in a world connected by smartphones GPS
and social media we have come to expect
businesses hospitals and governments to
deliver personalized experiences to us
on any device in real time and while we
still go to the store to buy groceries
or get on a plane to travel from point A
to point B the way we consume goods and
services is fundamentally changing which
also means the way companies designed
and build these experiences must evolve
to keep pace to approach is to help our
design thinking and agile development
but the principles they are based on can
be a great asset to anyone trying to
solve a problem or find better ways of
getting work done Design Thinking is a
method for practical and creative
problem-solving that evolved from fields
as varied as engineering architecture
and business at its core design thinking
focuses on understanding people's needs
and creatively discovering the best
solution to meet those needs its core
concepts are understand explore
prototype and evaluate agile is a group
of software development methods that
emerge too quickly
iteratively and collaboratively build
better business solutions its core
concepts are iterative development risk
management and transparency based on
work with thousands of our clients iBM
is expanding upon traditional design
thinking we call this IBM design
thinking and it aims particularly at
meeting the complex needs of large-scale
enterprises without sacrificing the
personal focus of design thinking to get
a better idea of how these new ways of
working IBM design thinking and agile
come to life let's take a look at how a
company benefits from using these
approaches in expanding their business
Greenjeans nursery is a successful
garden design and supply store based out
of the state of Vermont in the United
States they've had such explosive growth
over the past two years that they've
been able to open three additional
stores they launched their web
experience about a year ago but while
they're in store sales continue to grow
their website sales haven't met
expectations Jean the founder and owner
uses IBM design thinking and knows that
he needs to start with the end user what
exactly are the reasons their needs are
not being met first he needs to find out
who his real users are what they think
how they feel what they see hearsay and
do not satisfied with merely coming up
with potential issues internally the
business design and engineering team
members collaborate and decide to find
people that have a shared interest in
gardening and are familiar with the
products after their initial search the
team narrows their focus to a candidate
that meets a wide variety of helpful
criteria Jane Jane agrees to an ongoing
relationship to provide priceless
insights as the business grows as the
team begins to work with Jane they gain
insights they otherwise would have
missed this research is crucial in
making improvements for their users for
example they find that Jane despite
being interested in new plans doesn't
know where to begin
she likes the way many plants look
online but she doesn't know how to grow
and take care for them at the store a
customer can always ask an expert but
visitors to the website like Jane have
no simple way to get help
armed with this new information the team
regroups with the larger team to plan
next steps for refining the challenge or
Hill statement they agree the site fails
to deliver personalized how-to guidance
at any point in the online experience to
articulate a clear outcome statement the
team generates as many ideas as they can
help chat a planting guide tool the
ability to submit photos and questions
gradually they weed out unrealistic and
expected ideas that lack a WOW factor
then and only then they start to
determine how they will build a solution
with new features like responsive
recommendations to expert videos based
on what content a user is viewing they
begin with sketches then move to more
formal designs to better hone in on the
real value their users need the team
leader engages a larger cross-functional
team that can deliver a working model of
the idea the working model will be
reviewed with the larger team and tested
with end-users as the team is developing
the prototype they refine the idea
further to offer Jayne the ability to
archive favorite video materials they
take the working prototype back to the
larger team and to the end user to test
its effectiveness and get feedback the
team will iteratively refine the product
at each step of the way to make it
suited to the user and more seamlessly
integrated with the existing website
finally the team deploys the new
interactive gardening guidance tool
which is closely monitored to ensure it
can undergo continuous upgrades based on
insights from usage metrics and new
customer needs by using IBM design
thinking and agile Greenjeans nursery is
able to define and solve their client
challenge by putting the end user first
by applying agile development methods
they are able to deliver new
functionality using an iterative
approach that was transparent and
minimized risk but the underlying
principles of agile and IBM design
thinking have the potential for more
far-reaching applications for all of us
whether we are developers event managers
client facing IBM errs or simply
collaborating on projects across global
teams if you are trying to improve a
process beginning with the end user will
help you focus on improvements that
provide the most value if you are trying
to make progress quickly on a project
establish the most critical features to
focus on first iterate quickly and share
progress regularly across the team and
with end users as the marketplace
changes we need to evolve faster than
ever it's how we keep reinventing
ourselves every day
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