Look, Lean, Ask and Try

www.hbr.org

Thinking like a designer can

transform the way you

develop products, services,

processes—and even strategy.

Design Thinking

by Tim Brown

Reprint R0806E

Thinking like a designer can transform the way you develop products,

services, processes—and even strategy.

Design Thinking

by Tim Brown

COPYRIGHT © 2008 HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL PUBLISHING CORPORATION. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Thomas Edison created the electric lightbulb

and then wrapped an entire industry around

it. The lightbulb is most often thought of as his

signature invention, but Edison understood

that the bulb was little more than a parlor

trick without a system of electric power generation and transmission to make it truly useful.

So he created that, too.

Thus Edison’s genius lay in his ability to conceive of a fully developed marketplace, not

simply a discrete device. He was able to envision how people would want to use what he

made, and he engineered toward that insight.

He wasn’t always prescient (he originally believed the phonograph would be used mainly

as a business machine for recording and replaying dictation), but he invariably gave great consideration to users’ needs and preferences.

Edison’s approach was an early example of

what is now called “design thinking”—a methodology that imbues the full spectrum of innovation activities with a human-centered design

ethos. By this I mean that innovation is powered by a thorough understanding, through di-

harvard business review • june 2008

rect observation, of what people want and

need in their lives and what they like or dislike

about the way particular products are made,

packaged, marketed, sold, and supported.

Many people believe that Edison’s greatest

invention was the modern R&D laboratory

and methods of experimental investigation.

Edison wasn’t a narrowly specialized scientist

but a broad generalist with a shrewd business

sense. In his Menlo Park, New Jersey, laboratory he surrounded...