The Double Diamond Design Process is a versatile framework used in design thinking and innovation. Developed by the British Design Council, it provides a structured approach for solving complex problems, generating creative ideas, and developing innovative solutions.
The Double Diamond Design Process is a visual framework that helps individuals and teams navigate the design and innovation process effectively. It consists of four key stages organized into two diamond shapes:
Discover: The first diamond represents the problem space and involves understanding the problem, gathering insights, and defining the challenge.
Research: Conduct research to gain a deep understanding of the problem, its context, and the needs of the users or stakeholders.
Observe and Empathize: Observe and empathize with users to uncover their pain points, motivations, and behaviors.
Define the Problem: Clearly define the problem or challenge based on the insights gained during the research phase.
Define: The second diamond represents the solution space and focuses on generating creative ideas and potential solutions.
Ideate: Generate a wide range of ideas and potential solutions through brainstorming, ideation sessions, and creative thinking.
Prototype: Create prototypes or mock-ups to visualize and test different concepts and solutions.
Test: Test the prototypes with users or stakeholders to gather feedback and insights.
The Double Diamond Design Process emphasizes divergent and convergent thinking:
Divergent Thinking: During the Discover and Ideate phases, the emphasis is on exploring possibilities, generating ideas, and considering various perspectives.
Convergent Thinking: In the Define and Test phases, the focus shifts to refining and selecting the best solutions based on user feedback and validation.
Key Principles of the Double Diamond Design Process:
User-Centered Design: The process prioritizes the needs, preferences, and experiences of users or stakeholders to create solutions that truly address their challenges.
Iterative and Cyclical: The process is iterative, allowing for multiple cycles of discovery and definition, followed by ideation and testing. Each iteration builds upon the insights gained from the previous one.
Collaborative Approach: Successful application of the Double Diamond often involves cross-functional teams working collaboratively to bring diverse perspectives and expertise to the process.
Prototyping and Testing: Creating prototypes and conducting tests early and often is essential for refining and validating ideas and solutions.
Real-World Applications of the Double Diamond Design Process
The Double Diamond Design Process has found applications in various fields and industries:
1. Product Design and Development:
Product designers use the process to create user-friendly and innovative products by understanding user needs and iterating on design concepts.
2. Service Design:
Service designers apply the process to improve the customer experience and streamline service delivery in industries such as healthcare, hospitality, and finance.
3. User Experience (UX) Design:
UX designers use the Double Diamond to create intuitive and enjoyable digital experiences, from websites and apps to software interfaces.
4. Education:
Educators incorporate the process into curriculum design, encouraging students to solve complex problems and develop critical thinking skills.
5. Healthcare:
Healthcare professionals use the process to enhance patient care, improve medical processes, and innovate medical devices.
6. Urban Planning and Architecture:
Urban planners and architects employ the process to design more livable and sustainable cities, incorporating user-centric principles into building and infrastructure projects.
7. Business Strategy and Innovation:
Businesses adopt the process to develop new products, services, and business models that resonate with customers and address emerging market trends.
Strategies for Using the Double Diamond Design Process
Effectively using the Double Diamond Design Process requires a set of strategies:
1. Empathy and User Research:
Invest time in empathizing with users and conducting thorough research to gain a deep understanding of their needs, pain points, and behaviors.
2. Divergent Thinking:
Encourage brainstorming and creative thinking sessions to explore a wide range of ideas and potential solutions.
3. Prototyping and Testing:
Create low-fidelity prototypes early in the process to quickly visualize concepts and gather feedback from users. Iterate and refine based on insights.
4. Cross-Functional Collaboration:
Collaborate with individuals from diverse backgrounds and expertise to bring different perspectives to the problem-solving process.
5. Iterative Approach:
Embrace the iterative nature of the process, and be open to refining and redefining the problem and solutions as new insights emerge.
6. User-Centricity:
Keep the needs and experiences of users at the center of decision-making throughout the entire process.
7. Clear Communication:
Ensure that findings, ideas, and concepts are communicated clearly to team members and stakeholders to maintain alignment and focus.
Benefits and Impact of the Double Diamond Design Process
Embracing the Double Diamond Design Process offers several benefits and has a significant impact:
1. User-Centric Solutions:
By emphasizing user research and empathy, the process leads to the creation of solutions that truly address user needs and pain points.
2. Innovation and Creativity:
The process fosters creativity and encourages teams to think outside the box, leading to innovative solutions.
3. Effective Problem Solving:
By structuring the problem-solving process, the Double Diamond helps teams tackle complex challenges in a systematic way.
4. Reduced Risk:
Testing and iterating on prototypes reduce the risk of launching products or services that do not meet user expectations.
5. Cross-Functional Collaboration:
Teams working collaboratively bring together diverse perspectives, leading to more holistic and well-rounded solutions.
