Introducing Design Thinking to a century-old manufacturing company
Client: Sherwin-Williams
Time: 2021–2022
Role: Design Thinking Lead
Known for innovation, Sherwin-Williams was excited to introduce Design Thinking across the organization. Using a variety of approaches to tackle strategy, education, process, technology, service, and design opportunities we sought to encourage adoption across business units.
ABOUT SHERWIN-WILLIAMS
The Sherwin-Williams Company delivers the best in paint and coatings products to the world. Every day, more than 60,000 employees provide the energy and experience to build on a track record of success going back more than 150 years. Sherwin-Williams has one of the industry’s most recognized portfolios of branded and private-label products.
The challenge.
Sherwin-Williams has a long history of success in the marketplace, but was looking to expand innovation practices and become more in-tune with customer needs. Along with the long history came a reluctance to try new ways of working and a hesitation over allowing insights and new product ideas to emerge organically.
Program Strategy
Introduce the ways in which design thinking could be applied to daily work.
There was a tremendous amount of enthusiasm for using design thinking, but not much understanding of what it meant in practice. So we first looked at how to apply a human-centered approach from the smallest efforts to the biggest. In order to achieve true culture shift and embody innovation, the team would need to know how and when to use design methods most effectively.
Methods & Frameworks
Create a methods library for a shared language across disciplines.
The Digital and UX Team were championing the adoption of design thinking at Sherwin-Williams and were already using some design methods in their work. But in order for design thinking to spread more widely across the organization, a broader lens was needed. The biggest point of confusion was knowing what a method could accomplish, and how to select between similar methods.
I surveyed the landscape of design and business methods currently available, compiling a methods library custom to Sherwin-Williams and the work they do. Not a process on its own, the categories provide an introduction for how methods can be put to use.
Design Thinking Curriculum
Design training events and curriculum to introduce design thinking.
We partnered with the design firm IA Collaborative to harness their curriculum and instructional staff. Together, we reconciled our methodologies to create a cohesive and scalable curriculum. Then we completed the program strategy with rollout plan, competency model, certification program, and stakeholder roles.
Prepare for scale
Establish roles and a Center of Excellence.
I defined learner profiles to understand what mindsets team members would be bringing to the training and how they would be able to apply the skills once training was complete. This enabled us to look at the approximately 2,000 employees in the digital organization to map out the cadence of training events and establish expectations for how their roles would change as a result.
We created a model for a Center of Excellence to sponsor and drive the adoption of design thinking across the organization, establishing responsibilities and resources to support employees.
Measuring impact
Define maturity and metrics for success.
We defined what maturity would look like for individuals, the organization, and the center of excellence. From there we were able to target specific metrics to benchmark and measure as the program rolled out.