Design thinking isn’t dead, it’s just no longer adland’s shiny new toy
As the early adopters sound the death knell, Orchard’s Kim Verbrugghe says design thinking isn’t headed for the grave just yet. It’s simply hit its peak and is facing an inevitable backlash, as is the case for all industry trends that burn brightly.
When I joined Orchard earlier this year, we established Human Centered Design (HCD) as our single process across all strategy work. So you can imagine my frustration when articles and LinkedIn posts started popping up saying design thinking was dead.
My first thought was: “How am I going to explain this to the team?”
So let me tell you what I told them.
And I thought re-designing things to improve them was something that started with a stick. That become a club. Way back when. Now it needs a new department called “Human Centred Design”?
I don’t think Kim is suggesting there is a “Human Centred Design” department. It says Kim’s the head of strat… so I’m guessing they have a strategy department.. that uses HCD as an approach?
That may be David.
But it took the entire Human Centred Design Department of Kaakutja to turn the stick into a boomerang.