The concept of Design Thinking is has really taken hold as a primary innovation strategy in the last few years. It has been pioneered by companies like IDEO and by Experience Design professionals in the Web 2.0 space. Martin contends that design thinking is likely to present challengers to traditional management consulting firms that charge large sums of money for incremental improvements. Design firms, on the other hand, do not limit themselves to thinking based on “proof” or “hard data.” They get creative, get innovative, try new things and see how they work in a fast and nimble way. A consulting firm that brings Design Thinking to its clients would be able to deliver breakthrough results for significantly less money. Combining the skills of traditional consulting firms with design thinking firms could be the winning combination that provides both innovation and acceptable risk management for larger corporations. See the Fast Company article on this subject.

I have been using Design Thinking in my consulting practice for a number of years with excellent results. One of the key assumptions about this kind of work is that everyone can contribute to innovation. It’s important to listen to “the need beneath the need” and ask everyone involved what they would do if there were no limits or constraints. Inevitably creative ideas arise from the collective, the “group mind,” if they are invited to the party.

Which brings me to my first and most important point: each of us organizes things differently because our brains are organized differently. Due to our unique combination of genetics, personality, and experience, we all see, store, and remember the world differently from each other. You thought there was one world “out there?” Well, I’m here to tell you, there are multiple worlds, and they are all “in here,” inside each of our minds and the way we interpret experience to create what we think of as “real.”

That makes creating a single method for organizing that works for everyone a nearly impossible task. Even more challenging is the fact that our individual organizing needs and styles change from day to day and moment to moment based on things like our mood (I’m having a bad day, so I should do things that will help me feel better), or location (I’m on-site with the creative team, so a picture might be worth a thousand words) or content (how do I help this engineering team see the forest in addition to the trees?).

With the advent of the iPhone, I thought I would finally have an electronic organizer that could replace the paper I habitually carry around with me to organize my day and week. After all, the key features I needed were 1) something I could write on that was small enough to fit in my pocket and 2) something I was sure to have with me when I needed it.

It turns out that the iPhone has a variety of options for keeping lists of things, some of which let you prioritize, set due dates, etc. I’ve used the very simple Notes application that comes with the phone as well as Jott (which has the very satisfying feature of swiping across an item to draw a line through it and mark it off the list) and OmniFocus, which is based on Getting Things Done and includes optional due dates, photos, and voice recordings.

The shortfall of these applications as compared to a good old piece of paper is this: they all assume that one method of organizing works all the time. Their well thought out structures require me to fit my thoughts and priorities into a predetermined organization that may be great for some things and terrible for others. I’ve been around enough to know how I think best in different circumstances. When I have to change the way I think to use a tool that is supposed to help me organize my thoughts, it’s no longer a good fit.

A blank sheet of paper, on the other hand, is an inviting space that asks me the question: how do you want to organize your day? It remembers what I write down, what I cross off, what I connect to another thought or action or picture. It has no issue when I decide half way through my day that there’s a better way to organize for the week. It works with me so I can change how I think based on changing priorities, moods, and circumstances.

The software I’ve used that comes closest to the flexibility of paper is probably Microsoft OneNote. OmniGraffle, MindMeister, and MindManager are also good for certain kinds of thinking. None are available in a mobile version yet. I keep hoping that Apple or an iPhone developer will fill this gap with an organizing app that flexes with my thought process.

I continue to experiment with electronic organizing apps because I like some of the things they do well. But when I’m serious about organizing my day and week, I pull out my pad of paper and get down to business.

If you have used other tools or methods that work well for you, drop me a line, I’d love to hear about them.

Epilogue:

Other organizing / thinking / planning tools that I and others have found useful include:

SmartSheet
Microsoft Excel
Google Docs & Spreadsheets

It can be quite a challenge to effectively corral a group of “experts” in any field, and Emily Axelrod did a fabulous job of keeping us focused and on task while inviting the full participation of the various skills represented in the room. There are times when groups manage to hold a healthy respect for the diverse capacities and perspectives represented by the individuals present and still maintain both an equal playing field and a practical orientation. This was one of those times.

