VANCOUVER, BC (PRWEB) APRIL 11, 2017

Design Thinking has been a topic of growing interest to businesses for the past decade. Influential books such as ‘Change by Design’ by Tim Brown of IDEO in 2009 and ‘The Design of Business’ by then Rotman School of Management Dean, Roger Martin, in the same year sparked the interest of business people in many industries. In the ensuing years, interest has continued to grow with the LinkedIn Design Thinking group growing to more than 93,000 members early in 2017 and a search on LinkedIn for ‘design thinking’ returns results for more than one million people and 18,000 companies.

What skills are really required to apply design thinking? How is design thinking being applied and who is doing the work? Is design thinking one thing or many? Leading skill management platform and dedicated to design thinking company, TeamFit has decided to find out.

“Design thinking has emerged as a critical skill set across many industries.” notes TeamFit CEO Steven Forth. “There is a great deal of confusion as to what skills are actually required to execute and how these skills are being applied to actual projects. TeamFit has the software platform and data analytics tools to answer these questions.”

The research will take place between April and June of 2017 with results to be published in September. There will be four dimensions to the work. The TeamFit skill graph will be investigated to determine what other skills are associated with and complement design thinking and what kinds of projects these are being applied to. The LinkedIn Design Thinking Group will be sampled to determine the skills, job roles and industry of the members. A survey will be conducted of the skills, methods, projects and applications of design thinking. Qualitative interviews will be conducted with leaders in design thinking to gain a deeper understanding of their current views.

“I have been doing a great deal of research into the future skills needed by design firms and firms that are trying to build differentiation through design” says RitaSue Siegel, one of the world’s top recruiters of design leaders. “This research by TeamFit promises to deepen our understanding in a key area of interest for many people.”

The results of this work will help companies to understand if they have the skills needed for design thinking and how they should apply them. The design companies have become an active target for M&A with everyone from IBM and GE to McKinsey and the Big Four professional services firms making the acquisitions. One of the interesting preliminary results of this research is the application of design thinking to new technologies like the Internet of Things and important sectors of the economy such as healthcare and education.

Supporting Resources:
Take the Survey – https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/dtskillsapplications
Visit TeamFit – http://www.teamfit.co
Follow the TeamFit blog – http://hq.teamfit.co/blog/
Follow TeamFit on Twitter – @TeamFitCo

About TeamFit:
TeamFit is an online platform enabling services and consulting firms to get an accurate and up-to-date view of the skills of their extended talent network so that they can build the best project teams and optimize utilization. Individual consultant and freelancers use TeamFit to demonstrate their skills, build their networks and to get on the best projects.

TeamFit is located at VentureLabs in downtown Vancouver, BC.

Media Contact
Karen Chiang, COO, VP Business Development
TeamFit
www.teamfit.co
Tel 1(415)-799-8326
Email karen_at_nugg.co