TeamFit supports the Design Thinking Group on LinkedIn. We do this as part of our commitment to global skill development in areas that can transform people's careers, companies and entire economies.

In August we began a simple survey that all new members are invited to take. The group continues to grow quickly, and now has more than 98,000 members.

You can take this four minute survey here.There were 82 responses as of the morning of Sept. 2. Here is a summary of the results. We will post monthly updates to this survey for at least the next year.

Q1 Why are you interested in design thinking?

(Responses as on Sept. 2, 2017)

Here is a tag cloud of the answers (not all that informative I think).

And here are some of the responses that caught my eye.

"I am interested in how design thinking can make French public service more efficient, while making work more rewarding for civil servants."

"I have used design thinking for social purposes, working with NFP orgs to find solutions to difficult public problems i.e. reducing crime, dealing with early school leaving rates, youth unemployment. People experiencing these problems are closest to the solution, and design thinking allows for their voices to be heard and strategically developed ideas to percolate to key officials with the power to fund change programs."

"I'm a passenger on our living spaceship hurtling through space. Every day I choose to believe humanity can rise to the challenge of tackling our <wicked problems>.. And certainly Design Thinking provides an approach and crucial toolkit of ideas I consider essential to mounting an assault on the many seemingly unassailable challenges we face on this our fragile home."

"I'm an engineer by degree but designer by passion. I believe in understanding the people I design for in order to make an appropriate impact. I want to design and build products that affect the lives of the masses and help in the upliftment of the backward, especially in countries like mine (India), by solving problems caused due to inherent bad design. I hope by joining this group, I'll be able to understand how other designers solve such problems with out of the box thinking.

"Scroll down to the bottom to read through all responses.

Q2 What role do you play in design thinking?

The two largest roles are UX (no surprize) and Service Design (underlining the strength of the service design trend). Design Consultants and Product Designers also have a big presence.

In the Other category, my favourite response was 'Curious Mind.' There were also a smattering of Urban Designers, Digital Marketers and Innovation Consultants.

Q3 What are the most important skills that you bring to design thinking?

TeamFit is a skill management platform and we track core and emergent skills in various sectors (current areas of research are Internet of Things Skills and Pricing Consulting Skills). In a later post we will compare the results on this survey with what we are seeing on TeamFit.

Here is the tag cloud for the skills from these 82 people.

Collaboration, creativity, empathy, prototyping, research. This is a good core set of design thinking skills.

Roger Martin will be glad to know that buried in the data a few people claimed the skill of Abductive Reasoning. Another person called out "Love Life and Value Joy." Thank you. I agree, those are important skills. There were also some humble and honest responses.

"Likely more bad habits for now than skills. Need to ask what more than how earlier on! "

Many of us could benefit from addressing bad habits, our own and those of others. This can be a good place to start for design thinking work. How do the current designs reinforce bad habits and how can we change the design to nudge ourselves towards more constructive habits?

Q4 What other methods or frameworks do you combine most often with design thinking?

Given that many people equate Design Thinking with User-Centric Design it is not surprising that this method came up a lot in this little survey.

I was hoping that approaches like Biomimicry and Circular Design would score better. I am going to leave them in though, as I am advocating these approaches. In recent conversations, Pattern Recognition has been surfacing as something critical to design thinking. Are there methodologies for Pattern Recognition that design thinking experts should be using?

In the 'Other' category the most common responses were Lean UX and Agile. My favourite was 'Reflection in Action' which brought to mind Don Schon's work The Reflective Practitioner.

Q5 What is the most compelling example of design thinking you have seen?

Three companies were mentioned frequently: IDEO, AirBnB and Apple. There were a few mentions of Uber and Tesla as well.It was great to see two important design thinkers called out: the architect Frank Gehry and the polymath Buckminster Fuller.

One of the more compelling social innovations of recent years got a shout out.

"Grameen Bank/micro finance. I consider this to be a great example of an institution that came about as a direct response to a tremendous yet seemingly intractable problem: traditional banking systems were not equipped to meet the needs of poor people, and the resulting lack of access to capital kept the poor locked in a cycle of poverty, so the solution was to design a completely new system allowing individuals to use something they DID have - social capital - as collateral for small loans. This is the true promise of design thinking: to create new and better systems and ways of doing things to improve people's lives and experiences."See the end of this post for all answer provided (including the tongue in cheek).

