Your job as a designer is to get everyone on your team – Designers, developers, and business analysts – to brainstorm and think differently, and then to consider different options.
I know I’m doing my job right when I get feedback along these lines! It’s exciting, rewarding, and fulfilling.
It doesn’t always go well, though.
I’ve had Design Thinking workshop sessions go off the rails, people interrupting each other, the problem is not clearly stated, and we don’t get as far as we would have liked.
After any session, I apply what I learned to the next DT workshop, then there’s continuous improvement. Sound familiar? That’s the software design process. Call it what you will, Agile, etc.
One complaint I hear is that Design Thinking workshops are too slow. I counter that by saying, “would you rather build it right or do it twice?”. These workshops get 8 hours of productivity in an hour (if you have 8 people, for example).
You can design a lot in 8 hours time!
Make sure you’re always learning from each workshop, and apply that learning to the next one.