Page - 167 - in The Future of Software Quality Assurance

Embracing Qualitywith Design Thinking 167 thinkingproject.Tothatend,custompartsorsubassemblies, suchasenclosuresand circuitboards,maybeneeded. There are two essential partnership types. The first is related to the sponsoring organization. The design thinking team needs the support of the sponsoring organizationin termsofbudget,approach,schedule,andoutcomeexpectations.The design thinking team is tailored to the project. The appropriate personnel may not initially work in the same business units or functions. The broader organization needs to be willing to direct talented individuals to the team. Failure to develop a viable design is a possibility the sponsor must accept. A well-run design-thinking project will yield intellectual capital in terms of market understanding, promising solution approaches, and awareness of technical challenges. If the sponsors remain committed to addressing the same problem or a redefinition of the problem, the knowledge gained has the potential of directing the next effort away from pitfalls and towardspromisingnotions thatotherwisewouldnotbeknown. The second type of partnership is between the design thinking team and cooperating users. Users are essential. They are the source of the signals that the team collects and analyzes. These signals will indicate what does not work, nudge the design towards what does, and expose realities of the problem that could not be discovered without them. Users must be candid, honest, and be of goodwill whencommunicatingtheir impressionsand insights.Dependingupon the natureof what is being designed, the sponsoring organization and design team are placing significant trust in these users. This trust relates to the relevance and reliability of their feedback as well as their discretion. Most likely each user will sign a confidentiality agreement; however, enforcing it may be difficult. In some cases, the loss froma breachof confidentialitymay bebeyondanyrealistic compensation froma juryawardor legal settlement. 3.3 Design ThinkingApproaches Therearemultipledocumentedapproaches todesign thinking.TheDesignCouncil believes there isnooneidealdesign thinkingapproach[9].Theprimaryreasonsfor thisarethatbusinessenvironmentsareundergoingcontinualchangethatpreventsan idealapproachfromemerging,and theneedforbusinesses toadaptdesign thinking to their business makes their practical design thinking approach unique. There are several well-known general design thinking approaches. The Design Council introduced the Double Diamond approach [10].Stanford d.School introduced their 5-stage approach [11]. Liedtka and Ogilvie introduced the Designing for Growth approach [4]. Although each organization will likely approach design thinking differently, it is informative to exploreestablishedgeneralapproaches. TheDoubleDiamondapproachdevelopedbytheDesignCouncilhasfourstages. The diamond in the approach title refers to a visual metaphor that represents the natures of the four stages. The depiction in Fig. 3 provides a visual that expands upon the diamond metaphor. Each stage of the four stages of Discover, Define,