HBR's 10 Must Reads on Design Thinking

by Harvard Business Review, Tim Brown, Clayton M. Christensen

Use design thinking for competitive advantage. If you read nothing else on design thinking, read these 10 articles. We've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles and selected the most important ones to help you use design thinking to produce breakthrough innovations and transform your organization. This book will inspire you

Genres: Business, Design, Nonfiction

192 pages, Paperback

First published April 28, 2020

Reviews

[Sophia Exintaris · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent collection of articles on how Design, as an approach to problem-solving by exploring the problem collaboratively alongside the people who face it (and not their bosses’ bosses boss), can yield more and better solutions.

Examples abound from healthcare to automotive, airlines to city planning. If you want to understand what kinds of problems design may help solve for businesses, or as an executive, why you might need a Chief Design Officer and a team of strategic designers, this is a good book to start with.

[Pranjali · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5/5

A few personal notes for me:

I loved all the examples - Keep the Change by bank of America, Aravant eye care and the Nurse shift system

The fact that design thinking is not limited to products. Because even as products, their effects create a ripple in the rest of the business ecosystem. Design thinking can be extrapolated to typical consulting/strategy designing- iterative interaction and solution presenting must be done treating your client as end user.

Job to done theory was very interesting - the condo buyers and reese's minis examples were great. Absolutely adored the section on emerging markets.

Failures and culture of detecting failures in an organisation as well as requirements to start a design team was a nice note for managers / leaders.

Overall thought this was a nice collection :)

[Pia Vilmi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Parhaat poiminnat, todellakin. Jos haluaa ymmärtää, mistä muotoiluajattelussa on kyse ja mitä hyötyä siitä on liiketoiminnalle, tässä tiivis ja tehokas paketti. Osa artikkeleista oli jo ennalta tuttuja, mutta pari uuttakin löytyi. Paras businesskirja tarjoaa heti hyödynnettäviä oivalluksia. Kuten tämä!

[Meg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quick read and great content. HBR never disappoints.

[Alok Pepakayala · Rating 4 out of 5]

The actual articles are sound, very recent and relevant to corporate ecosystem of the present. The HBR's style is reflected clearly in every way, but the stories itself are not very impressive or sticky as you would hope 'must read reads on design thinking' to be (more remarkable). But, for what it is, it's more genuine and grounded and that alone makes it a four star worthy book along with very clearly articulated principles that were outlined in each case.

As a reader, you need to put in a bit of effort to understand these principles and use them in your own way, I probably recommend reading again and spending time contemplating what you read in your own context to really take advantage of this book though.

[Sree Nilakanta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good thought provoking pieces.

Brings clarity to thinking. Create hypotheses to test. Encourages you to think and explore further. Enjoyable book in many ways.

[Carter · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book of articles- on the nature of innovation and design. The current perpectives, are simply explained, and thoughtful. The methods used, are perhaps more for organizations, than individuals, like myself. Recommended.

[Prasanna Bhagavatula · Rating 4 out of 5]

It gives a lot of smart insights and highlights practical issues around the topic. Very nice read overall, but could have been more interesting, with more examples and cases.

[Sree · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very important education.

[Aditya Shekhar · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very generic content. No net new knowledge added. Even the definition of design principle is not clear

[Kian.ting · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nice write up on Design Thinking now I know more about it in general and all the business case studies on how it could be implemented successfully and how it could fail.

[Prasanna Bhagavatula · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very useful insights !! Still for HBR they could have given more !!