Designing for Growth

Jeanne Liedtka is a professor at the Darden Graduate School of Business Administration, University of Virginia. Formerly the executive director of its Batten Institute, a foundation established to develop thought leadership in the fields of entrepreneurship and corporate innovation, she has also served as chief learning officer for the United Technologies Corporation (UTC) and as associate dean of the MBA program at Darden.Tim Ogilvie is CEO of Peer Insight, an innovation strategy consultancy, where he has pioneered contributions to the emerging disciplines of service innovation, customer experience design, and business model exploration. His clients include AARP, Bank of America, Diebold, GE, Hallmark, Hewlett-Packard, Procter & Gamble, Starwood Hotels, and The Hartford.

Liedtka and Ogilvie educate readers in one of the hottest trends in business development: "design thinking," or the ability to turn abstract ideas into practical applications for maximal business growth.

This intelligent how-to follow-up to the first wave of popular design books will serve as a useful guide to going through a design project from start to finish. The best designers seem to have an almost magical gift for finding creative solutions to problems we didn't even know existed. This book teaches how to capture that magic and turn it into a problem-solving process that can create a better future for your customers and yourself. -- Daniel H. Pink, author of Drive and A Whole New Mind Designing for Growth is for leaders who wish their organizations could grow faster but don't know how to do things differently. It translates what might seem an unexplainable 'creative' process into an accessible language and set of tools. There is no substitute for seeing and touching a tangible example of innovation--and then discovering if people will buy it! -- Lauri Kien Kotcher, chief marketing officer, Godiva Chocolatier This book is a magic hat for managers. Reach inside and pull out value creation and inspiration for a process that used to be reserved for magicians of design and white rabbits. -- Scott Williams, Founder & CEO, Hitchcock Partners One trait that sets leaders apart is their ability to turn vision into ideas and ideas into action. This utterly refreshing book zeroes in on the iterative dance between ideas and action--sometimes called design thinking--using simple language and clear examples. If you feel like you've been stuck in your left-brain or not utilizing your creative edge to full capacity, consider this book your roadmap to creative nirvana! -- Brendon Burchard, founder, Experts Academy, and author of Life's Golden Ticket: An Inspirational Novel Designing for Growth is a well-crafted fusion of an inspired point of view and a coherent framework for understanding how practitioners can more effectively step up the innovation intensity for service and product development. It does so with an engaging voice and a light touch, rich in practical anecdotes and guidelines, yet avoids the drudgery of an academic methodology, by design. -- R. Lemuel Lasher, CSC, president, Global Business Solutions Group (GBS), and chief innovation officer It's time to demystify design and safely place design thinking alongside other tools used by successful practicing managers. As the authors so rightly conclude, 'Find a leader of innovation... and he or she has likely been practicing design thinking all along.' Add the stories and tools found in Designing for Growth (a very compelling read) to your leadership kit to insure innovation and organization renewal become part of your leadership portfolio. -- Stanley S. Gryskiewicz, founder and board chair, Association for Managers of Innovation, and senior fellow, Center for Creative Leadership This book slices through the design thinking fog to provide practical ways to use design methods to generate value for your organization. -- Ryan Armbruster, vice president of innovation, UnitedHealth Group The most powerful message in this book is its underlying premise: that business is ultimately a social activity performed by humans. With that framework, the authors build a compelling case for user empathy to improve ROI, and they deliver the tools to get you started. -- Greg Littleton, COO, Smart Design Jeanne Liedtka and Tim Ogilvie wonderfully illuminate the kind of thinking that twenty-first-century organizations need to solve problems, innovate, and grow. And they give managers a wealth of hands-on tips and tools they can put to work right away. Penetrating insight, practical applications--a terrific combination. -- David Wickenden, executive vice president and senior partner, Fleishman-Hillard This isn't a book of answers. It is a book of questions, of how to choose the best ones, and how to get customers and partners to answer them. That's the crux of design thinking. The simple organizing framework--What is? What if? What wows? What works?--is my new mantra for innovation and growth. -- Mark Stein, managing director, Kaiser Associates, and author of Successful Onboarding: Strategies to Unlock Hidden Value Within Your Organization