How to use the LUMA System of Innovation for everyday design thinking

Around the world, people are recognizing the value of design thinking for more than just products and services. Yet many organizations have a hard time scaling the methods company-wide, causing innovation to suffer.

Enter the LUMA Institute, which empowers people and companies to innovate through what they call the LUMA System of Innovation. The series of methods, 36 in all, were hand-picked by LUMA out of thousands to be the most effective. Better yet, their applications cover a wide range of situations.

As CEO and Founder Chris Pacione, who recently joined us for an exclusive webinar, put it, “Design is not a process. It is a discipline that underpins your process.” During the session, he discussed why Design Thinking is so popular, what it is and how everyone can use the methods to find solutions for their everyday challenges.

Read on for the webinar recap, video recording, and presentation deck.
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How to Use Design Thinking Methods for Everyday Innovation

According to Chris, there are more than 1,000 design innovation methods. Through research, LUMA has narrowed their System of Innovation to 36 methods, organized into nine categories and three practices. Each method falls into a bucket of Looking, Understanding or Making.

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Chris refers to them as “Design Thinking's equivalent to the periodic table; elemental methods which can be combined in thousands of different ways to tackle just about any work challenge the universe can throw at you.” How? Well, Chris covered a series of practical examples, including how to :

Conduct a Contextual Inquiry to observe key stakeholders and gain empathy

Codify your field research data using Rose, Thorn, Bud

Share observations and reveal insights through Affinity Clustering

Translate insights into worthy opportunity statements using Statement Starters

Align on the most significant opportunities using Visualize the Vote

Generating new ideas with remote teams using a Creative Matrix

Prioritize the most promising ideas with the Importance/Difficulty Matrix

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In the end, any of the methods could be combined to help anyone become better, more innovative problem solvers among teams that deliver more impactful solutions.

Ready to get started? Visit LUMA Workplace to learn more about the System of Innovation and check out the LUMA frameworks available in Mural.

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