Loading

Embracing Design Thinking in medium-sized enterprises

Small and medium-sized enterprises are important drivers for innovation and technological progress. They play a central role in our modern economy. However, to stay competitive they need to engage in digital transformation processes and rethink their business models. How are SMEs applying Design Thinking to foster their innovative character? At the d.confestival Mito Mihelic shared the story of how Viessmann integrates Design Thinking into the company.

Viessmann has been implementing Design Thinking for almost three years now. How did the journey of implementing Design Thinking at Viessmann start? Who initiated it and why? How did you become part of it?

Max Viessmann, who is now the Co-CEO and who used to be the new Chief Technology Officer back then, realized that Design Thinking might be a very efficient and, I am quoting him, a “relatively low-cost solution” to transform the company culture. He wanted to bring together people, who normally don’t work together within the company, to collaborate, share their knowledge and experiences. And he wanted to raise awareness about our users, such as B2B (installers) and especially B2C (end customer) customers among employees.

I came to Viessmann because I a saw a really inspiring job description for a Head of Design Thinking position. I did not know our product portfolio back then but I applied because I wanted to do more than just facilitating workshops. I always wanted to know what it is like to apply Design Thinking in a company on a long-term basis, as well as using it for collaboration across departments.

What does your process of implementing Design Thinking look like? How did employees react?

At Viessmann we apply the Design Thinking methodology similar to how it is practiced at Hasso Plattner Institute. We use it as a way to get people together in teams, to time-box them and make sure everybody delivers at the same time; to have a modus operandi for our way of working, with a coach guiding a team of preferably five to six people.

Employees really liked Design Thinking due to its new approach, something they have not tried before. Design Thinking challenges them by generating questions, resulting into awareness of the stakeholders in different parts of our supply chain. Before we started applying Design Thinking, we mainly focused on the product and its distribution to installers. Once we sold our product, the story was more or less done for us.

Today, employees are more aware of the fact that someone is actually using the product and they consequently focus more on finding customers’ potential wishes and needs. For example, when it comes to heating devices, maybe we do not need to go for five additional room temperature programs but five in total? This awareness of the end customer was brought into the organization also by Design Thinking.

The second change Design Thinking brought into the company is the way people work together. Design Thinking showed them that it is not only the status quo that dictates their work processes. That it is not only the notion of “because we have always done it that way” that counts, but also a chance for people to try out something new and fun, however still considered as work.

After our Design Thinking workshops, some colleagues say: “It has been a long day and I am totally exhausted. It did not seem like work, but if I am tired it proofs we did quite some work.” This notion gave people trust in the approach.

But I also cut some of the “funky” parts of Design Thinking. I started with a very colorful approach but reduced it a little bit. I removed some warm-ups, kept some energizers, and from the content perspective - focused less on personas generation in favor of avoiding clichés, stereotypes and early assumptions. To do so, we established different, longer lasting processes, based on longer research. However, Design Thinking is still used for preliminary phases.

I would say that Design Thinking went through some kind of evolution within Viessmann, resulting in its acceptance. Of course there are still some people who tried it and it did not work for them. However, we encourage them to repeat the process because we want to find out why it did not work. But sometimes we also face the consequence of someone not adoring Design Thinking and that is okay as well.

What challenges did you face in the process? What surprised you most? And what has changed since you first applied Design Thinking?

Expectation management was the first big challenge we had to go through. It is difficult to brief people on organizational change. Of course, they want to see results of their work. But since our product development cycle is very long, it is very difficult to directly see what the change process brought.

Therefore, we reframed our approach to applying Design Thinking a little bit, using it to generate needs rather than solutions. And this worked well. For example, we used it at ISH Frankfurt, one of the biggest trade fairs for water and energy management in buildings. There, we generated a lot of interesting insights. It gave people trust in Design Thinking as an approach worth using.

It would be too optimistic to say that we have already integrated it as a mindset. But we are definitely going there. And it already is a part of our company culture, at least in the headquarters.

What is your vision for this transformation process? What role should Design Thinking play at Viessmann in the future?

My vision is that we don’t notice Design Thinking as a new approach any more. That it is not even called Design Thinking. I know I am endangering my own position by saying that, but I am fine with that. It is like good music in a good movie, it creates an atmosphere but you don’t actively notice it. It is the same within the company. Design Thinking becomes incorporated, people use it, have a raised awareness as a consequence, without knowing they are actually doing Design Thinking.

In general, how important do you think is this cultural change and the ability to rethink traditional business models for medium-sized enterprises?

It is more important than people think! People often say “our company is growing, we have been doing our business for decades now, we are successful, why should we change?” If I paraphrase a German proverb that it's not big animals that eat small ones, rather fast animals eating slow ones, I think what really has to change are the rhythm and pace of companies. Because the world is changing so fast, customer needs are changing fast, the way customers perceive products changes.

That is why Design Thinking is beneficial. It gives you very fast answers in basically zero time. These answers might not be the final ones but at least they catch up with the rhythm of change. Whether this means an iteration of products, or an iteration of processes, is something a company has to decide. But an awareness of that exponential speed of change should be the biggest concern of the formerly steady and still steady German companies. I am not sure if they will still be as steady in ten years if they don’t change.

Thank you!

After co-founding an innovation agency with a wide portfolio of clients, from educational institutions, over NGOs to medium-sized companies and large-scale corporations, Mito Mihelic became Head of Design Thinking at Viessmann Group, one of the leading international manufacturers of heating, industrial and cooling systems. He is responsible for the roll out of the Design Thinking mindset, co-creation of cultural change within the traditional ‘‘mittelstand’’ environment as well as boosting employees’ creative confidence when facing either existing or new initiatives. Finished his diploma in fine arts and design, he continued at the HPI D-School, where he always likes to return when occasionally coaching at the HPI Academy. He is a lecturer at the Anhalt University of Applied Sciences in Dessau, former Bauhaus Campus.

Credits:

HPI School of Design Thinking / Kay Herschelmann. (The copyrights for images are held by the HPI School of Design Thinking. Images may only be used with reference to the source.)

Report Abuse

If you feel that this video content violates the Adobe Terms of Use, you may report this content by filling out this quick form.

To report a copyright violation, please follow the DMCA section in the Terms of Use.