What is the difference between Service Design Thinking vs Lean

Hi Bozhana, 

That is such a good question and I have recently started researching on it, because one of the biggest legal companies after applying Lean Six Sigma, Agile and Prince 2 in its businesses, now has started using the Design thinking methodology. 

Basically, Design thinking is a human-centred and creative approach for developing and delivering innovative ideas and solutions to problems. It picks up tools originally used by product designers to develop end-user focused designs. 

While Lean 5 phases are: Preparation, Diagnosis, Design, Implementation and Continuous Improvement,

the Design thinking 6 phases are:

1. Frame a question

2. Gather inspiration

3. Generate ideas

4. Make ideas tangible 

5. Test to learn

6. Share the story

Personally, I would say that the design thinking is even one step further than Lean to focus on the soft-skills element at the team-work. Design thinking (you can read thoroughly on the site of the company that has created it- IDEO) is not a linear path. It’s a big mass of looping back to different places in the process.

At the end, the whole idea of the exercise is to solve challenges and find opportunities to differentiate the business/services, to cultivate customer loyalty, and create sustained business value.

What I like is that it integrates the needs of people, the possibilities of technology, and the requirements for business success.

I cannot wait to have the opportunity to try it in the real example and make my hands dirty as until now I was just observing.

Hope that gives a little bit of clarification. Happy to discuss it with you more.

Marieta