Design thinking guide
Design Thinking Made Simple:
A Business Owner’s Guide
Not sure where to start with design thinking? This guide breaks it down, showing how you can use it to drive creativity, innovation, and growth in your business.
What Is Design Thinking? Understanding the Basics
Design thinking is a practical, human-centered (and optimistic!) approach to solving problems creatively. Originating from the design world, it focuses on understanding people’s needs, reframing problems, and generating innovative solutions.
It’s structured around five key stages:
Empathise – Understand the user’s needs and experiences.
Define – Clearly articulate the problem.
Ideate – Generate creative solutions.
Prototype – Build tangible representations of ideas.
Test – Gather feedback to refine and improve.
How Can Design Thinking Be Useful for your Business?
Design thinking can help your business:
Identify opportunities for growth and innovation.
Solve tricky, persistent problems in fresh ways.
Align teams around a common understanding of challenges and solutions.
Boost customer satisfaction by focusing on their real needs.
Accelerate time to market by quickly prototyping and testing ideas.
Whether you’re a founder of a startup or managing a growing team, design thinking helps you make smarter decisions with more confidence.
design thinking is more than product design
Design thinking is widely used for product design, but the principles apply to many areas of business, including:
Improving processes (e.g., streamlining operations or customer journeys).
Creating better services (e.g., enhancing onboarding experiences).
Developing strategies (e.g., rethinking go-to-market plans or brand positioning).
Building teams (e.g., fostering collaboration and creative problem-solving).
How Long Does design thinking Take?
The length of time depends on the scope and complexity of the problem.
Design thinking can happen in:
A single day—for quick workshops focused on reframing challenges and generating ideas.
A few weeks—for more involved projects where you prototype and test multiple solutions.
Ongoing sprints—as part of a longer-term innovation process embedded in your business.
At Spark + Forge, we tailor the process to fit your needs—whether it’s a rapid-fire session or a more immersive journey.
Get started with a Boost Workshop and turn hours and hours of of meetings into one day of impact, ideas and action.
What are some of the Tools and Techniques Can We Use from Design Thinking?
empathy mapping
Understand your customers’ thoughts, feelings, and needs.
‘How Might We?’
Frame problems as opportunities for co-creation.
journey mapping
Visualise your customers’ experience step-by-step.
rapid prototyping
Turn ideas into tangible models or concepts.
design thinking in ACTION
Struggling with disengaged teams, stuck projects, or ideas that never seem to take off? From Problems to Prototypes (PDF) is a practical and highly visual guide designed to help you uncover the root of challenges, spark fresh ideas, and turn them into actionable experiments.
Design Thinking can be transformative - check out these success stories from the likes of big names like Airbnb and IKEA to pharmaceutical start-ups and social sector organisations.
8 great design thinking examples
DESIGN THINKING case study
BRINGING design thinking TO A SALES TEAM IN ONE DAY
Elevate your usual meeting or team ‘off site’ into something engaging, fun and informative. All while generating new ideas and breaking new ground as you go.
start making breakthroughs today
Ready to unlock creativity and innovation?
We’d love to chat about helping you forge ahead.
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