Change by Design

Outline

Change by Design (2009) introduces design thinking, a creative, human-centred approach to solving problems. Tim Brown explains how designers observe people’s real needs, generate many ideas, build quick prototypes, and test them, and shows how businesses, governments, and nonprofits can use the same process to innovate. The book helped bring design thinking into mainstream management.

• Design thinking is a creative, human-centred approach to solving problems, not just a way to make products look better.
• Good solutions begin with observing what people actually need, rather than guessing from behind a desk.
• Generating many ideas first gives a team more options to choose from before it commits to one.
• Quick, rough prototypes let you test an idea early, learn from it, and improve it cheaply.
• Businesses, governments, and nonprofits can all use the same design process to innovate and tackle their challenges.

Tim Brown is a British industrial designer and business leader who served as CEO and later chair of IDEO, one of the world’s best-known design and innovation firms. He helped popularise design thinking as a way for organisations to solve complex problems. Change by Design is his best-known book.