Ever
since it became clear that smart design led to the success of many
products, companies have been employing it in other areas, from customer
experiences, to strategy, to business ecosystems. But as design is used
in increasingly complex contexts, a new hurdle has emerged: gaining
acceptance of the “designed artifact” into the status quo. In fact, the
more innovative a new design is, the more resistance it’s likely to
meet. The solution, say the CEO of IDEO and the Rotman
School’s former dean, is to also apply design thinking to the
introduction of the innovation itself. This process, intervention
design, grew organically out of the iterative prototyping that designers
did to help understand customers’ reactions to new products.
Not only did iterative prototyping create better offerings, but it was a
great way to get organizational funding and commitment, because it
improved the chances of success and reduced fear of the unknown.
Intervention design uses iterative prototyping to get
buy-in too, but extends it to interactions with all the principal
stakeholders—not just customers. When Intercorp Group devised a
revolutionary concept for Peru’s schools, it needed to win acceptance
for corporate-run education and for a very different role
for teachers. Thanks to intervention design, it now has 29 schools in
operation and is rapidly growing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]