Lessons learned from contrasting Design Thinking and

Agile Project Management Methodologies

Juan Gasca1 2

, Daniel Collado-Ruiz 1

1 Thinkers Company, Zaragoza, Spain

info@thinkersco.com 2 Polytechnic University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain

juagasru@doctorado.upv.es, dacolrui@dpi.upv.es

Abstract. The Creative Problem Solving methodology called Design Thinking

has achieved high levels of popularity in the last decade. Based on the

collaborative creation of interdisciplinary teams completely devoid of hierarchy,

Design Thinking can be seen as a methodology of structured creative

troubleshooting. However, unstructured teams like those proposed by the

Design Thinking seem to raise some doubts. How do these models fit within a

wider model of project management? Or even, do they embed within functional

management models? Does the absence of hierarchy really imply an absence of

leadership, as is claimed? Or if there is, can design thinking benefit from

making it explicit? This article will present the state of the art and research

approach for integrating it in project management disciplines, particularly for

methods adapted to continuously changing circumstances such as Scrum and

Design Thinking, in order to answer these questions.

Keywords. Design thinking, Project Management Methodology, Leadership,

Scrum, Design Management, Agile

1 Introduction

In the XXI century, we face a globalized world in a constant flowing state, leaving

traditional patterns and plunging into new paradigms. It responds to emerging needs,

arising from the natural evolution of human beings. Singles, dinkies, metrosexuales,

adolescents, women alpha twins ... [1] are names coined by sociologists and marketing

experts in recent years to try to reflect the new social reconstruction. Due to recent

increase in market complexity and variety of consumers, there is a need for new tools

to capture knowledge about them. [2]

This evolutionary change has fostered new methodologies to collect consumer

information. One clear lines of work is co-creation. Co-creation changes innovation

from designing FOR people to designing WITH people. Rather than being a tool or a

methodology, co-creation is a mindset that engages people in the development of

products and services, thus creating new meaningful and profitable solutions and

powerful organizations adaptable for change. Through co-creation, the value no

longer resides in the products and services developed by companies and delivered to

consumers, but are created jointly between the company and the consumer. [3]

The co-creation mindset requires a set of skills, which are mainly those of so-called

―T-shaped people‖. Such people are specialists in their area, who are capable of

working efficiently in multidisciplinary teams since they are capable of interacting

and understanding specialists from other areas. [4]

In most organizations, T-shaped skills are not created as a deliberate policy but

emerge because individuals have been willing to take risks on a somewhat marginal

career. Most formal organizational incentives encourage I-shaped skills — the deep

functional experience represented by the T‘s stem. As a result, individuals are driven

ever deeper into their expertise, which the organization continually draws on and

rewards. [5]

Changing this discouragement of multidisciplinary requires education. People tend

to have a dominant profile: assimilating, converging, diverging or accommodating.

The way to develop T-shaped skills born in an environment of learning or working

where a group of different people (4-5) interact not only in the area they are good,

even through the resolution of a problem that involves the use of all the skills. With

the practice, they will be T-shaped profiles [6]

These backgrounds in the organization are resulting in a changing framework of

relationships: new relationships between managers and knowledge workers, new

relationships with customers and suppliers…This is giving way in recent times to a

new philosophy of thinking, as well as the principles by which organizations should

be structured to accomplish each task are changing. [7]

One of the emerging trends in that sense is the application of Design Thinking, a

methodology of worked shaped between others by IDEO. Placed along the planet, this

international innovation consultant group have been developing during the last 20

years new approaches of facing projects involving the persona as central pillar and

encouraging multidisciplinary teams working together to get a goal [5]

Taking into account the philosophy of Design and the movement of designers

between the dominant profiles we have previously seen, they have developed T-

shaped profiles employees who are able to work in a creative environment through an

intuitive way of thinking to face different projects by this Creative Problem Solving

methodology: Design Thinking (DT).

In this complex framework some new questions are starting to appear: How explicit

is this new model facing this context? Or even, do they embed within functional

management models? Is the absence of hierarchy so explicit? What will be the

consequences of this fact in the internal management? How are the multidisciplinary

groups managed inside the group?

In fact there is no much literature about the topic, mostly books and education

about the method talk about the benefits of using it and how could improve the values

of business and projects. However, furthermore than the principals of application,

there is no information available about the proper management of it more than the

intuitive movement of the team through the process. At the same time, first actions

appeared in some companies like Deutsche Telekom supports the possible

combination of it with the agile methodologies such us Scrums in order to incorporate

creativity in their daily process. [8] The presumption of following this path suggests

the chance of combining both trends. Then, it would be also possible to make explicit

a new approach which empowers the application of Design Thinking, through the

inclusion of the DT process inside a framework defined by Scrums.