Q6 What are the most important things the design thinking group can do to help you?

The most requested activity was local meet-ups. Can we make this happen. It will have to be done place-by-place that there are already many local groups. I will fire up a discussion on this theme.

One detailed comment in the 'Other' responses was as follows."Showcase community scale Design Thinking in action - innovation happens at many levels not only in exclusive clubs such as this group a day opening up the discourse to a level where regular folks can feel empowered to play with these ideas and recognised will open Design Thinking to a vibrant new group of thinkers. They are every where."

Please find below all the answers to Question 1, 5 and 6.
(All responses as on Sept. 2, 2017)

Q1 Why are you interested in design thinking?

The municipality i work in, uses it as an overall strategy.

I work as a UX designer and I'm always eager to learn from others. I love to share my experiences as well.

Want to explore how design thinking can help in deepening my Business Analysis skills, try and ensure this thinking is imbibed not just on the BA community but the organization at large.

I´m interested in design thinking to improving the services to my clients and to my business.I have been learning about it in school and want to know more about this subject in order to know who to apply it the best that I can. I want to know how other people work and learn with them outside of a class room.

After working on advertising and marketing for a few years, I came to realize the best products are those centered around needs, so I decided to change my field of work to design strategy.

Creating better user experience from analytics and data platforms.I discovered recently about this term. It can be applied in many different situations. I just started a MBA in Design Strategy, which is basically design thinking applied to a MBA.I attended a course and was surprised at how natural the solutions came when the user becomes centre to solving problems. I think it can help produce better outcomes on delivering products and services that will be adopted.

I run one of the leading UX design and development firms for complex Financial, Medical, Life Science and IoT solutions. Staying up on the industry is always a priority.I am interested in how design thinking can make French public service more efficient, while making work more rewarding for civil servants.

its an avenue my current employer is looking at for me to upskill in and i'd like to know more about it. I have experience in change management business process improvement and process re-engineering but i believe design thinking is more of an ethos than a methodology.

i want to be enlightenedHaving been a UX Designer/Architect for around 10 years, I thought that it was time that I gave something back to the community.

I have used design thinking for social purposes, working with NFP orgs to find solutions to difficult public problems i.e. reducing crime, dealing with early school leaving rates, youth unemployment. People experiencing these problems are closest to the solution, and design thinking allows for their voices to be heard and strategically developed ideas to percolate to key officials with the power to fund change programs

I love the approach, and along with the change management work I do as a Sr. Consultant/PM in the tech marketing space, it's an area that more and more companies are adopting...

I am interested in getting and exchanging ideas about how to transform projects, scope our challenges, unlock opportunities and create new solutions or experiences for your employees within HR departmentI want to keep myself updated on design thinking news.I am interested in service design and applying this thinking to my daily life

As a recent graduate of an MBA in Design Strategy at California College of the Arts, a program that unites perspectives of design, & integrative thinking to innovate and solve for business challenges, design thinking is central to my practice. I would very much like to continue to have discussions with others who find value in design thinking and learn in how they may be applying it to their practice.

As a product designer design thinking is critical to successfully creating the right solutions for customers. I'm interested in joining this group to engage in conversations around the topic and learn from others.

Because I have some ideas to develop new thinking models and I want to share it with group members to know it, criticize it and discuss it with meDesign Thinking is not an exclusive property of designers. For example I use this technique in digital transformation consulting. That's why I want to know more about it.

Design thinking is a process I have come to find fits the way I work and want to work. As a student, I learned from a professor and online resources. What gave me the perspective I needed in this way of thinking is the 'Design And Thinking' documentary.It's one of my working approach with my clients : to free some creativity, to develop exchanges, to dare to think/work/share differently

I got infected by two people I met in other groups with topics like responsiveorg and cultural change. I need to do more with this approach. Reading, listening, training and be part of a discussion group.

I am an anthropologist by training but I wanted to transition into a more problem/solution-oriented field, so I took a General Assembly immersive course in UX design, and I'm now looking to apply my combined skills in anthropology and design to tackle challenging problems.

I am convinced that design thinking and user-centered approach match perfectly the aspirations and creativity of the informal economy.

