Why this Site?

The idea for this website emerged in 2013, when we (a team of design thinking researchers) realized that we rarely make accessible the vast amount of insights and »knowledge leftovers« that we gain from our academic as well as practical research activities. Often we conduct expert and insider interviews with senior people in organizations who report about their design thinking experiences. Usually only a fraction of their stories can be used for our academic work, though.

Additionally scientific papers are rarely read by practitioners. They are most interested in the anecdotal story chunks of others. Unfortunately it is exactly these side-stories we have to neglect in our official publications. They then tend to end up as defunct interview transcripts in our filing cabinets.

Since 2007 we observe the design thinking discourse and regularly listen to the different positions of design thinking proponents and opponents. We are in the privileged position of having access to those actors via the HDTRP program. We obtain first-hand insights on how organizations have appropriated design thinking and how they exploited it in their respective contexts. Additionally we realized that many responsible persons are eager to share their experiences and best practices. This is how this site came into being.

In 2015 we finished an explorative study that focused exactly on the examination of above mentioned design thinking adoptions. We used this occasion as a kick-off for this site. From now on we share our insights and side-stories with a broader audience. This is why we present design thinking related case studies and interviews on this website. They demonstrate the range of perspectives on design thinking. They are full of stories of success and failure, of surprising areas of application and individual practices. We are very grateful towards the courageous interview partners who gave their consent to publish their stories as initial content of this site.