Bernie Roth is a founder of Stanford's d.school and author of The Achievement Habit: how to stop wishing, start doing, and take command of life. Bernie brings to the d.school a wealth of experience in teaching design, an intimate knowledge of the functioning of Stanford University, and a worldwide reputation as a researcher in kinematics and robotics. Together with Doug Wilde and the late Rolf Faste, Bernie developed the concept of a Creativity Workshop. This has been offered to students, faculty and professionals around the world. These same techniques have been made available to d.school students and are described in his book The Achievement Habit. He has found that these types of learning experiences enhance students’ ability to make meaningful positive difference in their own lives. He is especially pleased that his activities at the d.school have contributed to creating an environment where students and coworkers get the tools and values for realizing the enduring satisfactions that come from assisting others in the human community.

1. Design Thinking:
Processes and Mindsets
Bernard Roth
Rodney H. Adams Professor of Engineering
Academic Director d.school
broth@stanford.edu

2. Analytical thinking
harnesses explicit
knowledge of logically
expressed thoughts.

3. Design thinking
harnesses tacit
knowledge rather than
the explicit knowledge of
logically expressed
thoughts.

4. Design Thinking Process

5. SHOW DON’T TELL
Communicate your vision in an impactful and
meaningful way by creating experiences, using
illustrative visuals, and telling good stories.
FOCUS ON HUMAN VALUES
Empathy for the people you are designing
for and feedback from these users is
fundamental to good design.
CRAFT CLARITY
Produce a coherent vision out of messy
problems. Frame it in a way to inspire
others and to fuel ideation.
EMBRACE EXPERIMENTATION
Prototyping is not simply a way to validate your
idea; it is an integral part of your innovation process.
We build to think and learn.
BE MINDFUL OF PROCESS
Know where you are in the design
process, what methods to use in that
stage, and what your goals are.
BIAS TOWARD ACTION
Design thinking is a misnomer; it is more
about doing than thinking. Bias toward
doing and making over thinking and
meeting.
RADICAL COLLABORATION
Bring together innovators with varied
backgrounds and viewpoints.
Enable breakthrough insights and
solutions to emerge from the diversity.
D.MINDSETS

6. Additional Mindsets
• Courage to fail
• Nurture curiosity
Be disruptive!

7. “Our leader knows best.”

8. MINDSETS
human
centered
mindful
of
process
culture
of
prototyping
bias
toward
action
radical
collaboration
show
don’ t
tell

10. Understand & Observe
(Identify a need)
• Find a problem you are interested in working on.
(It doesn’t not have to be a problem, it can be an opportunity.)
• Learn everything you can about the need
(problem).
(Understand the context)
• Get clear what the problem really is.

11. DEFINE
Point of View (POV)
• A phrase describing a specific user (this is called
a noun phrase),
• A verb phrase specifying a need
• A phrase giving an insight specifying what (but
not how) the solution needs to accomplish.

12. Example of POV
Jane, a poor single mother, needs financial know-how so she
can use her money efficiently.
• The insight implied in this POV is that poor single moms
lack enough financial know-how to use their money
efficiently.
• If this is not valid, even a large increase in her financial
know-how might not produce more efficient use of limited
funds.
• So, it is important that the POV reflect a person’s
actual need for the solution.

14. Commit to satisfying the need
• Question your motivation
• Don’t expect financial or other rewards if
there is no need being satisfied
• Trust your “gut”; follow “wants” not
“shoulds.”

17. Radical Collaboration

18. (Entrepreneurial) Design
for
Extreme Affordability
• 11 years
• 405 Students
• 35 partners
• 21 Countries
• 100 projects
• 33 in Market

19. Iconic Examples of
Re-framing
• d.light
• Embrace

20. d.light solar powered LED lighting 42
countries

21. Big Data for The Hive
58 MILLION
lives empowered $4.8 BILLION
saved in energy-related
expenses
15 MILLION
school-aged children reached
with solar lighting
21 MILLION
tons of CO2 offset
112 GWH
generated from a renewable
energy source
29 BILLION
productive hours created
for working & studying

22. Image credit: Anne Geddes

24. Empathy: Point of View
… the means
to give their
dying
baby a chance
to survive
User
Need
Desperate
parents in a
remote village,
who cannot
access a major
hospital …

25. Embrace
Over 300,000 babies

26. Exec Ed
Iconic Example
of Re-framing
GE Medical

29. Getting Unstuck by
Re-framing
If you are stuck,
odds are you are treating a wrong answer
as a right question.

30. FIND A
SPOUSE
I
I
I
I
I
NOTHING WORKS

31. WHAT WOULD IT DO
FOR ME?
GET COMPANIONSHIP
FIND A
SPOUSE

32. FIND A
SPOUSE
MEET
FRIENDS
ONLINE
TAKE
CLASSES
JOIN A
CLUB
0 O 0
GET A
PET

33. Rule #1:
There is no one reason for any human behavior.
Rule #2:
Often reasons are simply excuses.

34. • TRYING AND DOING
ARE TWO
DIFFERENT
STATES OF
ACTION
• THEY ARE NOT THE
SAME THING!

35. THANK YOU