I was watching this military strategy documentary, called “BattlePlan” where they revisits various historical battles that features the battle plan/tactics that are being discussed, for example, a blockage, an amphibious assault, a Siege, etc….

In BattlePlan, they break down the entire operation into phases with specific prerequisites in order for the plan to work, to the kindda preparation required, the circumstances that would allow the operation to go forward, the actual operation and the ultimate objective / exit strategy which they can convert from lets say a defensive battle into a counter attack, or a amphibious landing into a break out, etc… And of course, this is in true military style like what we always do in the Singapore Armed Forces – we are always very decisive and clear about our objectives.

The most important part of all operations in my opinion is the “Objective” ( Military Objective / Exit Strategy / Political Objective) – specifically the Political Victory.

In relate to the world of business and design, that is the Strategic Objective. It is easy to say, let throw our technologically advanced military into Vietnam to fight this rudimentary militias. But the lack of a Strategic Objective made it a lost cause despite the amount of great battles and tactical victories.

Like a handphone manufacturer can create a breed of cheap mobiles to fight against the might of Apple’s iPhone and Samsung’s Android, perhaps it may gain some initial success due to their cheap price (tactical victory); but as the time goes by, without a follow up or a strategy to build on the gains, and an ultimate strategic objective to fight towards – the manufacturer is destined for doom.

A good example is Creative’s mp3 battle against Apple’s ipod. By the time Creative declared war on Apple that it will go all out in the mp3 market, iPod had already controlled 70% of the market share. Creative did not have a technological advantage over Apple, its products are not better technologically or in design, nor did Creative have the distribution power and branding to carry its products to market. What it led to was a bloodbath, which Creative had not got out of that slump since. While Creative is fighting to win tactical battles (which they also lost), Apple had already developing iPod Touch, which is also the precursor to the iPhone. Creative did not have an overall strategy, they spread their product lines too thin (while Apple have only 1 product) and did not have a “super product” or “evolution” at the end of the tunnel.

And this leads to my concept of Design Thinking. In Design Thinking, we always like to say “Human-Centric Design” or “Designing with the End User in Mind” – actually, its not that. Design Thinking is to design towards a “Strategic Victory” or “Strategic Objective”.

In the iPod, it was just the first step towards building something with a screen, which is iTouch. iTouch itself is a drastically different product, one which is like a PDA but better. And iTouch leads to iPhone, the adding of the phone function basically made all phones obsolete. This is Design Thinking in action.

Design Thinking without the “Strategic Objective” is not Design Thinking, its simply Designing. It could have been Human Centric Design, Service Design, UX Design, etc… But its not Design Thinking in its fullest or broadest sense. Perhaps, Design Thinking isnt even the word to describe this. Since Design Thinking is just describing the process of which how Design conceptualise and solve problems. Just that for designers, we always solves the problem with the end in mind; not solving everything that comes in our path as we go.

Thus as a result, if we want to brand our design process and thinking pattern into something that sums up everything it is ultimate sense – then the “end” part have to serve a higher purpose – a more strategic purpose.

Thats just how I see it…