Have you heard of ‘Design Thinking?’

It's slowly catching on to the Nigerian market and just like with everything new and trendy that comes out, people latch on to it. Some know what it is, while others just try to sound cool.
And so you find everyone talking about it, but man not really knowing what it is.

So what is Design Thinking, and most importantly how does it benefit a business in Nigeria today?

Design thinking simply put is a methodology, or a framework for creatively solving problems.

Design thinking allows businesses to not only solve problems creatively, it allows them master the discipline of understanding users' needs, even better than them. It takes from the designer’s process, using methods such as empathizing with people, experimentation and iteration, to come up with innovative solutions for businesses.

Companies, like Bank of America, Apple, Google, Pepsi and more, have used methods from this framework in one way or another to capture customers’ hearts and the market. The results are obvious for all to see.


Two most valuable practices of Design thinking I've found that would benefit Nigerian businesses are:

1. The learned practice of understanding one’s customers. I say ‘learned’ because companies can adopt the practice as they go, till it becomes a part of the company's work culture.

2. The second practice would be the manner in which companies can view the problems that come up. Re-framing a problem, or seeing a problem from many different perspectives, is critical to coming up with new solutions.

You can read more about Design thinking here it if you're interested.