Design Thinking for Strategic Innovation

I picked up this book because of its beautiful design, and also because I own a small business and value strategy, but am not familiar with “design thinking” and hoped this would be a good primer. The subtitle, “what they can't teach you at business or design school,” gave me hope that it would be a high-level introduction to a new topic.

Well, it is high-level, perhaps to a fault. My impression is that it's written for executives or managers rather than practitioners, and deals primarily with the “why” (the benefits of “design thinking”) with some emphasis on the “what” (a sometimes-clear exploration of what design thinking actually is, though I was still a bit fuzzy at the end of the book), and very little about the “how.”

My disappointment with the book is probably a case of audience mismatch. I'm a mix of in-the-trenches practitioner and small biz owner, so I'm looking first and foremost for practical applications of interesting ideas. This book celebrates the ideas themselves, and as a result (and due to the formal writing style), I had a hard time staying focused on the content. I would have appreciated more concrete examples (there were some, but they were few and far between).

But speaking of the content: it is beautiful. The design of the book is fantastic, and left me feeling happier about the effort of reading the text. Lovely as the design is, though, I wish I found the writing as delightful.