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Faced with an ever-increasing pace and complexity, organizations are in dire need for new types of approaches for enacting development. Design+ investigates how we can harness design approaches to create new value. We study how design thinking and design methods can be used to produce concrete solutions for complex and abstract challenges in organizations, overcoming frictions in collaboration amongst diverse stakeholders and promoting distributed initiative. Design+ has interviewed over two hundred designers, design managers and design business leaders to date, and continues to track a number of design initiatives as the unfold in companies.

The initiative hosts  multiple projects, including an ongoing three-year multidisciplinary research project studying the interconnection between design and strategizing practices, funded by the Emil Aaltonen Foundation, and looking into design and sustainability, enabled by a donation from UPM. These projects build on a previous two-year project focusing on design thinking in innovation projects and organizational culture, funded by the Finnish Work Environment Fund and company partners 2017-2019.

Design thinking is an exploratory process, which allows unexpected discoveries along the way. It is iterative and non-linear by nature and differs significantly from the planning-centric, milestone-based processes that define traditional business practices. However, it is not disorganized or undisciplined. Instead, it aims to create results through inspiration, ideation, and implementation based on empathy, reframing, prototyping and co-creation in diverse groups.

Design thinking allows leaders and organizations to:

• Combine creative and analytical thinking
• Find customer/organization needs and dreams
• Re-define problems
• Create range of possible solutions
• Get beyond obvious ideas
• Prototype
• Continuously iterate