User centricity, hypothesising and prototyping. These are some of the core principles of Design Thinking. By empathising with a group of people, these principles promise to reduce uncertainty about what problems to solve for whom and how.
15. When design
thinking
meets business Strengths Pitfalls Consequences
User centric
We fall in love with the
problem,
then the solution.
Overenthusiasm
Falling too much in love
with the user.
Strategic disconnect
Why is this user problem
relevant to the business?
Hypothesis driven
Every solution is a
hypothesis until otherwise
proven effective.
Vague formulations
Formulating hypotheses
with unclear cause-and-
effect relationships.
Business impact
How does solving the
problem benefit the
business?
Prototype and test
We prototype, test and
learn to only move forward
based on insights.
Inefficient testing
Testing usability through
aesthetic prototypes
before having proved value
from actual usage.
Market validation
Do we know someone would
actually adopt this
solution?
16. Business design 101
Who has
what problem
and why
should you
solve it?
User Problem
User Aspiration
Solution
Strategy
19. Interpretating
strategy
What is your
strategy and what
parts are we
adressing?
When working with
strategy, we often meet
various types of
ambiguity.
Strategic goal
Customer satisfaction
Strategic goal
Streamline portfolio
Strategic goal
Self-service portal
Strategy
2025 Strategy
20. Focus areas
Digital first
Focus areas
Seamless user journey
Strategic goal
Customer satisfaction
Strategy
2025 Strategy
Interpretating strategy
What is your strategy and
what parts are we
adressing?
However tempting, refrain from
reformulating the strategy until
we have more substance to
build upon.
22. Prioritising
problems
What user problems
should we solve to
realise the
strategy?
Strategy
2025 Strategy
Focus areas
Digital first
Focus areas
Seamless user journey
Strategic goal
Customer satisfaction
23. Focus areas
Digital first
Prioritising problems
What user problems
should we solve to
realise the strategy?
Ensure that user problems:
• align with strategy
• have clear target groups*
• are based on evidence
• reflect root causes
• are not order-like
* Target groups can be both
internal and external
Strategic goal
Customer satisfaction
Strategy
2025 Strategy
User Problem / Existing customer
”I fear for my savings during
these times of inflation and
unstable financial markets”
User Problem / Existing customer
“I couldn’t tell you right here,
right now, whether I’m on track
for a joyful retirement”
User Problem / Existing customer
”I need an app instead of
having to go to my desktop”
24. Focus areas
Digital first
Prioritising problems
What user problems
should we solve to realise
the strategy?
Narrow down the number of
problems to solve is a necessity
– we can’t solve everything, at
once.
Strategic goal
Customer satisfaction
Strategy
2025 Strategy
User Problem / Existing customer
”I fear for my savings during
these times of inflation and
unstable financial markets”
User Problem / Existing customer
“I couldn’t tell you right here,
right now, whether I’m on track
for a joyful retirement”
26. Focus areas
Digital first
Informing strategy
If these are the problems
we want to solve, what is
our strategy then? Strategic goal
Customer satisfaction
Strategy
2025 Strategy
User Problem / Existing customer
”I fear for my savings during
these times of inflation and
unstable financial markets”
User Problem / Existing customer
“I couldn’t tell you right here,
right now, whether I’m on track
for a joyful retirement”
27. Focus areas
How might we,
empower our members
digitally?
Informing strategy
If these are the problems we
want to solve, what is our
strategy then? Strategic goal
Improve customer ease of
mind
Strategy
2025 Strategy
User Problem / Existing customer
”I fear for my savings during
these times of inflation and
unstable financial markets”
User Problem / Existing customer
“I couldn’t tell you right here,
right now, whether I’m on track
for a joyful retirement”
29. Focus areas
How might we,
empower our members
digitally?
Creating solutions
How do we best solve the
user problem at hand?
Strategic goal
Improve customer ease of
mind
Strategy
2025 Strategy
User Problem / Existing customer
”I fear for my savings during
these times of inflation and
unstable financial markets”
User Problem / Existing customer
“I couldn’t tell you right here,
right now, whether I’m on track
for a joyful retirement”
30. Focus areas
How might we,
empower our members
digitally?
Creating solutions
How do we best solve the
user problem at hand?
We like to use the user
aspiration to clearly define the
solution space before
embarking on conceptual
development workshops and
the like.
Strategic goal
Improve customer ease of
mind
Strategy
2025 Strategy
User Aspiration / Existing customer
“Even during turbulent times,
I’m on top of things and act
proactively”
User Problem / Existing customer
”I fear for my savings during
these times of inflation and
unstable financial markets”
User Problem / Existing customer
“I couldn’t tell you right here,
right now, whether I’m on track
for a joyful retirement”
User Aspiration / Existing customer
“Not that I think about it an
awful lot, but I know my future
self is being taken care of”
31. Focus areas
How might we,
empower our members
digitally?
