As a product leader it becomes incredibly old. The actual discussions and interviews are enjoyable. However, I see the Product Management role/industry taking the same path as UI/UX design.
No. Not everything is a design problem. No. Not everything can be solved with "design thinking".
As Product Management becomes more popular we'll start to see the rise of the product "guru". The design industry is filled with self-help, anti-intellectual money grubbers that have never actually built anything of use. They bolster their guru career with the fact that they worked at Facebook for six months. The same thing will start to happen to Product Management.
Considering that "design thinking" is literally just critical thinking with some super simple guiding steps on problem solving, I'm curious to know what you think it doesn't apply to or what can't be solved with such a generic framework?
I mean the process is literally:
1. Understand the problem.
2. Define the problem.
3. Come up with ideas for solutions.
4. Test the solutions.
And iterate 3 and 4 until you have something you are happy with. It's hard to imagine how you can arrive at a solution in any other way.
edit: And this isn't to say that I'm defending design thinking, I personally don't like the term or the buzz around it, but I can't fault the process itself. I'm sure many people use it already.
And there is your answer. It's not "design thinking", it's straightforward problem solving that's been used by engineers (and others) since forever. In the best case, re-branding it "design thinking" adds nothing. More typically, it subtracts significantly.
No. Not everything is a design problem. No. Not everything can be solved with "design thinking".
As Product Management becomes more popular we'll start to see the rise of the product "guru". The design industry is filled with self-help, anti-intellectual money grubbers that have never actually built anything of use. They bolster their guru career with the fact that they worked at Facebook for six months. The same thing will start to happen to Product Management.