6. Adaptability:
The iterative nature of the process allows for adaptability and the incorporation of new insights as the project progresses.
Challenges and Considerations
While the Double Diamond Design Process is a valuable tool, it is not without challenges and considerations:
1. Time and Resource Intensive:
The process can be time-consuming, especially when conducting in-depth user research and multiple rounds of prototyping and testing.
2. Resistance to Change:
Teams and organizations may resist adopting user-centered approaches if they are not accustomed to such methodologies.
3. Balancing Creativity and Constraints:
Finding a balance between creative ideation and practical constraints, such as budget and timeline, can be challenging.
4. Overemphasis on Research:
In some cases, there may be an overemphasis on the research phase, leading to analysis paralysis and delayed action.
Conclusion
The Double Diamond Design Process is a powerful framework that guides creativity, problem-solving, and innovation. By structuring the design and innovation process into distinct phases focused on understanding the problem and generating creative solutions, it empowers individuals and teams to create user-centric, effective, and innovative solutions. As organizations across various industries increasingly recognize the value of user-centered design and innovation, the Double Diamond remains a valuable tool for navigating the complex landscape of creativity and problem-solving in an ever-evolving world.
Related Frameworks
Description
When to Apply
Design Thinking
– A human-centered approach to innovation that emphasizes empathy, ideation, prototyping, and testing. Design Thinking fosters creativity and collaboration to solve complex problems and meet user needs.
– When developing customer-centric solutions or addressing unmet needs. – Applying Design Thinking methodologies to empathize with users, generate innovative ideas, prototype solutions, and iterate based on feedback effectively, ensuring customer-centricity and value creation.
User-Centered Design (UCD)
– A design philosophy that prioritizes the needs and preferences of end users throughout the product development process. User-Centered Design (UCD) involves iterative testing and refinement to ensure that products are intuitive, accessible, and satisfying to use.
– When designing digital interfaces or physical products. – Incorporating User-Centered Design (UCD) principles to understand user behaviors, preferences, and pain points, iteratively prototype solutions, and validate designs through user testing, ensuring usability and user satisfaction effectively.
Lean Startup Methodology
– An approach to building and launching new products or services that emphasizes iterative experimentation, customer feedback, and rapid iteration. The Lean Startup Methodology minimizes risk and maximizes learning through validated learning and lean principles.
– When launching new products or ventures. – Applying Lean Startup Methodology principles to validate product ideas, gather customer feedback, and iterate on prototypes quickly and efficiently, minimizing risk and maximizing value creation.
Agile Methodology
– A project management approach that emphasizes iterative development, collaboration, and adaptability. Agile Methodology enables teams to respond to change quickly and deliver incremental value.
– When developing software or digital products. – Implementing Agile Methodology practices to prioritize customer requirements, deliver value in short iterations, and incorporate feedback to continuously improve product features and functionality effectively.
Sprint Methodology
– A time-boxed, iterative approach to product development that involves short bursts of focused work followed by reflection and adjustment. Sprint Methodology helps teams rapidly prototype and test ideas to validate assumptions and inform decision-making.
– When accelerating innovation or solving complex problems. – Adopting Sprint Methodology to structure collaborative efforts, prototype solutions, and validate assumptions through rapid experimentation, enabling faster learning and iteration effectively.
Scrum Framework
– An Agile framework for managing complex projects that emphasizes collaboration, adaptability, and continuous improvement. Scrum Framework organizes work into short iterations called sprints and includes regular feedback loops to facilitate transparency and alignment.
– When organizing cross-functional teams or managing complex projects. – Implementing Scrum Framework to structure work into manageable iterations, facilitate team collaboration, and deliver incremental value through regular feedback and adaptation effectively.
Rapid Prototyping
– A technique for quickly creating low-fidelity prototypes of products or services to test and validate design concepts. Rapid Prototyping enables designers to gather feedback early and iterate rapidly on ideas.
– When exploring design concepts or validating assumptions. – Using Rapid Prototyping techniques to create mock-ups or prototypes, gather user feedback, and iterate on designs quickly and cost-effectively, reducing time-to-market and minimizing development risks effectively.
Design Sprints
– A structured framework for solving big challenges and testing new ideas in a short period, typically five days. Design Sprints involve cross-functional teams working collaboratively to ideate, prototype, and test solutions with real users.
– When solving complex problems or validating new concepts. – Conducting Design Sprints to generate innovative ideas, prototype solutions, and validate assumptions through user testing in a compressed timeframe, accelerating decision-making and innovation effectively.
Experience Mapping
– A visual representation of a user’s journey through a product or service, highlighting touchpoints, interactions, and emotions. Experience Mapping helps teams understand the holistic user experience and identify opportunities for improvement.
