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Design thinking is another critical skill to develop and nurture for most of us trying to be dreamer doers in the crowd. There is a lot we can learn from professional designers and their tools to improve the way we innovate and manage in companies. Here is one such dose of advice from  Alan Smith from The Movement (as shared by a friend)

No Parking Policy:

The best class I had in design school was a class called “Design Thinking” with a fabulous professor named Mary Ann Maruska. The best comment I ever got in that class was on a project redesigning a “tow-away zone” sign.

As soon as we got the brief – that instant -I had this bloody brilliant idea of bending the sign-pole at its base and putting a hook through the circle in the “no parking” sign literally towing the sign away.

Brilliant no? What you don’t get it? That’s ok, most people didn’t. I was in love with this idea though!!!! It was so sweet!!! I’ve done X Y and Z right from a theoretical perspective and damn that’s hot!!! I shared it with fellow students. 8/10 times: “ummm”. I thought: “pfff. Another dimwit. I’m brilliant. That’s ok that they don’t get it. Everyone with a brain will.”

The course required that you create 10 alternatives, so I half-heartedly went through the process. I made them because I had to. Teacher says so. Jokes on her though, these crap solutions would enforce my Eureka sign and everyone would get it then!

As a young foolish student, my post project-reflection read: “I think my first idea is generally the best for any project. ”

Mary Ann’s Response : “Really? This must be your first idea on ideas.” Went right over my head. But I think I get it now.

Creating alternatives is not just about verifying an idea you like, its about finding one that’s better, more appropriate, more interesting, or that leads to something better. Most of all, its about letting go.

This ability to let go dies hard, and with each new field / exercise you enter it comes back without you noticing.

Moving into business model design, I see myself making the same mistakes I made entering graphic design, and afterwards as a systems designer, furniture, motion graphics, web-architecture, management, entrepreneurship, etc…

Like a boxer, you can trust the process like you’d trust a coach. Run the drills knowing that they’ll give you value your weaknesses would not allow you to create. Better yet, you’ll also train those weaknesses out over time.

When you’re new to something, follow medium specific exercises and processes like you follow street-signs. You’ll end up arriving at incredible results you never could have found otherwise.

Or, you could just park one idea and hope it doesn’t get towed away by the first person who see’s through it.

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Mostly, enforcing any method to the madness of innovation is seen as a bureaucratic, time consuming, unrealistic and  boring element of organizational design. But, systemic and design thinking have consistently delivered highest value for any dream doing – be it Man on the Moon or Cloud Computing!

Is it good to have a dream parking policy? More so, isn’t it good to do something about it – before getting towed away?

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Collaboration strategies are very important ingredients of high performing organizations. Many successful companies adopt most of these as a routine functioning mechanism to  reinforce high performance as necessary behavior within their organization.

Knowing them is the first step in knitting a compelling bondage between desire and associated action. Here is a compilation of 17 such strategies – pearls of wisdom borrowed from Boom! – Blowing off Business as Usual. This was used in a workshop to bring relevance to a change management initiative.