How would you gather the people and information and learn what you need to know to understand as much as possible about the problem or issue and move to action planning? How might design thinking cycles and action research cycles provide frameworks to guide your inquiry?
Design thinking represents a way to create and innovate in virtually any environment, in a series of cyclical, iterative steps. It is, in fact, another form of an inquiry cycle. A series of quick-and-dirty design cycles enhance creative capacity to try out a variety of ideas. Designers create prototypes and ask end users, “Is this what you need (or want)? Does this solve the problem?” The expectation is that it will not solve the problem, at least not at first. Quick iterative cycles of prototyping enhances learning from failures and keeps failure fast and inexpensive. Can you think of any projects that might have benefitted from a little more trial and error (and feedback from users) before implementation?