Because its the future way of thinking of business. On top of that I work with a bunch of service design alumni.I feel that it is a great combination of individual thinking and combination. Best way to get thoughts out there

I'm a passenger on our living spaceship hurtling through space. Every day I choose to believe humanity can rise to the challenge of tackling our <wicked problems>.. And certainly Design Thinking provides an approach and crucial toolkit of ideas I consider essential to mounting an assault on the many seemingly unassailable challenges we face on this our fragile home.

I teach Business Studies and Commerce at high school levelDoing my MBA at the moment and loving DTI'm a designer with a deep interest in design thinking methodology, although is a method that I already use, I want to learn more about it from other designers and expertsas

i am a dt practioner i want to share knowledge and insights with the community

I'm interested in the intersection of design, business, innovation. I approach everything with the end-user in mind to create positive, useful solutions. I come from a graphic design background and am forging my way into UX. I believe that design thinking is the key to more positive futures on a macro and micro scale.I work in urban design theory and want to see what you're doing.Design thinking incorporates users and minimizes the uncertainty of risky design through series of concept, prototypes, testing, learn and redesign.I would like to expand my understanding of how better to consider the end user and for the products I create.intrinsic part of our daily work - best with a benchmark and similar thinkersAs a freelance Product Designer it is the space I live in! A human-centered approach to product design is always a win. I am always looking for places to grow and share my knowledge.I'm part of the IBM Studio in Rome. We organize DT workshops with clients.I am genuinely interested in the topic and particularly I am interested to learn how to apply the design thinking principles in my industry of reference (investment management industry) which is lagging behind other industries in terms of applied innovation to product and servicesI'm working in the field of consumer and sensory research for Danone Research, and I've recently had a very active role in an innovation project internally that was managed using Design Thinking. As I became more familiar with the methodology, my interest grew and I now want to deepen my expertise. I'm going to join a MOOC on the subject shortly and I'd be glad to share other's feedbacks and expert advise on the matter!I want to be able to help my customers betterWorked with designers, managed a dev team. Looking into starting my own companyIt's the perfect way to solve problems. Let's change the world through designThe various applications of design thinkingI've come from marketing and business experience and am currently working on improving my technical skills in web development and design.Because I´m a lecturerI have a business idea which requires an app interface, web page and data warehouse but I have limited exposure to IT design and I am looking for guidance via reading articles before engaging with people as a start.I often use design thinking methodologies in my current role where I'm tasked with developing and commercializing new products. Design Thinking emphasis on user experiences and outcomes helps significantly in these tasks.I love designI am interested in design thinking both for the process and the unexpected collective results it produces.I am an industrial and interior designer. I dedicate myself to product design and teaching and I like to keep abreast on trends and theories of the areaTo connect with other people in the Design Thinking community.I am in the career development field and I am applying DT principles to job search strategies we share with students.As a facilitator I think it would a wonderful process to apply, at times, according to the discussion at handI am currently self-employed as a Customer / User Experience & Product Design Consultant. I have a strong background in facilitating co-creation sessions with my clients. I wish to learn more from colleagues in this group.Professionally, I'm a Creative Director. That means I'm constantly on the lookout for inspiration to boost both my personal and my teams problem-solving capabilities. Of course, I'm more than willing to contribute myself and try to help others!because I feel this is important in my job as innovation advisor.Hey! I'm a 26 year old industrial design student, starting my studies next Tuesday in Finland. I'm aiming to be the best possible designer that I can be, and one way of the many is following and learning from others that are better than me in something, and participating in conversations on varying kinds of design communities. I'm not yet sure whether I'll be a concept and brand designer, Customer service designer, or will I be designing things and stuff, or maybe all of them. I hope my strengths will become more clear during my 4+2 year studies.It's important to understand how to develop products with the end-user in mind and not necessarily for the person in the corner office. I've found that product development using a design thinking approach provides permission to evaluate a business objective using multiple lenses with success being something that may not have been remotely considered at the onset of product design.I am starting my masters in product design at Domus Academy and knowing what experts in the field think about design thinking, may help me have a more holistic view of the subject.I am a designer of user experience for complex problems, such as financial systems, medical systems or industrial systems. Design thinking offers the untrodden way out.I'm a Systems Engineer with a function to perform big data visualisation. Big data visualisation and engineering requires a confluence of logic and creativity.Work-related and personal interest sparked through workshopsI'm interested in learning and applying design thinking to our business, and connecting and communicating with others who have this same motivation.I work with improvement processDesign thinking comes up a lot in the meetings I support visually, so I'd like to be a part of that conversation more actively.Innovation and new business opportunitiesI'm an engineer by degree but designer by passion. I believe in understanding the people I design for in order to make an appropriate impact. I want to design and build products that affect the lives of the masses and help in the upliftment of the backward, especially in countries like mine (India), by solving problems caused due to inherent bad design. I hope by joining this group, I'll be able to understand how other designers solve such problems with out of the box thinking.An alternative approach to looking at problems and opprobrious presented in modern landscape. A way to transform out-dated strategic approachesFor practical reasons.Design thinking is new to me but conceptually I understand and my current role could benefit from the process, as well as future roles I'm exploring that are even more focused on ideating with numerous business partners to solve problems.It is a new source of competitive advantage. I enjoy human-centered design and research with empathy. Iterative innovation.Because its enhance the brain to think better from users perspectiveManagement trendI design thinking is a way of living to make your life less complicated. (We as human naturally complicate) I am a design manager who uses it in professional world along with personal one to help organisation innovate and adapt to changeJust completed MBA dissertation on DTTo gain insights, tool or just thoughts that can can apply to my work.It helps me ask better questions about the designed world and how it connects to the larger natural world. These questions help me to better collaborate with people in multiple different roles. 