Creating solutions
How do we best solve the
user problem at hand?
When the solution space
is defined, you can either
revisit previous ideas or
concepts or create new
ones through conceptual
development workshops,
as e.g. a design sprint.
Strategic goal
Improve customer ease of
mind
Strategy
2025 Strategy
User Problem / Existing customer
”I fear for my savings during
these times of inflation and
unstable financial markets”
User Problem / Existing customer
“I couldn’t tell you right here,
right now, whether I’m on track
for a joyful retirement”
User Aspiration / Existing customer
“Not that I think about it an
awful lot, but I know my future
self is being taken care of”
Solution
Feel good updates
Solution
The difficult convo
Solution
A day in the life of 70-y/o-you
User Aspiration / Existing customer
“Even during turbulent times,
I’m on top of things and act
proactively”
33. Focus areas
How might we,
empower our members
digitally?
Prioritise solutions based
on hypotheses
Which solutions do we
continue with to solve the
user problems?
Before prioritising amongst the
solutions, we recommend
formulating hypotheses.
Strategic goal
Improve customer ease of
mind
Strategy
2025 Strategy
User Problem / Existing customer
”I fear for my savings during
these times of inflation and
unstable financial markets”
User Problem / Existing customer
“I couldn’t tell you right here,
right now, whether I’m on track
for a joyful retirement”
User Aspiration / Existing customer
“Not that I think about it an
awful lot, but I know my future
self is being taken care of”
Solution
Feel good updates
Solution
The difficult convo
Solution
A day in the life of 70-y/o-you
User Aspiration / Existing customer
“Even during turbulent times,
I’m on top of things and act
proactively”
34. User experience
We believe
[our solution to be
comprehended in a
certain way by the
user]
User behaviour
which will lead to
[the user committing to
and applying the
solution]
Business impact
and impact our business
by
[moving the needle on a
strategic goal]
Prioritise
solutions based on
hypotheses
Which solutions do
we continue with to
solve the user
problems?
35. Target group
Existing customers
A day in the life of 70-
y/o-you
User experience
We believe
that our customers are
curious to understand what
the daily life of their
future selves will look like
User behaviour
which will lead to
our customers to assess
whether they need to book a
meeting with an advisor to
discuss their pension plan
Business impact
and impact our business by
increasing customer ease of
mind by aligning
expectations for retirement
with their pension plans
Hypothesis
Solution
Description
An self-service tool on the website that allows the
user to understand what kind of life they will be able
to lead after retirement based on current pension
plan.
Prioritise
solutions based on
hypotheses
Which solutions do
we continue with to
solve the user
problems?
36. Focus areas
How might we,
empower our members
digitally?
Prioritise solutions based
on hypotheses
Which solutions do we
continue with to solve the
user problems?
With a clear definition of your
solution, you begin prototyping
it to enable testing of the
hypothesis.
Strategic goal
Improve customer ease of
mind
Strategy
2025 Strategy
User Problem / Existing customer
”I fear for my savings during
these times of inflation and
unstable financial markets”
User Problem / Existing customer
“I couldn’t tell you right here,
right now, whether I’m on track
for a joyful retirement”
User Aspiration / Existing customer
“Not that I think about it an
awful lot, but I know my future
self is being taken care of”
Solution
Feel good updates
Solution
The difficult convo
Solution
A day in the life of 70-y/o-you
User Aspiration / Existing customer
“Even during turbulent times,
I’m on top of things and act
proactively”
38. Focus areas
How might we,
empower our members
digitally?
Strategic goal
Improve customer ease of
mind
Strategy
2025 Strategy
User Problem / Existing customer
”I fear for my savings during
these times of inflation and
unstable financial markets”
User Problem / Existing customer
“I couldn’t tell you right here,
right now, whether I’m on track
for a joyful retirement”
User Aspiration / Existing customer
“Not that I think about it an awful
lot, but I know my future self is
being taken care of”
Solution
Feel good updates
Solution
The difficult convo
Solution
A day in the life of 70-y/o-you
User Aspiration / Existing customer
“Even during turbulent times, I’m
on top of things and act
proactively”
Strategic goal
Streamline portfolio
Strategic goal
Self-service portal
User Problem / Existing customer
”I need an app instead of having
to go to my desktop”
Focus areas
Seamless user journey
A clear narrative
39. Solution
Feature 1
User Problem / Existing customer
“I couldn’t tell you
right here, right now,
whether I’m on track for
a joyful retirement”
User Problem / Existing customer
“I have no idea how much
I will receive in
pension after retiring”
User Problem / Existing customer
“I have no idea how much
I will need to sustain
my life style at the age
of 70 – whatever that
is”
User Problem / Existing customer
“I don’t know how much
I’m saving for my
pension and what it will
amount to in 40 years”
Breaking down the
problem
When diving into the
solution space, we may
need to break the
problem into smaller
pieces, that various
features of our
solution solve.
