Are Children Better Designers?

“You see things and ask ‘Why?’ But I dream of things and say ‘Why not?’” wrote George Bernard Shaw. New ideas require courage and sometimes a certain naivety. Florian Baumgartner is an expert in design thinking and innovation management. As co-founder of Creative Kids, he has created a platform that supports children in developing their “future skills”. Florian Baumgartner talks to ndion host Moritz Marder about what it takes to develop new ideas, the importance of prototypes, and how we can give and receive feedback effectively. We learn why supposedly “childish” behaviours, such as repeatedly asking “Why?” and freely expressing absurd ideas, are often exactly what the adult world lacks for genuine innovation.

Three key takeaways:

1. Models are essential for making ideas tangible and imaginable, and for facilitating productive discussion.
2. Good feedback is an essential part of an innovation and corporate culture. A simple yet effective approach is to structure feedback into green (“I like”) and red (“I wish”).
3. ‘Inhibiting filters’ that immediately highlight problems with the feasibility of new ideas are not bad in themselves. We simply need to learn to switch them off at certain stages of the ideation process.

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