Design Thinking for Aviation Safety Continued from page 19 ‘going wide’ to develop a lot of mate- rial to filter through, rather than one refined idea. Ideation thrives on the ability to defer judgment as designers sketch, mind-map, and collaborate toward the generation of ideas. For many in aviation, focusing on creativ- ity while tabling our rational minds is a tough sell. By extension, we aren’t always used to experimenting as a method of delivering more intui- tive and appropriate organizational controls. However, moving beyond obvious solutions to address the “wicked problems” that continue to persist in organizational safety and systems design requires that we pro- vide a mechanism for getting those obvious answers out of the way and giving our imagination and creativity a voice. The design process isn’t about ignoring careful examination of ideas. In the ideation stage, we simply want quantity, diversity, and collaboration. Implementation Implementing ideas can be sepa- rated into prototyping and testing regarding product development; but, if creating organizational change is the goal, then things look slightly different. When policies or proce- dures are designed, there’s often a lot of pressure to make sure things are perfect on the first go-round. But, design thinking is about changing the way we think, remember? One of the common mantras of designers is: Build to think. Test to learn. With that in mind, there is no reason why several, small-scale changes cannot be applied to the way we work, so the design team can evaluate ideas in real time and make more informed choices. In many industries, despite Aviation Business Journal | 4th Quarter 2016 a stated interest in gathering ideas to improve organizational processes, many of those ideas are squashed by the weight of bureaucracy demanding that any idea be vetted by manage- ment, and then only after it has been submitted according to a template, and by the proper reporting chan- nels. Instead of creating roadblocks to idea testing, the implementation (sometimes called iteration) phase of design thinking is focused on proto- typing for incremental improvement of the experience for end users. For traditional designers, this phase is all about showing, not telling, even if the final direction is still a bit unclear. That means users have a chance to in- teract with early prototypes, provide valuable feedback, and then drive the rapid progression toward a solution that meets their particular needs. It may be useful in this phase to think about proto-experiences, rather than prototypes, given that the focus is on organizational design. Designers can spend almost as much time thinking about how a design can be best evalu- ated as they do on the design, because priming the experience to create the best opportunities for feedback is im- portant to the user-centered philoso- phy. For organizational design, the process may not move as quickly, but many opportunities for testing imple- mentation of new processes, proce- dures, or ideas still exist. Whether seeking an improved product or a process, it is important that designers don’t fall in love with their prototypes. Keep in mind that rapid prototyping and testing is part of the innovation process, so a lot of “first” attempts will end up on the cutting room floor. Design thinking for safety Design thinking provides systems- level solutions to systems-based problems. Because of that distinc- tion, expecting that design thinking is a methodology – like Six Sigma or Total Quality Management – that can be applied rather than integrated is setting yourself up for disappoint- ment. Design thinking, as the name suggests, is a shift in the way design- ers create knowledge and solutions. Just as implementing safety manage- ment systems continues to require a few radical thought changes, design thinking inspires by throwing our old systems off balance. Design think- ing addresses one of the primary reasons many firms struggle mightily with implementing safety manage- ment systems that actually work: systems are designed for work as managers think it is done, and not with the end user’s needs in mind. Let’s explore some examples of how design thinking might be used for improving organizational safety. Example 1 Imagine we’d like to plan and implement a safety reporting system within a maintenance department. Traditionally, senior managers might simply identify budget constraints before adapting an existing idea from a similar organization (like borrow- ing another company’s forms and replacing the logos), placing some reporting forms near a safety bulletin board, and then telling the mainte- nance team to submit reports. A year later, we’ll all discuss why reports aren’t being filed, and we might Continued on page 23 21