Q5 What is the most compelling example of design thinking you have seen?

 not sureThe improvement in service of the Massachusetts RMV. They have made it so much easier to do most transactions on line. Most importantly, you actually get a reply within 24 hours when you use their contact us form. I even got a follow up call checking if I was all set with my question!Like I mentioned, I am yet to explore a whole lot. But I like how the DT concepts starts with empathy to understand the business needs.The construction of a service based on a deep analysis of custommer journey.Knowing that in every phase of a project needs to be tested and evaluate what is the best solution for every problem. Find problems before they even appear.I think companies like Google are very good at implementing it in everything they doOnly gaining awareness. Being honest I read about the airbnb case. I think I need to reinforce acceptance of method by looking at cases where it meant it was a success after all.Chase retail banking experience.Prototyping a bus for disseminating knowledge about real jobs in high schools in Western France, in order to help students choose their education path.I previously worked in design and refurbishing houses and commercial interiors. I was always amazed by myself when i could walk onto a building site and visualise the end product in great detail. I think being that visionary is a massive tool in design thinking. if you can set out with a very clear and defined goal and be able to communicate that to your team or wider audience than the product or service has a much higher chance of successI'm quite a big fan of designing for persuasion- hospitals liaising with patients/prospective patients and changing their process and internal infrastructures to support the requirements and experiences of these people. - reducing crime in the UK by working collaborative on a national collective impact program to design bottom up interventions that look at societal cause and effect, and the impact diverse stakeholders can make at the local level by working together on a jointly designed and owned change programWorking w/ my wife on a concept for our home fence...;)The transformation of Airbnb.Designing products for disability in The BBC UK TV show The Big Fix with Simon ReeveAirbnb used the principles of design thinking to understand the entire journies that their hosts & guests go through and continue to leverage it to innovate.I don't know about this topicMostly IDEO's workDesign thinking as an somewhat existing process in architecture.rethink entirely a sales training program for an international company (5 countries concerned)??Grameen Bank/micro finance. I consider this to be a great example of an institution that came about as a direct response to a tremendous yet seemingly intractable problem: traditional banking systems were not equipped to meet the needs of poor people, and the resulting lack of access to capital kept the poor locked in a cycle of poverty, so the solution was to design a completely new system allowing individuals to use something they DID have - social capital - as collateral for small loans. This is the true promise of design thinking: to create new and better systems and ways of doing things to improve people's lives and experiences.Classical: Ideo Projects. Especially the ones in the sector of development in low income countriesDesign-driven Transformation- Deutsche TelekomI am sure that every smart product or service around me is a result of design thinking1} Natural Breast Milk production system - Nature is still our most elegant Design Thinking goddess in action. 2} Kinetic energy on roadway used to generate electricity to power lights on the road & other such examples where existing "wasted" energy is repurchased in useful ways.UberRecently I was doing some research for a financial client and I found a company called Ncino, they were able to apply design thinking in the way how to handle lending or banking transactions to minimize the amount of time and simplify their process.http://thisisdesignthinking.net/tag/ge-healthcare/Buckminster FullerAll Apple productsour terumo approach (at change)A university that opened campus but waited to build all the hardscape and connecting concrete sidewalk paths to buildings until they observed the behavior patterns of the students and how they navigated the campus. Once the paths were worn they designed on top of that data.Aligning a team of colleaguesFor a product innovation in the food sector last year. I've spent about 1 year focused only on this project. Together with the team, we were assisted by an external Design Thinking agency.Not sure yet...-I´dont noMy design ideas :-)There are many but I think the Uber/Lyft model is great example of starting with the user experience and working backwards.Shellthinking outside the box and getting a 3-D printerAirbnbI previously worked at Johns Hopkins and the DT work in the hospital setting was amazing: ER in a box.Redesign of a Performance Appraisal processOne that comes to mind is IDEO's Designing a City Emergency Plan. https://www.ideo.com/case-study/designing-a-city-emergency-planThe work of Frank GehryHelsinki City bikes, that are free for anyone to use from April to November with only 25€/periodI was tasked with leading a redesigning of a web experience that accounted for $1B in transactions/month for withing a Fortune 500 company. I was able to find collaborators in other departments that were willing to move forward using a design thinking approach. In the end, we were able to enhance the consumers ability to transact online while simultaneously providing them with additional means to shop and earn rewards. Having collaborators that were willing to find imaginative solutions to our business object made the redesign refreshing and also helped to garner support at the C-suite.I m not sure.I would have to say Tesla. although there are many other examples. this one is secretly very disruptive and the end to end storyline is genuineBig data visualisationStart-up CoachNot sureAppleAir B&Bstart-upsAirbnbUsing data collected about people from a district in India to drive up employment, help pharma companies get proper medicines in time for healthcare and epidemics, help in discarding and changing community welfare schemes, etc.None yet - early in my journeyno particular exampleAgain, this methodology is very new to me and I am looking to connect and learn in order to expand my current knowledge and skill set.Innovations in medical careMy projectGE child's MRIIt's hard to state one. But since I myself implemented for a big conglomerate in India I could closely see the value of design thinking. We were helping the organization bring digital transformation in rural India. How technology can help the farmers make more informed choices and how to make their lives seamless. Here design thinking was clubbed with service designCity cyclingOpenideo workThe IDEO open innovation work, not the projects themselves, but the overall approach to open innovation. 