We began with a welcome from Steve Cady and a review of feedback from last year’s conference. More than 2/3 of last year’s participants filled out the online feedback form. Jon Kennedy, Peggy Holman, and I had a hand in sifting through the results to identify key themes and get a sense of the distribution of perspectives. The spectrum ranged from “loved it” to “hated it” with approximately 75% saying they would recommend the conference to others and would consider coming again. Yet there was a clear indication that some audiences did not feel included or find enough value, especially those representing businesses and those coming to learn about specific change methodologies.Last year’s conference had a strong focus on emergent design, identifying and adapting to the changing conditions in the room. Some of those adaptive design decisions were seen as successful and others less so by participants. Those with learning styles that thrive in highly structured environments were fish out of water — some of them began to grow lungs and others flopped out of the room and back to more familiar territory. Still others hung around with questions about how to design differently to accommodate the many needs represented.

At the end of last year’s conference, I proposed a pre-conference that would specifically address the needs of people who were coming to sample different methodologies to get a sense of what they are, when to use them, and how to design change initiatives with various methods in your toolkit. I’m happy to say that Nexus U will be the implementation of that idea, enhanced through collaboration with others. In two days participants will get a sense of the history of change methodologies, hear a range of stories of their application in real situations, and get to choose a couple of specific methods to understand in more detail. Then there will be an opportunity to apply new learning in the design of an intervention for a real-world case. We hope this experience will both satisfy those who wanted more specific details about methods and also prepare people for the conference that follows.

The conference will pick up the theme of thinking and designing from a systemic perspective to address real-world issues. There will again be a variety of perspectives represented by attendees, but this year we hope to do a better job of weaving together opportunities for different needs to be met while providing plenty of opportunity for cross-pollination of ideas and initiatives. Participants in Nexus U will bring their learning forward to both explore their questions further and to help bring others up to speed for Nexus II (the conference). There will be a combination of theory and application, as well as a spacious design that allows time for critical informal conversations and the emergence of new alliances.

The conference brochure will be available in the next few weeks.

Save the dates, it’s gonna be good:

Nexus U – March 29-30, 2008 (Sat-Sun)

Nexus II – March 30-April 1, 2008 (Sun-Tue)

For the past few months, I’ve been doing a bit of action research for my own organization. The goal is to better understand peoples’ perceptions of the future and how that perception can or should impact their actions in the present. The research protocol is very simple. When you are engaged in conversation and have achieved a reasonable level of trust, ask the question, “What do you and your organization need to be and do to be relevant in the next 20 to 50 years?”

I find that this question elicits a variety of interesting responses. Invariably, it gets people thinking about the futures they think are likely and how they might respond to them. My goal in the conversation, which may happen over time, is to move from this “respond to” position toward a more proactive stance that identifies concrete action that will help create a desired future. There is something incredibly powerful in the act of choosing your preferred future. Along the way there is a shift where people begin to see themselves as creators of culture rather than simply consumers of culture. This is the magic moment where empowering possibilities arise.

You are hereby invited to try this experiment yourself. Start with people you know well and see where the conversation leads. Invite them to join the experiment too, and to report back their results. Try it on yourself and see what happens.

As always, if you have an ah-ha experience and are willing to share, or if this raises questions or concerns for you, please let me know.

I look forward to the conversation.

One of the key elements of our emergent design process is to keep the conversation open and continue to include diverse perspectives as they show up. To that end, the entire design process for the conference was (and is) open to anyone who chooses. As disturbances show up in the process of design and in the conference itself, we do our best to invite them in as learning opportunities. And we agree that we are practicing this work… the work of emergent design is about having a strong willingness to practice. Things that don’t work are learning experiences, not failures. And there is always room for improvement.

Post-conference feedback results are now available for review and analysis at http://nexusforchange.org. Session notes from over 30 sessions held at the conference are also available, as are photos of the work of our amazing graphic recording team. Action Groups are posting their initiatives and others are invited to join in where they feel called.

Check it out, post your thoughts, and send us feedback. You are welcome to chime in even if you were not able to attend the conference this year.