It is impossible to ignore the fact that technology is changing how we live our lives. But technology alone isn’t the silver bullet that leads to breakthrough innovations. Exploring and identifying the right problem to solve is a critical component in the innovation process as well.

On the opening day of the d.confestival, SAP’s Chief Design Officer Sam Yen enters the manege of the d.circus to reflect on 12 years of Design Thinking at SAP.

The software multinational is one of the pioneers in implementing Design Thinking in its organization. The company uses empathy and human-centered design principles to discover problems worth solving.

“Design Thinking brings purpose to what I do”, Sam Yen states. But how can the innovation approach bring purpose into technology? By offering a chance to humanize it. Technology can only be truly innovative if you keep in mind the human you are designing and developing for.

He quotes the Design Value Index which measures a correlation of design-centered companies and their corporate performance. It shows that design-centered companies have significantly outperformed other companies over the last ten years. Therefore, Sam Yen is on a mission to explain the value of design to organizations all over the globe.

Sam Yen illustrates what is at the core of innovation in his view.

“One way to think of creativity is problem finding. Identifying the problem worth solving is what often leads to breakthrough innovations.”

This is best done in multidisciplinary teams as different perspectives help you find the right problem.

Looking ahead, for Sam Yen, the next big question for Design Thinking is: How do you transport innovation culture into organizations that are under a lot of economic stress? How can the barriers to innovation culture be removed? He thinks communities of practice such as Design@Business can bring us forward, suggesting it is always beneficial to interact with organizations that are on the same journey.

Before Sam Yen closes his talk, he takes a moment to honor the seven generations of Design Thinking pioneers that are almost all present at the d.circus this morning: Bernie Roth, Co-Founder of the d.school Stanford; Larry Leifer, Director of the Hasso Plattner Design Thinking Research Program at Stanford University; David Kelley and George Kembel, Co-Founders of the d.school Stanford; Uli Weinberg, Director of the HPI D-School Potsdam, and Hasso Plattner, Founder and benefactor of the D-Schools in Stanford, Potsdam and Cape Town. Of course, the eighth generation is in the room too, preparing to design think the future.