Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation

Book was in very good condition and extremely fast international shipping

"Change By Design" is an introduction to Design Thinking written by the CEO of IDEO, the famous design firm from which Design Thinking originates. The book is about 250 pages and reads easy and relative quick. Design Thinking spreads techniques used by designers to be used for larger than typical design problems and also teaches these techniques to non-designers. So people in cross-functional teams can focus on usable well-designed and well-solved products.The book consists of two parts. The first part is an introduction to Design Thinking and the second part describes how it might affect the world. Part One introduces many Design Thinking techniques such as creating empathy, deeply understanding the customer, brainstorming, prototyping, iterating, etc. Each of these techniques is described with stories and examples. Part two starts of with design thinking in organizations but then moves towards the more idealistic space of using design thinking to do good and solve real problems in the world.Each chapter covers one topic on Design Thinking. Each topic is introduces mostly by stories related to that technique. Most of the stories are directly from IDEO. On one hand, it is nice to read the IDEO stories, on the other hand (as some other reviewers have pointed out), it makes it sometimes almost like a sales pitch of IDEO. It would have been nice to have a other stories also.The book is a nice and quick read. The stories are interesting and it provides a good introduction to Design Thinking. Four stars and recommended for everyone who wants to learn about IDEO and Design Thinking.

Overall, an interesting read. The book focuses on a human-centered approach to design and problem solving. A large emphasis is on the use of participant observation and other social anthropological research methodologies (e.g. want to improve the experience of air travelers? follow a bunch around from the minute they leave their house until they leave their destination's airport). Furthermore, the book places a great deal of emphasis on seeking out outliers rather than the "average" customer or user--the idea being that observing extreme users can yield very interesting insights into functionality and user needs, some of which would remain unknown if you just focused on average users. Finally, the book suggests ways for all sorts of business to create environments that lend themselves to innovation and ideation by incorporating some of the lessons of designers and design thinkers. Even business service firms can benefit from a research and development approach akin to some of the world's leading consumer goods companies (e.g. Proctor & Gamble). The book certainly could have been shorter--too many random examples and way too much of what seemed like a forces tie-in with environmentalism--but overall a thought provoking read.

Tim Brown's book is one of the best I've read in the last twenty years. It reflects the changes we've seen in the environment - the speedup of change, the adaptability required for survival and prosperity, and the widespread effect of these changes across all of economics and society as a whole. And then, Brown recommends some adaptations that are proven effective in such an environment. In effect, it is a book on design thinking. As a veteran business professor, I've seen a lot of "fad theories" come and go, but this one is one I believe will stick around because it explains not only what's happening, but offers suggestions about what to do about it. In addition, it's a pleasure to read; it's articulate, literate, and well-argued, on the basis of "real world application" evidence. It's certainly worth your time and money. I have both the physical book, and an e-copy, and I've read both several times, usually learning something new every time.

I am an industrial design student and had to read this for a class (in a bout two weeks). I would have enjoyed it more if I could take my time reading it. I have had to read two other design theory books and watch several documentaries with similar subject matter. I find that they all say the same thing "design for the user, research, and test designs". However, this book actually offered case studies and went more in depth about those parts of the design process and a more focused way of designing with a focus on the user. It also talks about how design thinking can be used outside design itself and into more business centered areas. It was good read for anyone interested in the innovation of not only products, but services and business itself.

This is an incredibly well written book that is accessible by anyone. With clear explanations of the key principles of the methodology, and compelling reasons why human-centered design is important, the book does a great job of explaining what design thinking is and why it's important. As someone who initially approached design thinking with a healthy degree of skepticism, this book really shook my view of how to develop new products and services. Tim Brown does a great job of laying out the methodology and providing examples of how it has been used to develop cool stuff. Perhaps the best part about this book is that it is an easy read, something you can easily digest in a weekend, and yet gets across the fundamentals of design thinking in a clear and compelling way. Can't recommend this book highly enough.

As Tim Brown recognises in this book, design thinking is not new. But he has done all of us a great service by coining (with his IDEO colleagues) the term "design thinking" and setting out very clearly in this book what it means. He points out that almost any problem can benefit from design thinking, which essentially involves (1) taking a flexible approach to problem solving, (2) combining convergent and divergent thinking and (3) prototyping solutions.My only slight criticism of this book is that he covers the essentials of design thinking in about half of it. The rest involves examples that are interesting (and an excellent advertisement for the skills of IDEO) but carry much less insight. But it is not clear to me what could have been done to improve on this -- perhaps a little design thinking would provide the answer!

I did enjoy this book and some of the cases in it, but I have to agree with some of the other reviews that it is a bit high-level, both in terms of the techniques of design thinking and the cases. It would have been great to show some actual examples of brainstorm sessions, sketches of ideas, lessons learned etc to bring the material to life. A good book, but I was expecting even more from one of the world leaders in design thinking.

Really liked reading this. Change management meets design thinking. Will need to go over again but have already used this a lot at work. Everyone will take something away from this book.

The book is informative and full of examplea from Brown's experience. It has to be read well as it xontains a lot of info

Good book on the origins of design thinking and how it will shape and change the world.