In the present report we do a study of the State of Art emerging in companies, to

face this new approach of working in groups and developing projects in short

timelines. A preliminary combined model is developed under these assumptions, and

it is tested in an exploratory case study to gather information about its performance.

2 State of Art

Facing the trends of co-creation and multidisciplinary, a first review reveals two

trends in design and project management respectively.

The design world is moving from the traditional individuality to a new address to

multidisciplinary teamwork. The main exponent of it is Design Thinking. On the other

hand, recent years have seen the apparition of a new praxis in project management:

considering flexibility and shorter timelines through Agile Methodologies.

2.1 Incorporation of Design to companies

“Design Thinking‖ is a trend taking place nowadays. In general terms it attempts to

apply in senior leadership and management positions of companies the mindset and

processes that designer‘s use. Thereby it attempts to provide greater leadership

capacity, giving business a broader perspective that diverges from traditional

paradigms of ―similar problems give similar solutions‖. Innovation is understood as

―(…) exploring the world with our hands, testing out ideas by building them, role

playing, (…) activities are natural characteristics of children at play.‖ [5]

All the theory converges in three tangible pillars that apply in education, business

and companies (according to D. School education program[9]). The first of them is the

process: iteration against lineal thinking (see figure 1) The proposed sequence is not

closes like traditional workflows, but it rather goes back and forward depending on the

results.

Fig. 1. Design Thinking Process (Source: D.School Stanford,2009)

Mapping it on a convergence-divergence flow, we notice how the process suits to the

assumption of ―from exploration to consolidation of knowledge‖, one time after

another. (figure 2)

Fig. 2. DT convergence-divergence flow of Thinking (Source: D.School Stanford,2009)

The second key pillar is the custom-built ―space‖ to foster creativity, which

incorporates mobile furniture that adapts to specific needs. Finally, Design Thinking is

based on multidisciplinary teams, usually of 4-6 members. In a traditional approach,

team members would receive tasks, but DT emphasizes the fact of all people

participating in all tasks. [6]

This approach has been put to place in companies like IDEO, LEGO, Herbal

Essences, Mattel [5], Apple or Procter & Gamble [10],

Despite the amount of literature on the topic, no papers were found to study the

relation between DT and project management tools, or even about how it performs

when related to the company‘s management. Project management is more elaborate

than a process or a space, and how DT fits as a task of a project, as a philosophy to

incorporate in project management, or as a framework to start projects, is still a matter

to be considered.

2.2 New models of Agile Praxis

On the completely different field of software, similar developments have taken place

as well. It has faced the need to be agile and quick in developing new products to their

customer needs, acting in a constantly changing environment, and reducing the time to

reach the market [11]. This has motivated the Agile Software Development.

In March of 2001, seventeen experts on software development processes wrote the

Agile Manifesto:

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

Working software over comprehensive documentation

Customer collaboration over contract negotiation

Responding to change over following a plan

These principles show the requisite to look for new ways of developing software than

the traditional standards. Mainly, they created a Manifesto that, in a way, considers

the importance of the individuals as well as the customer as the central pillar of their

work, trying to understand them and to answer faster to their needs.

Inside this philosophy Scrum stands out as one of the most popular Agile Praxis. It

is a new reframed environment to develop software. Scrum is not a methodology, it is

a framework. Scrum does not say exactly what to do. [12]

The praxis from Scrum has been implemented in several other fields in relation to

management models: NGO´s, Business, Food Distribution companies… Scrum is a

comprehensive model of management production environments based on routines,

that is, environments where the tacit knowledge of individuals is more relevant, than

the explicit content and technology processes. [11]

Basically, Scrum is a model built as a timetable of tasks with a clear input, and a

concise output with a dateline, called Sprint. The result is a new workflow model

defined by the following points [12]:

The definition of Sprint goals

Definition of a member lists (creation of a team)

Creation of the Stack Task

Dateline for the Sprint Demo.

Once the Sprint is planned, all the tasks are carried out, considering all disturbances

for the next sprint.

Scrum defines several roles in this process:

Scrum Master: person who leads the process and helps the team properly

flow.

Product Owner: person who controls the results, and is closer to the client‘s

needs and desires.

