P&G Changes Its Game

How Procter & Gamble is using design thinking to crack difficult business problems

By Jeneanne Rae

"Design thinking" may seem like just another new buzzword in the lexicon of innovation, but Procter & Gamble (PG) is using the approach to change its culture. Leadership is listening, learning, and deploying; cross-functional teams are cracking vexing problems across its business landscape; and visualization, prototyping, and iteration are facilitating communication internally and with customers like never before. Here's a look inside one of the most intriguing change management efforts going on in Corporate America today.

"It has been transformative for our leadership teams," says Cindy Tripp, marketing director at P&G Global Design, as she describes her work rolling out the company's Design Thinking Initiative. With a cadre of 100 internal facilitators, more than 40 design thinking workshops have been held in P&G business units across the globe during the past year. The design thinking facilitation team comes from every function at P&G (such as marketing, research and development, info tech, and product supply as well as design). Perhaps most important, half of the workshops focused on something other than new product initiatives to include other types of pressing business issues such as strategy, retail relationship building, and matters of operational excellence. "We want people to use these techniques daily in their work—using broad insights; learning faster; failing faster. Design thinking can be applied everywhere, every day," says Tripp.

This attitude signifies an extreme shift for the $81.5 billion global consumer-product giant, whose long-tenured design managers describe P&G's former attitude about design as "the last decoration station on the way to market."

Reframing Is the Key

"Once business leaders see they can use design thinking to reframe problems, they are transformed," says Tripp. "The analytical process we typically use to do our work—understand the problem and alternatives; develop several ideas; and do a final external check with the customer—gets flipped. Instead, design thinking methods instruct: There's an opportunity somewhere in this neighborhood; use a broader consumer context to inform the opportunity; brainstorm a large quantity of fresh ideas; and co-create and iterate using low-resolution prototypes with that consumer."

In his new book, The Game-Changer: How You Can Drive Revenue and Profit Growth with Innovation, P&G CEO A.G. Lafley explains the difference between the two methods: "Business schools tend to focus on inductive thinking (based on directly observable facts) and deductive thinking (logic and analysis, typically based on past evidence)," he writes. "Design schools emphasize abductive thinking—imagining what could be possible. This new thinking approach helps us challenge assumed constraints and add to ideas, versus discouraging them."

Mass-Market Offerings Reconceived

An excellent example of this type of reframing can be experienced by going to www.olayforyou.com. As a female consumer, I'll be the first to tell you that Olay products are frustrating to shop for. There are too many, you can't zone in easily on what's right for you, and it seems like you ought to feel a little better about shelling out $29 for a tube of goo to try to keep yourself looking good. Apparently I'm not the only woman feeling this way. Through the insights into these frustrations gleaned at a design thinking workshop, Olay marketers came up with the Olayforyou.com Web site, a streamlined way to connect with consumers online.