4 kinds of Design Thinking

The comparison of the 4 kinds of Design Thinking provides interesting evidence along five dimensions: principles, practices, diffusion, relevance, and domains. The 47 organizations providing advisory services based on the Design Thinking paradigm highlight different behaviors in adopting the four kinds of Design Thinking. On average, each service provider proposes services based on 1.96 of the 4 approaches; only 3 service providers manage all 4 kinds of Design Thinking (6.4%), while 14 service providers concentrate their offering on a single approach (29.8%). The Creative Problem Solving approach is the most diffused: 38 out of 47 service providers adopt this kind of Design Thinking (81%), while the Creative Confidence and the Innovation of Meaning approaches are the least adopted: 16 out of 47 service providers adopt these kinds of Design Thinking (34% each). Similarly, the relevance of each kind of Design Thinking shows different evidence across the approaches. 22 service providers concentrate their offering on the Creative Problem Solving approach (47%). Focusing on the 38 organizations that adopt this kind of Design Thinking, on average, they obtain 65.5% of annual revenues providing advisory services based on the Creative Problem Solving approach. The Sprint Execution approach is adopted by 6 service providers as a core approach (13%); the 23 service adopters that also base their offering on this kind of Design Thinking on average obtain 47.6% of annual revenues through applying the Sprint Execution approach. The Creative Confidence and Innovation of Meaning approaches show similar evidence in terms of relevance. Only 4 service providers apply these as core approaches (9%). Focusing on the 16 organizations that adopt these kinds of Design Thinking, on average, they obtain respectively 35.0% and 34.7% of annual revenues providing advisory services based on the Creative Confidence and Innovation of Meaning approaches.