PI: Professor Banerjee

Abstract

This research forges a new collaboration between Stanford’s Center for Design Research and the Hasso Plattner Institute for IT-Systems Engineering at the University of Potsdam.
Design thinking is critical for radical innovation in business (Brown 2008). Large organizations often struggle to implement design thinking, because of prevailing cultures with mindsets and practices that hinder its successful adoption. Most radical innovations, from conception to actualization, require teams of individuals with diverse expertise. For such teams to be successful, they need effective interactions grounded in the collaborative practices and learned values of design thinking.
We have developed key metrics from our dissertation work to observe and assess team interactions. Having successfully demonstrated them in laboratory settings, we will apply our metrics in the field to discern in near-real-time whether design thinking culture is at work in software development team interactions.
We will:

• Adapt our DESIGN THINKING CULTURE METRICS (DTCM) for nearreal- time implementation in the field.
• Develop and test DTCM interventions with industry teams in their actual context of work.
• Build actionable theory about enabling organizations to sustainably adopt design thinking culture.