Design thinking is an innovation approach that emphasizes developing and testing hypotheses about the desirability, feasibility, and viability of an idea through iterative experimentation. Although widely used, there is limited empirical evidence to support the effectiveness of experimentation practices in design thinking projects. Similarly, the impact of integrating digital technologies into experimentation processes remains underexplored. This study addresses these gaps by analyzing data from 246 design thinking projects to examine how early and frequent experimentation influences innovation performance, specifically in terms of effectiveness and efficiency. It also examines how the use of digital technologies moderates these relationships. The results show that both early and frequent experimentation positively influence innovation effectiveness, while only early experimentation significantly improves innovation efficiency. Moreover, the use of digital technologies strengthens the positive effects of early experimentation on both effectiveness and efficiency. This research provides valuable theoretical and practical insights by deepening our understanding of how experimentation and digital tools drive innovation performance in design thinking projects.@en

Purpose
Design thinking is widely recognized as an effective problem-solving approach in the professional and academic world, albeit with varying interpretations. It has been studied in multiple forms – as a tool, a practice, a skill and a mindset – leading to ongoing debates about its fundamental nature. This study aims to explore the use of design thinking in practice and determine how its application varies depending on the characteristics of the innovation projects, namely, the types of goals pursued and the level of uncertainty involved.

Design/methodology/approach
Using a survey methodology and a knowledge-intensive empirical setting, this study analyzes a data set of 221 innovation consulting projects based on design thinking conducted by European consulting firms and design agencies.

Findings
By analyzing the survey data, the authors identify six distinct sets of design thinking practices: discovering user needs, understanding the problem addressed, challenging existing assumptions, navigating the problem-solution pair, ideating through visualizations and learning through prototypes. The authors also identify configurations of these design thinking practices that are used to address different innovation project goals and levels of uncertainty.

Practical implications
The study draws attention to the need for design thinking practitioners to be aware of how different innovation project goals and levels of uncertainty can be pursued/addressed through the use of alternative configurations of design thinking practices.

Originality/value
To the best of the authors knowledge, this study is one of the first large-scale quantitative analyses of the nature of design thinking in action, providing a solid foundation for future research on design thinking.@en

Scholars and practitioners acknowledge the role of design, and specifically design thinking, as a driver of innovation and change. Design thinking is gaining attention in the business community beyond the traditional product innovation realm and is increasingly promoted as an engine for the creation of novel user experiences, new businesses, strategic transformation, organizational and cultural change. Is it reasonable to assume that the same set of practices fits such a broad range of applications equally well? This study addresses how design thinking applications are differently framed when addressing diverse innovation purposes. Specifically, we compare two purposes: innovation of solutions, encompassing traditional product and service development projects, and innovation of direction, encompassing strategic and organizational renewal projects. Based on data collected from 146 design thinking projects conducted by European consulting firms we investigate the relationships between the design thinking practices adopted and the value generated by the projects. We then analyze how these relationships vary depending on the purpose of the innovation project, namely whether focused on innovating solutions or direction. The results show that different purposes indeed call for different practices. In projects aimed at innovating solutions, market value is positively related to capturing current user needs and envisioning future society. Conversely, in projects aimed at innovating direction, market value is positively related to challenging current assumptions.

@en