It Is About "Design Thinking"

Source: https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/5-stages-in-the-design-thinking-process

What is Design Thinking and Why?

Design Thinking is a methodology used by designers to solve complex problems, and find desirable, practical, creative resolution to the clients. A design mindset is not problem focused but  solution focused and acting towards creating a preferred future.

Thinking like a designer can change or enhance the way organizations develop products, services, processes or even strategy. It can bring together what is desirable from a human point of view with what is technologically feasible and economically viable.

Source: https://www.ideou.com/pages/design-thinking

5 Stages of Design Thinking Process ?

The design thinking process has various stages including:

• Empathize
• Define
• Ideate
• Prototyping
• Testing 

The steps can occur simultaneously and be repeated.

Empathize

The first step of the design thinking process it to gain understanding or empathize about the problem you are going to solve. Empathy allows design thinkers to set aside his or her own assumptions about the world in order to gain insight into customers and their needs. 

This can be achieved by speaking to the subject matter experts to gain more knowledge about the domain or observing the problem area or even talking and empathizing with people who are experiencing the matter.

Adding my opinion in to this, in requirements gathering I always believe that you need to act dumb to get the information well. This helps you to go in to the shoes of the stakeholder and think about the problem and feel the problem.

Define

During this stage, put together the information gathered during the earlier stage and analyse your observations and synthesize them in order to define the core problems that you and your team have identified. Generate the problem statement.

This stage will help the team to gather great ideas to establish features, functions, and any other elements that will allow them to solve the problems.

Ideate

This means forming or generating ideas. With this solid background formed at the first two stages (Empathize and Define) your now ready to  'think outside the box' to identify new solutions to the problem statement you’ve created, and you can start to look for alternative ways of viewing the problem.

Idea generation can be done by using the below techniques:

• Brainstorming
• Brain-write
• Worst Possible Idea
• Scamper

Brainstorm and Worst Possible Idea sessions are used to stimulate free thinking and to expand the problem.

You should pick some other idea generating techniques such as focus groups work shops by the end of this phase to help you investigate and test your ideas to find the best way to either solve a problem, or provide the elements required to circumvent the problem.

Always talk of what you believe that should  be there in the system, standing in the customers shoes. Do not ignore any idea but consider every possibility in order to create the best value to the customer. Remember they pay you for this system and you should create value for it. Not to forget the rework you would have to do if you do a unsatisfied/ lame business, it is better to think and do the best as possible in one go. 

Prototype

The aim of this stage is to identify the best possible solution for each of the problems identified during the Empathize, Define and Ideate stages. The prototype do not have to be a half baked application all the time but a user interface narration or even sets of UIs would be enough for this stage. The solutions are implemented as prototypes and are investigated to accepted, improved and re-examined or rejected on the basis of the user experiences. 

By the end of this stage, you should have a better idea of the constraints inherent within the product, the problems that are present, and have a better understanding of how real users would interact with the end product.

Do not forget to consider the UX aspects of the User interfaces (UIs). The age groups of the users, thinking pattern, likes and dislikes to colors and every other small detail. Try to use the standards when designing the UIs.

Test

Test teams should test the complete product using the best solutions identified during the prototyping phase. This is the final stage of an iterative process.

The test he results generated during the testing phase are often used to define the problems. Alterations and refinements are made to the prototype even in this stage in order to rule out problem solutions and derive as deep an understanding of the product and its users as possible.

The results from the testing phase may reveal some insights about users, which in turn may lead to another idea generation or the development of new prototypes. and this is why design thinking is non linear and more flexible in practice.

Source: https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/5-stages-in-the-design-thinking-process

Ex: More than one stage may be conducted concurrently by different individuals/groups within the team, or the designers may collect information and prototype during the entire project so as to enable them to bring their ideas to life and visualize the problem solutions. Or as I mentioned testing phase may reveal some insights about users, which in turn may lead to another idea generation or the development of new prototypes.

Below is a great framework to be used for Design Thinking as per my understanding:

Source: https://www.creativityatwork.com/design-thinking-strategy-for-innovation/