This is a presentation on Design Thinking for a Project Management audience, showing the benefits of incorporating Design Thinking on projects and providing a very high-level overview of methods and tools.

1. Design
Project
Management
Design Thinking &
Project Management
Bruce Gay, PMP
05 May 2016 1
Bruce Gay, PMP
June 2016

2. My Background
• Program Manager living in Pittsburgh, PA
• Managed programs across healthcare IT, telecom and
military/defense industries
• 10+ years managing teams that incorporated UX Design
methodologies
brucegay@verizon.net
www.linkedin.com/in/brucegay
Twitter: @brucegay
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3. A Call to Action
Design
Project
Management
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4. Digital Disruption
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5. Digital Disruption
“…all of the technology required to transform
industries through software finally works and
can be widely delivered at global scale.”
Marc Andreessen
Why software is eating the world. WSJ, 2011
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6. Digital Disruption
S&P 500: Average company lifespan is in decline
Source: Foster & Kaplan
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7. The Future for PMs
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The future of
Project Management
is deeply linked with
Design Thinking.

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9. Design Drives Business Value
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Over the past 10 years,
design-driven companies
outperformed the S&P 500
Index by 219%.
Source: The Design Management Institute (DMI)

10. Design Helps to Mitigate Risk / Failure
Source: Accenture and CEA 2011
of returned consumer electronic products have no defects…95%
68%
worked properly but didn’t meet customers expectations.
(They either thought it was broken or it did not work properly.)
In 2011, this represented a $17 billion problem in the U.S. alone.
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11. Design Reduces Overall Development Costs
1x
10x
100x
RELATIVE COST TO
REPAIR
Tom Gilb
SOFTWARE ENGINEER
AUTHOR OF “PRINCIPLES OF SOFTWARE ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT” (1988)
Design (concept)
Development
Released
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12. Design Promotes Interdisciplinary Collaboration
Design
Engineering Business
Human
Sciences
Design facilitates
collaboration among
these key disciplines
Effective teamwork requires a
common language and set of
methods and principles that
everyone can participate in.
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13. The Cost of Design is Not All That High
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Source: Nielsen, Jakob, and Landauer, Thomas K.: "A mathematical model of the finding of usability problems,“
Proceedings of ACM INTERCHI'93 Conference (Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 24-29 April 1993), pp. 206-213.

14. What is Design?
What is Design Thinking?
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15. Examples of Design
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16. Human Centered Design
& Design Thinking is not
just something layered
on at the end. It’s not
lipstick on a pig.
Reference – en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lipstick_on_a_pig
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17. “ Design is not a one-shot vaccine;
it’s an ‘innovation fitness program’ that
puts an organization on top of its game.
It is not an ‘event’, it is a way of thinking,
communicating and doing every day. ”
Heather Fraser
THE ROTMAN SCHOOL OF BUSINESS,
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO
Design as an “Innovation Fitness Program”
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18. “Good Design is Good Business”
it’s about building the right thing.
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19. Design is a cross-cutting product development
activity that should be top to bottom.
Project Managers should not run from Design,
we should be driving it.
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20. Key Elements of Design
Thinking
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21. Design Thinking represents the democratization
and application of problem-solving
methodologies that are integral to Design.
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22. Key Elements of Design Thinking
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People-centered.
Empathy is at the core.

23. Key Elements of Design Thinking
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Extensive
interdisciplinary
collaboration.

24. Key Elements of Design Thinking
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All about doing & making.
Being hands-on.
Making to learn.

25. Key Elements of Design Thinking
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Iterative.

26. Design Thinking is not magic. There is rigor to it.
You can learn it. You can practice it, you can
get better at it.
Design is a set of tools to solve problems.
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27. “Design Thinking stresses the need
to rapidly prototype the solution so
that the designers can get feedback
as quickly as possible.”
Prof. Sarah Soule
STANFORD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF BUSINESS
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28. Generic Design Model
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Discovery
Synthesis
Creation
Validation
Iterative

29. No single process or toolkit serves every case. Design has as
variety of processes and tools that people customize to serve
their needs.
The five step process from the Stanford Design School is a
model that is broadly used and has proven value.
Source: Stanford University Institute of Design
Empathize
Define
Ideate
Prototype
Test
Stanford Design School Method
There are Many Models of Design
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30. As a Project Manager, you need to
understand whatever design process you
are using and account for it.
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31. Design Resources
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32. • IDEO
• Frog Design
• Stanford d.school
• Luma Institute
• IBM Design Thinking
Where to Go for More Information
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33. Lessons for Integrating Design into Projects
Top 6 Lessons:
1. Shield your teams from heavy PM tools and processes
2. Design should be involved in the full development lifecycle
3. The sequencing of design work is important
4. Strive for extensive collaboration and share designs early and
often
5. Co-design works
6. Evangelize Design by “doing it”
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34. Key Takeaways
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1. The future of Project Management is deeply linked with Design
Thinking.
2. Good Design is about building the right thing, not just making
things look pretty.
3. Good Design is about problem solving.
4. Design Thinking is everyone’s job.
5. Design is not magic. There is rigor to it. You can practice it and
get better at it.
6. Project Managers should not run from Design, we should lead by
understanding it and by using Design Thinking.

35. When faced with a tough business challenge
tackle it as a design problem!
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Thank You.
Bruce Gay, PMP
brucegay@verizon.net
www.linkedin.com/in/brucegay
Twitter: @brucegay
Design
Project
Management