CARTIER DRIVEN INNOVATION

The project was executed on a global level, involving teams in the Paris, New York and Amsterdam offices. An important aspect was how to bring about relevant stakeholders. Working with a human-centered perspective resulted in more extensive changes than imagined at the start: aside from redesigning the physical working space, we embedded employees’ emotions and attitude into the new design.

METHODOLOGY

PICTET DRIVEN INNOVATION

How might we help Pictet to build Design Thinking capabilities?

Headquartered in Geneva, Pictet is a Swiss-based bank with a focus on private banking. As one of the largest Swiss banks, it primarily offers services in wealth management, asset management, and asset servicing, to private clients and institutions. The Pictet Group employs around 4,600 people, including 900 investment managers.

Before approaching DesignThinkers Academy, Pictet had already taken the first steps in creating a Learning and Development Program for their employees. To further build on this, we provided an all-around Design Thinking Capability Training internally with the strategic goal of integrating new and improved ways of working into the organization.

In addition to building new capabilities, we also assisted their Product Innovation teams with a number of Design Sprints to collaboratively develop new and innovative products and services. We also helped Pictet to hone in on the idea of developing a Community of Expertise internally.

METHODOLOGY

To ensure full immersion in Design Thinking, we guided Pictet through a curriculum that closely follows the Double Diamond  methodology of divergent/convergent thinking. Simultaneously, we organized masterclasses that dived deeper into hard skills and soft skills, such as conducting interviews for qualitative research, effective ideation, empathy, communication, and negotiation skills. Furthermore, to boost innovation, we ran a 3.5-day Design Sprint to optimize the connection between the teams with their clients. This serves to provide insights into future product innovation in the most accurate light possible. Finally, we coached Pictet’s senior consultants on adopting and facilitating the Design Thinking mindset in their organization. 

At the end of this project, Pictet’s teams were more confident in creating and rolling out innovative ideas that fit the needs of their customers. They were also more comfortable using the Double Diamond / Design Thinking mindset in their daily work.

ING DRIVEN INNOVATION

How can we support ING in the adaptation of a human-centered perspective to improve services in the financial industry?

DesignThinkers Academy collaborated with ING to co-create an internal innovation process embedding the users’ perspective in new service development. Consequently, DesignThinkers Academy trained a team of ING employees that will foster a more human-centered perspective within the organization.
Furthermore, DTA also guided the ING Accelerator teams to develop, test and implement new services. As a result, DesignThinkers Academy designed all of the tool which were used for the individual workshops, guidelines, toolkits, Accelerator programs and flows.

METHODOLOGY

COCA-COLA DRIVEN INNOVATION

How can we support the HR Department of Coca-Cola in redesigning its employee services following a ‘Design Thinking’ approach?

Design Thinking Workshops for Coca-Cola Global HR were carried out in collaboration with the GBS department. We facilitated Design Councils consisting of Coca-Cola employees and Coca-Cola Human Resource professionals. This was a co-creation effort to explore the Coca-Cola Global business Services eco-system and opportunity areas for improving services and design improved Service Scenarios especially for hiring and on boarding of new Coca-Cola employees. The main outcome is a set of Prototypes & Roadmaps on how to implement the Pilots.

METHODOLOGY

Since Salesforce had an established customer strategy, our task was to implement Design Thinking in this process, such that it could enhance this, especially internally. Using our extensive DT toolkit and facilitation experience, we designed a training approach that takes Salesforce’s strengths into account and develops those strengths into competitive advantages. Facilitation skills with a human-centred approach will help the team to understand what their customers really need, in order to help them with the best service offerings.

We helped Mastercard to embed the Design Thinking mindset on different levels of management and in everyday business. Applying creativity in crafting business models, diverse revenue alternatives with cross-functional teams were identified. A human-centered approach was adopted in formulating roadmaps for new service concepts. Moreover train-the-trainer workshops were organised for management teams to foster innovative climates and developing new business models.

Through extensive collaboration and the teams’ incredible grit, we managed to cross the finish line together: Rotterdam and Butuan were honored as winners of the Global Mayor’s Challenge 2021. Each city received $1M each in funding to further develop their ideas into viable, sustainable solutions.

The program was built on existing research and carefully prepared with pre-defined personas, journeys, and key insights, as well as a simulation session. In the final stage of the program, future scenarios were designed to support the successful launch of DFS’ venture in Paris, supported by a strong team culture. The focus of the project was set on defining long-term and short-term goals that are human-centered. Together, we did research on how the merger will affect employees, end-users, and other stakeholders. Design Thinking in luxury retail was the guiding principle throughout the process; we helped L’Oreal build human-centered capabilities and introduced tools that help facilitate successful leadership after the merger.

Cordstrap is keen on the rapid implementation of this PCP to improve the lead time and quality of its innovation. Therefore, we helped with designing an introduction training to the new method, as well as a lightweight prototype of the new PCP toolkit. Getting stakeholders to understand and adopt the new procedure is equally important. That’s why we also dedicated a significant part of the project to guiding core members in implementing the new PCP to their daily work, with attention to their personality, desires, and the challenges they face. 

To solidify new knowledge, we accompanied Cordstrap employees on the job. Learning by doing was the method we chose to pursue; we coached employees on the application of human-centered skills when facilitating the new PCP to their counterparts, and helped them get a grip of the iterative and sustainable nature of Design Thinking.

In the case of Kuehne & Nagel, we worked on co-creating a future scenario for their employee experience. The goal was to push the process in a more employee-centered direction. In a virtual design sprint, DesignThinkers helped Kuehne & Nagel with installing the necessary mindset and skills to design a people-first employee experience. Drawing from the skills and toolkits of Design Thinking, such as empathy, persona building, and qualitative research, the in-company project aimed to introduce fresh perspectives and bridge the gap between employees and their managers at Kuehne & Nagel.

During an intensive and hands-on 1-day training, we introduced the staff members of the Red Cross to the core skills of the Design Thinking process, such as empathy, research, and prototyping. This was accompanied by a walkthrough of the Double Diamond process, an iterative model of innovation in which divergent and convergent thinking work in tandem. 

More importantly, we facilitated team members with the best way to integrate Design Thinking into their daily work, through learning by doing. We were able to give pointers and advise the Red Cross staff on how to sustain and develop the new way of working in the most fitting manner for their teams and organization.

In the first phase of this project, we helped Bacardi with setting up the fundamental knowledge of Design Thinking. This was done through a 2.5-day intensive workshop in which we explained core competencies such as empathy, research, and prototyping in detail. Subsequently, we co-created the bartender personas to understand the challenges they face when adopting the app, a new way of working. We worked on untangling the knots and pointing out valuable additions that the app brings to bartenders’ work. Simultaneously, we conducted on-the-job training to further solidify the learnings from the workshops. 

At last, we worked with Bacardi on extrapolating the development plan to the whole organization. With a clear goal and Design Thinking tools, the Bacardi staff are more confident to adopt a new way of working with new technology. Ultimately, customers will benefit from the new app from Bacardi, as well as staff that are proficient at it.

RA has a historically strong preference for defining, structuring, and checking information. However, this can become a hindrance when it comes to innovation, as there should also be adequate room for uncertainty. Using Design Thinking principles, we worked with RA to identify the criteria needed to select the right partners for innovation, based on defined drivers and values. Moreover, we also looked at what the partners expect from RA in a collaborative effort using empathy in research. This will help RA align their views with that of their partners, which will support co-creation and innovation. 

Through the training, RA now possesses a better toolset to select the most promising collaboration opportunities, and a system to assess the effects of future collaborations.