Q6 What are the most important things the design thinking group can do to help you?

 Share knowledge, cases etc.. inspirationHelp start from scratch for folks who want to start using design thinking.Share content.Learning more about how everyone works and knowing when and how to apply this skill.Real world scenarios of design thinkingLearn from othersBetter apply design thinking to my organisation, to make it more efficient.I'd love some feedback on my concepts from time to time?Provide career advice and industry insightsEngage in discussions to expand my knowledge within the fieldAllow me to observe, contribute and learnShowcase community scale Design Thinking in action - innovation happens at many levels not only in exclusive clubs such as this group a day opening up the discourse to a level where regular folks can feel empowered to play with these ideas and recognised will open Design Thinking to a vibrant new group of thinkers. They are everywhere.Learn moreSupport design students transitioning to industryThat's what I'm hoping to find out.ideation exchange and food for thought balancingshare and swap relevant knowledge and ideasimprove my knowledgeShare their feedbacks on the method, where it works, where it doesn't, and who are the best partners / agencies out there to assist!Get the conversation going on linkedinUnderstand industry practices and standardsLaunch businessShare ideas & keep track of innovations worldwideHelp connect me to other design thinking leaders for office hours.Education; thought leadership; possible DT connections in APACInspire me!inform me by examples and insightsby showing me different points of viewit would be good to have a DT digest of best examples and cases to 'quote from'Further my understanding, appreciation, and applications for design thinkingExperienceManage quality of the forum, showing strains of recent LI UX degradation.Exchange of ideas, conversations, and information sharing (which can include design thinking articles and examples.Even share new experiences so that we can see it evolve and transform ( in true spirit of design thinking)Share thoughtsNetworking--- Next install in this series at the beginning of October!