Purpose

Design thinking is widely recognized as an effective problem-solving approach in the professional and academic world, albeit with varying interpretations. It has been studied in multiple forms – as a tool, a practice, a skill and a mindset – leading to ongoing debates about its fundamental nature. This study aims to explore the use of design thinking in practice and determine how its application varies depending on the characteristics of the innovation projects, namely, the types of goals pursued and the level of uncertainty involved.

Design/methodology/approach

Using a survey methodology and a knowledge-intensive empirical setting, this study analyzes a data set of 221 innovation consulting projects based on design thinking conducted by European consulting firms and design agencies.

Findings

By analyzing the survey data, the authors identify six distinct sets of design thinking practices: discovering user needs, understanding the problem addressed, challenging existing assumptions, navigating the problem-solution pair, ideating through visualizations and learning through prototypes. The authors also identify configurations of these design thinking practices that are used to address different innovation project goals and levels of uncertainty.

Practical implications

The study draws attention to the need for design thinking practitioners to be aware of how different innovation project goals and levels of uncertainty can be pursued/addressed through the use of alternative configurations of design thinking practices.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors knowledge, this study is one of the first large-scale quantitative analyses of the nature of design thinking in action, providing a solid foundation for future research on design thinking.

中文翻译：

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设计思维在行动：创新项目中设计思维实践的定量研究

 目的

设计思维在专业和学术界被广泛认为是一种有效的解决问题的方法，尽管有不同的解释。它已经以多种形式被研究——作为一种工具、一种实践、一种技能和一种思维方式——导致了关于其基本性质的持续辩论。本研究旨在探索设计思维在实践中的使用，并确定其应用如何根据创新项目的特点而变化，即追求的目标类型和所涉及的不确定性程度。

设计/方法/方法

本研究使用调查方法和知识密集型实证背景，分析了基于欧洲咨询公司和设计机构进行的设计思维的 221 个创新咨询项目的数据集。

 发现

通过分析调查数据，作者确定了六组不同的设计思维实践：发现用户需求、理解所解决的问题、挑战现有假设、导航问题-解决方案对、通过可视化进行构思和通过原型学习。作者还确定了这些设计思维实践的配置，这些配置用于解决不同的创新项目目标和不确定性水平。

 实际意义

该研究提请注意，设计思维从业者需要意识到如何通过使用设计思维实践的替代配置来追求/解决不同的创新项目目标和不确定性水平。

 原创性/价值

据作者所知，这项研究是首批对设计思维在行动中的本质进行大规模定量分析的文献之一，为未来的设计思维研究奠定了坚实的基础。