– When optimizing customer experiences or identifying pain points. – Creating Experience Maps to visualize user journeys, identify pain points, and opportunities for enhancement, and prioritize design efforts to improve overall user satisfaction and engagement effectively.
Customer Development Process
– A methodology for discovering and validating market opportunities by engaging with customers early and often to gather feedback and iterate on product concepts. Customer Development Process complements product development efforts and reduces the risk of building products that customers don’t want.
– When validating product-market fit or refining value propositions. – Employing Customer Development Process to engage with potential customers, gather feedback, and iterate on product concepts, ensuring alignment with market needs and preferences effectively.
In a functional organizational structure, groups and teams are organized based on function. Therefore, this organization follows a top-down structure, where most decision flows from top management to bottom. Thus, the bottom of the organization mostly follows the strategy detailed by the top of the organization.
In a flat organizational structure, there is little to no middle management between employees and executives. Therefore it reduces the space between employees and executives to enable an effective communication flow within the organization, thus being faster and leaner.
Project portfolio management (PPM) is a systematic approach to selecting and managing a collection of projects aligned with organizational objectives. That is a business process of managing multiple projects which can be identified, prioritized, and managed within the organization. PPM helps organizations optimize their investments by allocating resources efficiently across all initiatives.
Harvard Business School professor Dr. John Kotter has been a thought-leader on organizational change, and he developed Kotter’s 8-step change model, which helps business managers deal with organizational change. Kotter created the 8-step model to drive organizational transformation.
The Nadler-Tushman Congruence Model was created by David Nadler and Michael Tushman at Columbia University. The Nadler-Tushman Congruence Model is a diagnostic tool that identifies problem areas within a company. In the context of business, congruence occurs when the goals of different people or interest groups coincide.
McKinsey’s Seven Degrees of Freedom for Growth is a strategy tool. Developed by partners at McKinsey and Company, the tool helps businesses understand which opportunities will contribute to expansion, and therefore it helps to prioritize those initiatives.
Mintzberg’s 5Ps of Strategy is a strategy development model that examines five different perspectives (plan, ploy, pattern, position, perspective) to develop a successful business strategy. A sixth perspective has been developed over the years, called Practice, which was created to help businesses execute their strategies.
The COSO framework is a means of designing, implementing, and evaluating control within an organization. The COSO framework’s five components are control environment, risk assessment, control activities, information and communication, and monitoring activities. As a fraud risk management tool, businesses can design, implement, and evaluate internal control procedures.
The TOWS Matrix is an acronym for Threats, Opportunities, Weaknesses, and Strengths. The matrix is a variation on the SWOT Analysis, and it seeks to address criticisms of the SWOT Analysis regarding its inability to show relationships between the various categories.
Lewin’s change management model helps businesses manage the uncertainty and resistance associated with change. Kurt Lewin, one of the first academics to focus his research on group dynamics, developed a three-stage model. He proposed that the behavior of individuals happened as a function of group behavior.
OpenAI is an artificial intelligence research laboratory that transitioned into a for-profit organization in 2019. The corporate structure is organized around two entities: OpenAI, Inc., which is a single-member Delaware LLC controlled by OpenAI non-profit, And OpenAI LP, which is a capped, for-profit organization. The OpenAI LP is governed by the board of OpenAI, Inc (the foundation), which acts as a General Partner. At the same time, Limited Partners comprise employees of the LP, some of the board members, and other investors like Reid Hoffman’s charitable foundation, Khosla Ventures, and Microsoft, the leading investor in the LP.
Airbnb follows a holacracy model, or a sort of flat organizational structure, where teams are organized for projects, to move quickly and iterate fast, thus keeping a lean and flexible approach. Airbnb also moved to a hybrid model where employees can work from anywhere and meet on a quarterly basis to plan ahead, and connect to each other.
The Amazon organizational structure is predominantly hierarchical with elements of function-based structure and geographic divisions. While Amazon started as a lean, flat organization in its early years, it transitioned into a hierarchical organization with its jobs and functions clearly defined as it scaled.
The Coca-Cola Company has a somewhat complex matrix organizational structure with geographic divisions, product divisions, business-type units, and functional groups.
Costco has a matrix organizational structure, which can simply be defined as any structure that combines two or more different types. In this case, a predominant functional structure exists with a more secondary divisional structure.
Costco’s geographic divisions reflect its strong presence in the United States combined with its expanding global presence. There are six divisions in the country alone to reflect its standing as the source of most company revenue.
Compared to competitor Walmart, for example, Costco takes more a decentralized approach to management, decision-making, and autonomy. This allows the company’s stores and divisions to more flexibly respond to local market conditions.