Team: people who develop the tasks.

Despite the singularities of the process, the main difference between scrum and

traditional project management methodologies lies on the core set of values that agile

teams share. The success of these teams is based on fostering transparency, trust,

communication, self-organization, learning from failure, courage or generosity. The

team members share a common goal, and together discover the best way (so far) of

delivering the agreed product. Creativity, pragmatism and mutual support are key

aspects of agile projects

2.3 Space of convergence of both approaches

The similarities and commonalities can be spotted Scrum and Design Thinking. This

had led the research community to try for each one of them to gain the benefits of the

other It seems to be possible to point out the main differences:

DT is focused on encouraging creativity in projects, allowing freedom in the

process

Scrum focuses on flexible management, whit a closed process that does not

take into account the content.

In Scrum the team goes through goals and tasks, while in DT the team only moves on

when the team members feel comfortable, in an intuitive way.

At the same time, there are several common points:

The aim to reach the market (and more particularly, the user) with better

expectations

Human resources as a key element of the model

The iterations as a working principle

Some attempts have been carried out from the Scrum perspective to incorporate the

creativity of DT into the process [8] from the perspective of Design Thinking and

creativity it is not possible to find literature about the desire and possibilities of

incorporating management praxis to the DT approach.

3 Methods and tools

To attempt first exploratory results in combining both DT and Scrum principles, an

exploratory model was carried out. The first suitable framework that was selected was

a 48 hour process, so it was decided that the application of a complete iteration

through the process of the D. School based in 6 steps and a second iteration of the

prototype would satisfy the action of facing a Design Challenge in that time. Isolating

the different tasks involved in the process, the different bubbles were redefining into a

set of successive steps. The aim is to translate the intuitive iterations of the DT process

into a clear structure of stages which a closed timing.

The result was a first clear visualization of the model that mixes the properties of

both, Scrum and DT, as can be seen in Figure 3.

Fig. 3. Translating DT into Scrum framework (Source: self-made)

Figure 3 shows the relation between the 8 tasks faced in the development of the idea,

and the traditional steps from Figure 1, which wouldn´t be mentioned to the

participants while using the methodology. Each stage would last 1:30-2 hours, and

include small sub-lines or optional tasks. The output would be controlled for each one.

First stage would have an introduction, and then the previous stage would be always

the input for the following one. Stages are defined as small sprints, controlling the

expectations and wishes of the material resulting of them, but giving freedom about

the activities, complexity, nature and tools in them (a free product backlog). Tools

would come from DT and other new disciplines of Human-Centered Innovation like

Service Design (Lego Serious Play, character profile tools, etc.). The result is the

Figure 4, where have been mapped also the ―DT convergence-divergence flow of

Thinking‖ appreciating how the task-restructuring respects the principles of Design.

Fig. 4. Combine methodology Scrum – DT (Source: self-made)

To ensure success, there would be a person overlooking the team and controlling the

flow throughout the process. The responsibility is similar to that of a Scrum Master,

with no expected or planned behavior, but only expectations on the outcome.

The result was the development of a new model focused on a closed creative

structured process. The assumption of the model is that, by giving more specific tasks,

it is possible to manage a team quickly and result-oriented. At the same time it is

possible to have space for creativity and crazy ideas.

Although the process is still prepared for a 48 hours interaction, it could be suit to

any kind of time or nature of project, reframing the tasks and making a correct plan.

Once the preliminary model was set, it was applied in a case-study event: the

Global Service Jam (GSJ) taking place during March 11-13th. It consisted of a 48-

hour-long common experience on Service Design, where participants in more than 55

cities around the world were connected, but working and being managed

autonomously.

This characteristic provided a very suitable framework to test this model in a real

scenario, organized in three cities in Spain, being able to compare it with a pure DT

experience (Berlin took D. School model as reference). In order to interpret the

differences from the new model and its predecessor, it is possible to interpret the

outputs of the 2 process (Berlin, and the events in Spain), studying the deviations

between their results and the consequences in the creativity from groups.

The events from Madrid, Zaragoza y Valencia used the model during the weekend

from GSJ. Starting with an introduction to explain the beginning of the exercise, the

host responsible in the 3 cities would provide to the jammers (participants) the tasks to

do, moving the group from one to another, moderating the input point and the

expected output of the sprint.

There was also a second level of responsibility, called facilitators, whose function

was to help the Host Responsible to encourage the work of the teams. There were

between 4-5 jammers or team members per team and 90% were not used to DT praxis.

