From Design Thinking to Creative Intelligence

Some fans of Design Thinking got very excited about the references to design thinking in the US Army Field Manual 5-0: The Operations Process (pdf), published in March 2010, where design is described as a kind of sensemaking or orientation process - an intelligent front-end to the real business of decision making and action.

the importance of understanding complex problems more fully before we seek to solve them through our traditional planning processes ... applying design to understand before entering the visualize, describe, direct, lead, and assess cycle.

Thus design is part of the intelligence loop (rather than the other way around). See also @EllenNaylor on Design Thinking for Strategic Competitive Advantage.

In April 2011, Bruce Nussbaum, described as "one of Design Thinking’s biggest advocates" posted a blog entitled Design Thinking Is A Failed Experiment. So What’s Next? His answer: Creative Intelligence, the ability to frame problems in new ways and to make original solutions.

On the one hand, Nussbaum dreams that that his godchild will win admission to a top university on the strength not only of her IQ but also her creative intelligence - in other words, seeing creative intelligence as an attribute of individual genius. On the other hand, he wants to frame creative intelligence not in terms of a psychological approach of development stages but a sociological approach in which creativity emerges from group activity - in other words, seeing creative intelligence as an attribute of a group or organization, not just the individuals within it.

See further commentary by Tom Berno, Cameron D Norman, Erica Schlaikjer.

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