Mele’s Musings

P&G Changes Its Game

“Reframing is the key” – this article explores how design thinking reframes problems in a light that allows for innovation.

schneiderism.com

Article excerpt: How Procter & Gamble is using design thinking to crack difficult business problems . “Design thinking” may seem like just another new buzzword in the lexicon of innovation, but Procter & Gamble (PG) is using the approach to change its culture. Leadership is listening, learning, and deploying; cross-functional teams are cracking vexing problems across its business landscape; and visualization, prototyping, and iteration are facilitating communication internally and with customers like never before. Here’s a look inside one of the most intriguing change management efforts going on in Corporate America today. “It has been transformative for our leadership teams,” says Cindy Tripp, marketing director at P&G Global Design, as she describes her work rolling out the company’s Design Thinking Initiative. With a cadre of 100 internal facilitators, more than 40 design thinking workshops have been held in P&G business units across the globe during the past year. The design thinking facilitation team comes from every function at P&G (such as marketing, research and development, info tech, and product supply as well as design). Perhaps most important, half of the workshops focused on something other than new product initiatives to include other types of pressing business issues such as strategy, retail relationship building, and matters of operational excellence. “We want people to use these techniques daily in their work—using broad insights; learning faster; failing faster. Design thinking can be applied everywhere, every day,” says Tripp. This attitude signifies an extreme shift for the $81.5 billion global consumer-product giant, whose long-tenured design managers describe P&G’s former attitude about design as “the last decoration station on the way to market.” Reframing Is the Key
“Once business leaders see they can use design thinking to reframe problems, they are transformed,” says Tripp. “The analytical process we typically use to do our work—understand the problem and alternatives; develop several ideas; and do a final external check with the customer—gets flipped. Instead, design thinking methods instruct: There’s an opportunity somewhere in this neighborhood; use a broader consumer context to inform the opportunity; brainstorm a large quantity of fresh ideas; and co-create and iterate using low-resolution prototypes with that consumer.”
The rest: businessweek.com

Musing: The concept that P&G is using is absolutely in line with the way that we think business problems should be addressed. Rather than focusing on the deductive processes, design thinking forces you to think of the end state, the needs of customers, the desired behaviors, and the experience that needs to be created rather than on breaking down the problem into its parts and solving the parts. To truly differentiate, you have to understand what consumers need and determine how you can uniquely solve the problem – but do this in a collaborative and creative way. The only way to do that is to create experiences and have people react to them. We can sit and think about solutions all day long, but the key is in getting those solutions out and having people react to them. Approaches like the one P&G is taking have the real capability to transform organizations.