In a crowded marketplace, businesses can’t survive, let alone grow or thrive, without being innovative and customer-focused. It’s not enough to create a product or service and hope that customers will like it. Products and services need to be designed with the customer’s needs at the forefront.

Design thinking in the workplace can encourage the type of innovation and creativity needed for success. It can help teams be more collaborative and boost business outcomes. But what is design thinking, and how can you use the latest tech to encourage it in your office? Here’s what you need to know.

What is Design Thinking?

Design thinking is a customer-focused process that can be used across industries to improve a company’s products and services or even internal operations. It’s non-linear and encourages creativity among teams. Design thinking is typically a collaborative process that aims to create the best possible customer experience. At its heart, design thinking is a problem-solving technique.

Although design thinking can take longer than traditional approaches, it tends to have a much higher success rate. In fact, according to IBM, companies can increase their ROI (return on investment) by 300% with design thinking. It reduces assumptions and helps teams become more innovative.

Encouraging Design Thinking with Tech

Design thinking can be enhanced by tech, especially for remote teams who are unable to meet in person to discuss new ideas. These tools can be used to collaborate either inside or outside meetings and discuss different approaches to problems. It’s easier than ever to discuss, test, and tweak new ideas produced through design thinking with advanced emerging software and technology.

Technology can help facilitate brainstorming, a key principle of design thinking, through software solutions like virtual whiteboards. Cloud storage makes it simple and efficient to streamline collaboration between colleagues located across the globe or down the hall.

Another great use of technology for design thinking is in prototyping and modelling. For new products, 3-D printers can be used to create inexpensive prototypes for critique and discussion. Then, different versions of the prototype can be created until there is a market-ready version.

AR (augmented reality) and VR (virtual reality) can also be used in the prototyping process. These immersive technologies can allow for product testing and feedback without producing waste or increasing costs.

Digital surveys are another tool companies can use to ensure that they’re not working off of faulty assumptions. These surveys can be quickly sent out to customers to solicit feedback that can be used in the design thinking process.

Creating a Culture of Design Thinking

When you think of some of the world’s most successful companies— like IBM and Apple— it becomes clear that these companies have created a culture of innovation and design thinking that has helped them enjoy long-term success. If you want to ensure that design thinking continues to be the go-to process within your organization, then it’s important to proactively work toward a culture that incorporates it.

Investing in technology that facilitates design thinking is important. So is ensuring that everyone feels safe discussing their ideas, without fear that they will face ridicule. Some of the most “absurd” and innovative ideas have turned out to be ground breaking, disruptive ideas.

It’s also important to provide employees with enough uninterrupted time for brainstorming and other processes that are central to design thinking. Google, for example, gives employees time each week to work on their own ideas. This has led to the development of new products for the company over the years.

Design Thinking Isn’t Always Comfortable

It’s important to remember that design thinking isn’t always comfortable. It’s not easy to go through lots of different ideas and pick them apart before starting the execution phase. Encouraging employees to use design thinking will involve helping them feel more comfortable with uncertainty and getting a little bit vulnerable.

Lots of organizations don’t adopt design thinking because it’s daunting and can be challenging to execute well. Although there are countless examples of the benefits of design thinking, it can be difficult to overhaul current processes and get buy-in from the team. However, with the right approach, the right technology, and the right attitude, your workplace can and should benefit from design thinking.