Solution Prototyping with Design Thinking: Social Media for SAP Store: A case study

Information and knowledge workers as well as other employees who are not part of a research or product development team are barely exposed to innovation creation processes. Design Thinking as an innovation method is typi- cally used in R&D. This research analyses whether a short-cycled Design Think- ing method can be developed, so employees outside R&D can be taken out of their daily jobs and innovate without falling too much behind with their opera- tional work. Alongside with short-cycled DT session there are potential impacts on business and hence on management. Business Thinking barriers are tried to be broken and Design Thinking advantages are increasingly preferred by man- agement. This case study based paper provides key insights into how DT phases and behavior can be changed for creating synergy across employees, manage- ment and products from which the end-consumer benefits. The Social Media for SAP store case study combines a conceptual and product oriented solution deri- vation with Design Thinking.