This month's HBR's Issue explored "The Evolution of Design Thinking," and yet much of the business world isn't sure how to actually apply this tool to a company's work. Alli McKee brings together the best of design (Stanford + IDEO.org alum) and business (Bain & Co. + Stanford GSB) to break it down into six measurable steps.

1. THE
SIX STEPS
OF DESIGN
THINKINGIT’S NO LONGER JUST FOR
THE TURTLENECK TYPES.
USE VISUAL TOOLS
TO MEASURE AND
MAKE IT REAL,
FINALLY.
BY ALLI MCKEE

2. TM
www.visualdesignthinking.co | @LearnGlyph
A Workshop to Build Creative Confidence with Visual Thinking
Alli McKee, Stanford and IDEO.org alum
GET IN THE RIGHT HEADSPACE Ÿ NO, YOU DON’T
YES,WE’LLLETYOUMEASURE(SOMEOF)ITŸ
HAVETOWALLOWINAMBIGUITYŸ
NO,CREATIVITYISNOTAGIFTŸ

3. VISUAL
DESIGN
THINKING
TM
Source: Process trademarked by Blot, inc. August 2015
SIX VISUAL STEPS TO MAKE IT FEEL REAL, FINALLY.
Whether you’re building a new product, starting a business, or
developing a deck for a client, this is a process that you can use to
manage just about any project requiring creativity and innovation.
(Today, that’s everything.)

4. VISION
DEVELOP A MEASURABLE
This isn’t your ordinary vision-
setting exercise. It’s oriented around
quantifying the value at stake,
setting clear targets, and
understanding how you are going
to measure success once you get
there. This step is about qualifying
and quantifying why you do what
you do.

5. INVENTORY
BUILD AN INFORMATION
This is the fun part. Depending on your vision, you will
amass a collection of primary research (talking to people)
and secondary research (lit search and of course, Google).
You’ll be searching for existing best practices (what are
others doing?), your experience (what have we done in the
past?), and your imagination (what could we do?). You are
ruthlessly collecting and organizing information.

6. SYNTHESIZE
SOLVE AND
Creativity is not a gift. It is not a talent. It is not magic. It is a
clear and deliberate process of making connections between
two, three, four ideas that have never been connected before.
By laying out your inventory visually (at IDEO we use giant
black foam core panels and Post-its), you’re able to more
easily make these connections to invent ideas. To give your
new idea shape, you will build a prototype to test.

7. UNDERSTANDTHE USER
Time to test it with a user. Not your friend. Not your coworker. A real
user. Making them pay gives you better data than a survey. You want
the bad news faster to save you time and money down the line. The
faster you can fail, the better, so hand over your idea and open
yourself up to that raw, honest feedback from a paying customer.

8. AGAIN!Get back on the horse. Another cycle
of Inventory building, Synthesizing,
and Understanding. Now, Adapt!

9. LAUNCHAND LEAD
You’re done! Actually, your work has just
begun. Launching is about selling your
idea in a compelling way to achieve scale.
Remember those metrics from your
Vision stage? Time to pull them out, and
start building your dashboard.

10. TM
www.VisualDesignThinking.co
@LearnGlyph
Alli.McKee@Gmail.com
nspiration and Sources: Harvard Business Review September cover; Headspace logo

11. Alli McKee is an entrepreneur and an artist from Virginia in the US. At the University of Virginia, she studied Studio Art and
American Studies before earning a Masters degree in Marketing and Management. After starting two companies in school,
she started her corporate career at Bain & Company working for Fortune 500 companies in various industries, from
Casino Retail to Consumer Packaged Goods.
After Bain, Alli moved to Johannesburg, South Africa to teach Entrepreneurial Leadership and Creative Arts at African
Leadership Academy. At ALA, she ran the Student Enterprise Incubator Program, which housed 18 businesses with student
entrepreneurs from 44 different countries.
Alli is currently an entrepreneur and a student in Stanford’s MBA/MA Education program working on her first book on
visual leadership entitled See to be Seen. This year through Stanford d.school’s Launchpad program, she founded Blot, inc.
with the mission of making people more creative and connected in their work. She is now giving workshops in different
countries teaching skills at the intersection of creativity, communication, and commerce and hopes to develop the next
generation of visual leaders around the world.