Why design thinking is essential in digital business!

For a long time, the realization of e-business projects was approached like the construction of road tunnels: A planning or conception phase should first completely specify the entire project. The project was then implemented exactly according to these specifications. Even today, I still see that this is the preferred approach in large companies, but in the last two years there has been a noticeable shift towards smaller, more agile steps. And that’s not surprising. There is almost no other way than to reposition yourself in the digital transformation.

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An armada of moderately successful projects

When I talk to representatives of the digital industry, I often find that, although large projects are implemented, they are usually only moderately successful for customers. To be more precise, the projects are successful in themselves, but the output, e.g. the e-commerce platform, does not deliver the expected return in business. In most cases, this has less to do with the return than with the investment.

Too low investments and too high investments are poison

This is because clients usually make the mistake of budgeting either too high or too low an investment. I also often see digital budgets being drawn up by people who can’t even begin to estimate how much a B2B portal or new e-commerce initiative will cost, for example. Or a large number of service providers are kept on their toes with cost estimates.

Balancing act between investment and return

Setting the right budget is a balancing act. This balancing act is only made more difficult by a concrete, specified idea of a delivery item. Because the truth is that you can usually calculate neither the investment nor the return so precisely.

A culture of small steps

For this reason, I have become a big fan of design thinking in recent years. This method is all about coming up with something, implementing it as a prototype, testing it with customers and then taking the successful components forward.

This is a particularly elegant way of combining business model development with product development, so to speak. If you are a company launching digital products, you can take small, secure steps in this way.

Learning curve guaranteed

One of the main advantages of this method is that everyone involved is on board the learning curve. This is essential because the average “digital manager” does not have much digital business experience.

How to approach it?

I think it’s best to team up with a development partner who already has experience in developing digital products. This is the ideal way to learn from them and at the same time launch a product on the market with comparatively little investment.

When working with the service provider, it is best to define a retainer for a period of 12 months, during which a wide-ranging team is available full-time. Ideally, this team should include developers as well as UX and CX designers and people with experience in digital product development and a business background.

Advantages

This approach has considerable advantages. For example, fewer investments are usually made, as incorrect developments are recognized as soon as possible and the course can be changed. Secondly, it helps to keep the time-to-market as short as possible. Thirdly, internal team members can learn from the experience of the external provider. Fourthly, you can talk to potential customers at a very early stage and receive valuable new ideas. And, last but not least, it is simply more fun for everyone involved to create something that you can see the results of in a shorter period of time. This motivation should not be underestimated. It makes it possible to develop really good and new solutions. And that is what we really want in the development of digital products.

This article originally appeared on the AOE blog. An English version can be found here.