Design A Better Business

Whether you're a business leader, aspiring entrepreneur, corporate innovator, growth investor, social impact change agent or enterprising student, Design a Better Business is the comprehensive guide to the new tools, skills and mindsets required to master ambiguity and create value from uncertainty.

Design a Better Business introduces readers to the double loop design process, a practical approach to creating and growing value using collaborative and generative practices that anyone can learn and immediately try with their organizations. You'll learn personal insights from thought leaders such as Steve Blank on innovation, Alex Osterwalder on business models, Nancy Duarte on storytelling, and Rob Fitzpatrick on questioning, among others.

With detailed visual guides to over 20 strategic tools and 48 case studies and real life examples from large corporations such as ING Bank, Audi, Autodesk, and Toyota Financial Services, to small startups, incubators, and social impact organizations, Design a Better Business is the most comprehensive and practical guide on how to launch and sustain innovation as a discipline in your organization.

• Introduction
• Prepare
• Intro: Every Journey Starts With Preparation
• Prepare Your Team
• Prepare Your Environment
• Skill: Master Facilitation
• Skill: Managing Energy
• Tool: Prepare How You Work (Together)
• Tool: Screenplays
• Tool: Team Character
• Point of View
• Intro: Your Point of View
• Skill: Dare to Stand Up
• Tool: Your Vision of the Future
• Tool: 5 Bold Steps Vision^® Canvas
• Case. Sharing the Vision of ING Bank
• Tool: Cover Story Vision^® Canvas
• Tool: Design Criteria
• Tool: Storytelling Canvas
• Case: Telling the Story of Audi
• Understand
• Intro: Seek to Understand
• Skill: Master Observation
• Skill: Master Questioning
• Case: Wavin Loves Plumbers
• Tool: Customer Journey Canvas
• Tool: Value Proposition Canvas
• Tool: Context Canvas^®
• Tool: Business Model Canvas
• Ideate
• Intro: Become a Creative Genius
• Skill: Master Ideation
• Case: Toyota Financial Services and the Big Idea
• Tool: Creative Matrix
• Tool: Business Model Canvas Ideation
• Tool: Innovation Matrix
• Prototype
• Intro: The Maker Mindset
• Skill: Master Prototyping
• Case: Autodesk Prototypes the Future
• Tool: Sketching
• Tool: Paper Prototyping
• Validate
• Intro: Kill Your Darlings
• Skill: Master Validation
• Case: Gosparc, Master of the Pivot
• Case: Onetab, Pivot to Victory
• Tool: Riskiest Assumption Canvas
• Tool: Experiment Canvas
• Tool: Validation Vanvas
• Scale
• Intro: When to Scale
• The Continuum of Scale
• Case: Different Ways to Scale
• Case: Matter, The Design-Driven Accelerator
• Case: Mastering Business Ambiguity CCA
• Tool: Investment readiness Level

First impression was confusion, extremely disorganised book. Then I started finding interesting canvases (I have a soft spot for these) mixed with old stuff from other books. Then when reading it closer, I found a lot of disconnect from the corporate work (or rather, more of Millenial distaste), which made it harder to digest and understand. The total lack of focus, except on telling people thast they have to iterate their thought processes (duh) made it a book that hadn't much value to enhance an experienced reader. For newcomers to Design Thinking (for this is what is behind the book), it lacks both a focus and coverage and you may need to brush up on other books before attempting to read this.

All in all, the book has potential, that it unfortunately fails to live up to.