Solution
Feature 2
Solution
Feature 3
Solution
A day in the life of 70-y/o-
you
42. Is business design
here to stay?
Yes, if we avoid just
making old wine on new
bottles
Not just a rebranding
of known business
frameworks
Yes, if we actually
change current ways of
working
Start talking
problems instead
of solutions
43. User Problem User Problem
User Problem User Problem
Focus area Focus area
Strategic goal
Strategy
User Problem User Problem
Focus area
Strategic goal
Is business design
here to stay?
Hopefully, business
design is the start
of design-driven
strategy, where
strategies are build
upon the user
problems to be solved
Companies exist because they’ve found profitability in serving a set of customers. Profitability simply means the extent to which you’re able to earn more money then you spent.
This, history will show, is quite the slippery slope and profit maximisation are at the root of many if not all of our current climate and societal problems.Business doesn’t have to mean profit maximisation. Today, we know a sustainable business is sustainable for the planet and the people as well.
As a design agency, any and everything we do is based on the same mindset: design thinking.Therefore our definition and understanding of Business Design is also based on the pillars of design thinking.
Design is much more than colours and shapes.It is a methodology put to use, nomatter whether you’re a visual, graphic, user experience or something else designer.
This is the prompt we always go into any project with.Usually our customers have a solution in mind, making this question even more important. We include the “User Aspiration” here, because we use it for more clearly defining the solution space.To preserve time, we sometimes wait with these until we know that the corresponding problem is in scope.
The need for business design for us has emerged through the projects we do with our clients.
During projects
This is the extended prompt, where we’ve started spending much more time on the latter, the business design perspective.So much that we sometimes have projects, where all we do is trying to arrange the strategic arguments for efficient execution.
Whatever is in the strategy gets attention, energy and budget.It guides the company. We use strategy to shape the problem space, by
What you see here is made with inspiration from a mix of various strategies and maybe you can recognise this?It can be quite hard to tell what company this is. That’s quite normal.These examples also show case some of the ambiguity we are dealing with, which leaves a lot of room for interpretation, e.g.:
Customer satisfaction: what should we do with it? Lacks actionability
Streamline portfolio: what portfolio and in order to what? Lacks direction
Self-service: solutionism, the most dangerous thing to find in a strategy, because it diminishes the solution space and potentially ignores the problem space.
Usually, there are more levels to a strategy– same things about lack of direction, actionability and the danger of solutionism apply.
These examples also show case some of the ambiguity we are dealing with, which leaves a lot of room for interpretation, e.g.:
Digital first: what should be and why?
Seamless user journey: who’s journey and why seamless?
This is quite new to classic strategy work, where solutions to make, activities to carry out or targets to realise often take precedence. The need for tangibility is so strong, that it ends up in the strategy – jumping straight to the solution space, neglecting the actual user problems to solve. It’s hard to measure the succeess of efforts, that had no clear beneficiary or understanding of the beneficiaris problems.
What do we do, if we don’t have any insights about the users’ problems?
We do research.
When I wrote this I thought this was such a stupid sentence, because its so obvious.But then I remembered how often I’ve seen the solution space being shaped by opinions, macro trends and what not. Not a single user problem in sight.
Sometimes we’re in a situation, where the problems we want to solve, don’t really match the strategy.
Maybe there is a place that seems suitable, but isn’t quite perfect.
It is a delicate subject – changing a strategy – which is why I usually suggest doing this as a re-interpretation of the strategy, now that we have substance to do so: user problems.
Strategic goal: more actionable (improve), gives a clear direction (ease of mind) and does not suggest a solution
Focus area: more actionable (empower), gives a clear direction (empower, digitally), is posed as a question to invite for curiosity and does not suggest a solution
When I wrote this I thought this was such a stupid sentence, because its so obvious.But then I remembered how often I’ve seen the solution space being shaped by opinions, macro trends and what not. Not a single user problem in sight.
The nice thing about the hypothesis card is, that we can clearly define what we set out to test and how.
Imagine we had hypotheses for alle three, then you prioritise which one to start working with.
You have an overview of the things you are doing – and the things you aren’t doing
You can keep track of the things you learn from user tests and the way you concept evolve, e.g. new problems/solutions, killed promblems/solutions
Often times, when we dive into a specific solution, we create an overview like this for the underlying problems of the problem we’re working with.