On the other hand the event in Berlin was organized by 5-6 members of Gammaka,

the last group of alumni from D. School Postdam. They participated as normal

jammers without a clear Host Responsible, following the flat organization principles

from DT. Around 35-40% of the participants were Design Thinkers (people formed or

used to the process, mostly alumni from D. School Postdam). They started the event

with an introduction to the different processes of Design Thinking (models from

Stanford, Fjord consultant, HPI…) debriefing on the steps and the tools involved.

On a post-event online meeting, Mechmet Chiousemoglou, one of the organizers,

gave details on the development of the Berlin Jam [13]. During the workshop, no very

strict model was followed. They respected the steps and philosophy of DT, moving

through stages with similar properties and tools, and behaving as if they were using

the Stanford principles. They used common terminology for the steps such as

empathy, synthesis, etc. It was however not done with a clear process, but rather in an

intuitive way.

4 Results

After 48 hours of workshop, both models reach a satisfactory final with 4-5 final ideas

per city. Assessment of the creativity and feasibility of the ideas shall allow the

comparison between the results of the 2 models (the new one and traditional Design

Thinking). For the cases presented, there do not seem to be considerable deviations,

since results seem rather similar in nature.

Some big differences can be detected at first sight. The teams in Spain reached a

higher level of development in their presentations, creating videos or PDF´s through

storytelling, taking photos or recording videos, i.e. incorporating post processing

tools. The submissions from the teams in Berlin were videos from their final

presentations, where they use tools like role-playing to act out the concept (2/4) or

explain it directly with the help of some additional materials. It did not have any post

processing, and they did not have time for a final auto explanation presentation.

This fact goes hand in hand with the number of prototypes developed by each one.

The Spanish teams developed at least 2 prototypes, and dedicated all Sunday to the

presentation of the results, whilst the German teams invested most of their Saturday in

a continuous discussion.

Another divergence was the role of the facilitator. In the Spanish Jam, facilitators

provided the jammers with a series of gates, to guide their process. The German Jam

had much more freedom in the process, as dictated by the DT approach. It must be

pointed out that the role of the facilitator is critical in this aspect, and therefore this

would need a much deeper study in order to be able to draw conclusions.

When it comes to creativity, its assessment is a rather complicated matter.

Nevertheless, independent assessments of such creativity have shown that both sets of

projects (4-5 in each case) seem equally creative in their contents.

5 Conclusions

On a first analysis, the structured approach seems to deliver a much better time

management of the process. Spanish teams yielded much more mature concepts and

were able to test more prototypes. They were ensured not to stay too much time in the

discussion phase, whilst the German teams dedicated the whole Saturday to that

endeavor. In DT, time control is partly the role of the coaches, or is embedded in the

time-setting – to ensure a creative environment – but in this case it was successfully

channeled to the facilitator by basing itself in Scrum principles.

It seems that, Spanish teams managed to keep a closed timetable when it comes to

the development process, whilst the German teams following DT behaved more

chaotically incorporating tasks and controlling iterations are not unproductive matters,

since they contributed to attaining the final goal. It could have been considered

initially a potential hinder to creativity, but as a matter of fact it seems that it created a

better workflow to reach the final goal.

Additionally, open stages instead of closed steps with clear sublines (Stack Task

from Scrum) look like a good framework to foster the creativity, since it gives the

chance to reframe stages at any moment. This opens a new potential for Scrum to

develop in this direction.

The main hypothesis to be proven is the feasibility of the proposed approach. This

paper has shown that, at least preliminarily, such an approach can yield at least results

that are as good as DT results in a creative task. However, this opens a new line of

research in integration of DT to deliver project management principles that fit better

with the creative tasks.

Further research of the authors will aim at combining Scrum and Design Thinking,

in a more elaborate way that the exploratory study presented in this paper. The aim

will be to develop a new project management model to face Human Focus Centered

Innovation projects in a time-controlled way. The new approach would be pragmatic,

flexible and it would be built around the development of 3 roles:

Coach Leader: in charge of control the process and move the people over it.

Facilitator: to move people to think wide and encourage creativity

Team members: who would be the core group

This paper presents a basic model, but upcoming steps would provide a deeper

understanding of the idea generation process, specially aimed at being explored in the

case of Idea Generation Agencies such as Humantific or Brainstore. Knowing how

people interact in the ideation process, and how to manage it accordingly, should shed

some light in how new products are designed – and their projects managed – in the

future.

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