of jobs. For instance, ATMs made it redundant for bank employees to count and hand out money. However, the needs of bank customers have become more complex, such as getting financial advice. Hence, automation reduced the repetitive work and enabled bankers to engage in more fulfilling tasks. Finding such new and interesting work areas for bakery employees whose jobs became redundant due to automation is in line with the design thinking mindset.

Besides, if concerns by those affected are not taken into consideration, the team will not create a human-centered solution. A design thinking team that is confronted with organizational members who are reluctant to change their behaviors might consider them to be ‘resistant’. Responding to the reluctance with confrontational language to ‘sell’ an idea reduces the chances that a prototype will be accepted by the intended users. Thus, in some cases, ‘resistance’ is the product of communication between a design thinking team and employees rather than resistance to innovation itself (Endrejat et al., 2020). Instead, design thinking teams should use their leeway to work in a collaborative manner with the change recipients towards the desired solution for a given challenge.

Conclusion

Automation is an innovation that has the potential to disrupt the baking industry. To help bakeries cope with challenges proactively, this chapter described the design thinking approach. The design thinking process and mindset help to manage the transformation in an agile and humancentered manner. Furthermore, I offered three recommendations (ensure that (1) the team consists of motivated members, (2) has a bias towards action, and (3) has leeway to generate solutions) to increase the success of design thinking as a tool for organization development. If these recommendations are taken into account, design thinking contributes to an improved problem-solving capability of organizations (Carlgren et al., 2016). Besides ‘superficial’ gains of the design thinking approach (e.g. better process design), the integration of design thinking into organizational structures also leads to employees developing a holistic understanding of the organization, and creates a climate in which different opinions and arguments can be discussed constructively. Not only does that bring a competitive advantage, but it also helps to make employees' work environments more meaningful (Buchanan, 2015). Nevertheless, such an approach also requires a change in employees' thinking: Instead of managers generating solutions for employees, those affected themselves develop concepts on how their needs can be taken into account in the future. In this way, design thinking helps employees become ‘authors’ of their organization as opposed to being simply ‘readers’. +++

Author

Dr. Paul C. Endrejat is co-founder of The Why Guys GmbH (www.thewhyguys.de). The Why Guys help organizations adapt to external challenges and create an environment in which employees can grow and work in a self-determined manner. Paul’s research foci include innovation processes in teams, eliciting change readiness, and the enhancement of energy conservation behaviors. Contact: paul@thewhyguys.de

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