Innovation and Logic

The phrase "design thinking" has become something of a buzzword in corporate circles, which conveys a hazy notion of something different to conventional procedures.  A popular definition is that "design thinking means thinking like a designer" - which is a meaningless tautology.   Other definitions are presented that are so vague and effuse as to convey nothing.

One way to consider this term is to accept that "creative" and "scientific" are entirely different methodologies.   The creative method is poorly defined, hence the reason no-one can quite describe it - but the scientific method is well understood, and it might be helpful to consider "design thinking" as being something outside of what is well defined.

Specifically, the scientific method is grounded in two basic forms of reasoning:

• Inductive Reasoning - Looks to specific things to draw general conclusions.  (If every crow I see is black, then all crows must be black.)
• Deductive Reasoning - Draws on general conclusions to make observations about specific things.  (If all crows are black, then the red bird I see cannot be a crow.)

The obvious flaw in these forms of reasoning is generalization, and as such science has attempted to make the theories more specific - defining a checklist of properties that define a thing.   If you happen across a crow that is red, and insist on calling it a crow, the list of "rules" for being a crow must be extended to indicate that crows might be black or red.  Or you must come up with a different name for a creature that is like a crow, but happens to be red.

But a more insidious flaw in these forms of logic is the very processes by which they work:  they are based on observation (which is limited to the scope of perception) and focus on generalization (which pointedly ignores anything that is not consistent).

When applied to human behavior, these forms of logic fail completely: we speculate that people act in a consistent manner (which is often but not always true) and we assume that we are fully aware of all the external conditions and internal motivations (which is never true).

And when the time is shifted from examining what "is" as opposed to what "will be" their failure is complete.  They can only succeed if conditions are identical to those that have been observed in the past, and as soon as a new element is added to the equation, it completely undermines them.   Or more often, they simply ignore it as an "outlier" and cling to the familiar.

Design, meanwhile, is all about introducing new elements to existed - creating things that never existed before, to enable people to do things they were never able to do before.  (Or, at least, modifying things such that the way things are done changes.)   To create something new requires envisioning something that doesn't already exist.

Designers do this regularly, but it means abandoning traditional forms of reasoning because they are unimaginative - they cannot account for anything different and ignores anything that is inconsistent.  The scientific method asks "what is?" whereas the creative method asks "what if?"

It is for this reason that traditional approaches to logic cannot be applied to design, and a more speculative approach must be employed to make an educated guess about how the new element is going to change things in a way that undermines inductive and deductive reasoning.

It is also for this reason that individuals that fail to innovate are quite good at imitation - because once a new element has been brought into existence by an innovator, those who depend on traditional logic now have seen something that they can apply their skill at induction and deduction to understand.  But someone else has to show them the way.