Dell has a functional organizational structure with some degree of decentralization. This means functional departments share information, contribute ideas to the success of the organization and have some degree of decision-making power.
eBay was until recently a multi-divisional (M-form) organization with semi-autonomous units grouped according to the services they provided. Today, eBay has a single division called Marketplace, which includes eBay and its international iterations.
Facebook is characterized by a multi-faceted matrix organizational structure. The company utilizes a flat organizational structure in combination with corporate function-based teams and product-based or geographic divisions. The flat organization structure is organized around the leadership of Mark Zuckerberg, and the key executives around him. On the other hand, the function-based teams are based on the main corporate functions (like HR, product management, investor relations, and so on).
Goldman Sachs has a hierarchical structure with a clear chain of command and defined career advancement process. The structure is also underpinned by business-type divisions and function-based groups.
Google (Alphabet) has a cross-functional (team-based) organizational structure known as a matrix structure with some degree of flatness. Over the years, as the company scaled and it became a tech giant, its organizational structure is morphing more into a centralized organization.
IBM has an organizational structure characterized by product-based divisions, enabling its strategy to develop innovative and competitive products in multiple markets. IBM is also characterized by function-based segments that support product development and innovation for each product-based division, which include Global Markets, Integrated Supply Chain, Research, Development, and Intellectual Property.
McDonald’s has a divisional organizational structure where each division – based on geographical location – is assigned operational responsibilities and strategic objectives. The main geographical divisions are the US, internationally operated markets, and international developmental licensed markets. And on the other hand, the hierarchical leadership structure is organized around regional and functional divisions.
McKinsey & Company has a decentralized organizational structure with mostly self-managing offices, committees, and employees. There are also functional groups and geographic divisions with proprietary names.
Microsoft has a product-type divisional organizational structure based on functions and engineering groups. As the company scaled over time it also became more hierarchical, however still keeping its hybrid approach between functions, engineering groups, and management.
Nestlé has a geographical divisional structure with operations segmented into five key regions. For many years, Swiss multinational food and drink company Nestlé had a complex and decentralized matrix organizational structure where its numerous brands and subsidiaries were free to operate autonomously.
Nike has a matrix organizational structure incorporating geographic divisions. Nike’s matrix structure is also present at the regional and sub-regional levels. Managerial responsibility is segmented according to business unit (apparel, footwear, and equipment) and function (human resources, finance, marketing, sales, and operations).
Patagonia has a particular organizational structure, where its founder, Chouinard, disposed of the company’s ownership in the hands of two non-profits. The Patagonia Purpose Trust, holding 100% of the voting stocks, is in charge of defining the company’s strategic direction. And the Holdfast Collective, a non-profit, holds 100% of non-voting stocks, aiming to re-invest the brand’s dividends into environmental causes.
Samsung has a product-type divisional organizational structure where products determine how resources and business operations are categorized. The main resources around which Samsung’s corporate structure is organized are consumer electronics, IT, and device solutions. In addition, Samsung leadership functions are organized around a few career levels grades, based on experience (assistant, professional, senior professional, and principal professional).
Sony has a matrix organizational structure primarily based on function-based groups and product/business divisions. The structure also incorporates geographical divisions. In 2021, Sony announced the overhauling of its organizational structure, changing its name from Sony Corporation to Sony Group Corporation to better identify itself as the headquarters of the Sony group of companies skewing the company toward product divisions.
Starbucks follows a matrix organizational structure with a combination of vertical and horizontal structures. It is characterized by multiple, overlapping chains of command and divisions.
Tesla is characterized by a functional organizational structure with aspects of a hierarchical structure. Tesla does employ functional centers that cover all business activities, including finance, sales, marketing, technology, engineering, design, and the offices of the CEO and chairperson. Tesla’s headquarters in Austin, Texas, decide the strategic direction of the company, with international operations given little autonomy.
Toyota has a divisional organizational structure where business operations are centered around the market, product, and geographic groups. Therefore, Toyota organizes its corporate structure around global hierarchies (most strategic decisions come from Japan’s headquarter), product-based divisions (where the organization is broken down, based on each product line), and geographical divisions (according to the geographical areas under management).
Walmart has a hybrid hierarchical-functional organizational structure, otherwise referred to as a matrix structure that combines multiple approaches. On the one hand, Walmart follows a hierarchical structure, where the current CEO Doug McMillon is the only employee without a direct superior, and directives are sent from top-level management. On the other hand, the function-based structure of Walmart is used to categorize employees according to their particular skills and experience.
Gennaro is the creator of FourWeekMBA, which reached about four million business people, comprising C-level executives, investors, analysts, product managers, and aspiring digital entrepreneurs in 2022 alone | He is also Director of Sales for a high-tech scaleup in the AI Industry | In 2012, Gennaro earned an International MBA with emphasis on Corporate Finance and Business Strategy.
