Pantry the Process to Design Thinking

So...what's the deal with this thing, Design Thinking, you ask. 

Well, there are actually a few different approaches to Design Thinking, but all of them feature three key elements: Empathy, Brainstorming, and Testing. To better understand why these aspects of Design Thinking are so crucial, let's explore the pantry.

Your comfort foods and my comfort foods may not be the same. You might prefer healthy options such as corn chowder with oyster crackers and a few slices of fresh vegetables on the side, all washed down with a hot cup of lavender chamomile tea. I, in contrast, may be perfectly happy with lavender chamomile tea, but my go to meal might be macaroni and cheese with a brownie for dessert. 

These meal examples are very different, and you and I may disagree strongly about what counts as comfort food. If we look at things through a Design Thinking framework, however, we can each take a step back and try to understand one another's choices. To do so, we might try to think empathically. So when I look at your ultra-healthy go-to options, I could see your point that foods can be comforting without carrying a huge number of calories. You, on the other hand, might understand that for me, carbohydrates and rich flavors are soothing. We need not agree with one another, but we can each empathize with the other's preferences.

Our next vital step in Design Thinking is Brainstorming. If we continue the pantry analogy, we might put our heads together to come up with some options with which we can both agree for a single meal, such as breakfast. Together we might recognize that we both like pancakes with real maple syrup, we both like blueberry muffins, and we both like yogurt with a sprinkle of granola mixed in. We could then compromise. Your desire for healthy choices is addressed by the inclusion of yogurt, granola, and real maple syrup while my hankering for carbohydrates is sated with pancakes and blueberry muffins. With what seems like a happy medium, we could then test out our initial ideas.

But perhaps after we test the initial breakfast idea, we decide that something just isn't quite right because the caffeine is missing and both of us forgot that our workday mornings are too busy for baking and flipping pancakes. Together, we might test out another set of options that might work better.

Finally, after a few rounds of testing, we come to an agreement for a quick, a little bit healthy, a little bit indulgent breakfast we can both live with.