1. The Mechanics behind Disruption
How to Recognize the Black Swan
World Business Dialogue
Cologne, 13.-14. March 2014
2. partake AG Page
Summary
Disruption & Education
Can Design Thinking help to generate new and
disruptive ideas for our education systems?
- In 8 moderated teams we worked on current
challenges in education systems.
- In 70 minutes we worked on three questions and
identified key points.
- With Design Thinking methods we are able to change
perspective, collaborate better and to develop a new
understanding of given challenges.
Wow! So much is possible in just 70 minutes!
But did we really see a Black Swan?
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70 Minutes
8 Approaches
Wow!
80 People
3. partake AG Page
Summary
The Black Swan
A disruptive innovation often comes in form of a Black
Swan: “An event or occurrence that deviates beyond
what is normally expected of a situation and that would
be extremely difficult to predict” (Nassim Taleb, 2008).
The black swan:
- Has massive consequences.
- Comes as a surprise to the observer.
- Is rationalized in hindsight.
- Is context-sensitive, and depends on the perspective.
- Has the power to kill an industry.
Several Black Swans or disruptive innovations redefined
entire industries and markets. Think about Starbucks,
Ikea or iTunes. Established players were literally
overwhelmed by these new business models.
Industry disruption follows certain mechanisms, i.e:
- Quality and lifestyle
- Kill a dogma
- New Eco Systems
- Enable non-professionals to do professionals’ work
- Reframing
- and many more…
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5. partake AG Page
Design Thinking
Innovations
The Partake model identifies markets that are on the brink of
disruption. It enables us to develop ideas into disruptive
business models.
Innovation with Design Thinking :
- Faster, more creative and more productive.
- The change of perspective leads to a new understanding
of challenges.
- This creates opportunities for completely new ideas and
solutions.
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Design Thinking process: understand, observe,
point of view, ideate, prototype, test
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Design Thinking
Process
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Understand:
Comprehend the
challenge in its essential
elements: stakeholder,
situations etc.
Observe:
Empathize the specific
perspective of customers
in order to be aware of
people’s needs and
develop insights.
Point of view:
Concentrate the findings of
understanding and
observing in one statement:
user + need + insight.
Ideate:
Generate as many
ideas as possible to
find the best
possible solution for
the user needs.
Prototyping:
Choose the best
options to make
the ideas
tangible and
communicable.
Test:
Learn what works
and what doesn’t so
that you can iterate
the prototype to
come up with the
best possible
solution.
The ideal team consists
of people who are very
different in their
professions, their
origin, their nationality
and cultural
background. The goal is
the greatest possible
variety of perspectives.
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Design Thinking
Principles
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Fail early and often.
Do! Don’t talk.
Dare to be wild!
Avoid criticism.
Let’s have fun.
The quantity is it.
Stay focused.
There are no good ideas.
Build on ideas of others.
Be visual.
Leave your titles at the door.
9. partake AG Page
Rapid Prototyping
Design Thinking & Education
You worked in groups with our Design Thinking experts to
answer the following questions:
- How can you educate yourself?
- How can you measure knowledge?
- What are the problems in the education system?
Throughout the session we built on your thoughts and ideas.
We developed them further and visualized them by building
rapid prototypes.
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Build on ideas of others.
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Rapid Prototyping
Design Thinking & Education
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11. partake AG Page
Rapid Prototyping
Design Thinking & Education
In a fast forward session you experienced to work with Design
Thinking methods. This helped us to take a different
perspective on given challenges. Our approach created many
new ideas and helped to quickly develop them further into
rapid prototypes.
Key results
- Education needs to become more individual to foster
personal strengths.
- Education needs to include more peer-to-peer teaching
formats.
- Education needs to involve social aspects and to be available
for everybody.
- Education needs reforms on all levels: children‘s education
and higher education.
But did we really see a Black Swan?
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Be visual
12. partake AG Page
Rapid Prototyping
Recognizing the Black Swan?
Ideas from the workshop (Cluster)
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Life Coach
New
Student/
Teacher
Work
Scenario
Learn to
Fail
Peer-to-
Peer
Learning
Platform
WiFi
Baloon
Talent
Support
Motivation
Foundation
Individual
Learning
Strategies
The Black Swan?
14. partake AG Page
Conclusion
Recognizing the Black Swan?
The challenge is still on!
In a short time we were able to change perspectives and to
create many ideas. However, we didn’t question the systems we
belong to enough and couldn’t fully exploit disruptive potential.
The unexpected appearance of a Black Swan was ignored. This
displayed our inherent tendency to focus on known and given
challenges – and ignore the unexpected.
Possible options to increase the disruptive character of three
reoccurring concepts in a next step:
- Peer-to-peer education: No more schools or universities -
we only learn from and with our peers.
- Life Coaches: No more teachers - we only learn from life -
and from life-coaches supporting the development of
individual strengths and social abilities.
- Education Portfolio: We manage our education as portfolios
throughout our lifetime.
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Unexpected: Partake brought a Black Swan to
the session
15. partake AG Page
Conclusion
Next Steps
Possible next steps in a Jam Session format at Partake
- Developing the prototypes further making them to come
alive for users.
- Obtaining feedback from users.
- Iterating the prototype by including the feedback.
- Developing business models based on iterative processes.
Design Thinking
- Including the client’s perspective from the beginning enables
you to identify real needs: opportunity for disruptive
business models.
- Involving iterations to design user-friendly, viable and
sustainable products and services.
- Allowing serendipity to determine final products and
services.
Look out for a Black Swan!
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Jam Session at Partake
16. partake AG Page
Contact
For further information please contact us:
partake AG
Haus Cumberland
Kurfürstendamm 194
10707 Berlin
Tel. +49 30 / 28 04 88-0
Fax +49 30 / 28 04 88-28
www.partake.de
innovation@partake.de
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Haus Cumberland
