Insights

Perspectives on design thinking, product failure, and applying the Growth Diamond Model^TM in practice - for leaders, product teams, and educators.

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Featured · Artificial intelligence

The Skills Inflation of the AI Era

For many professionals, AI creates a strange tension. It is useful, powerful, and impossible to ignore. But it also raises an uncomfortable question: what happens when the skills we worked hard to master become easier for others to imitate at the surface level? This article explores that shift - why it feels unsettling, why those skills are not wasted, and how professionals can move one layer up from producing output to shaping what truly matters.

5 July 2026 · 7 min read

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Artificial intelligence

Organizing the Unorganized

AI’s next great opportunity may not be creating intelligence. It may be organizing it.

22 June 2026 · 2 min read

Design thinking

The Hidden Cost of Fragmentation

What if many of the problems we call "complex" aren't actually complex at all? What if they're simply disconnected pieces waiting to be brought together? That's what I call fragmentation.

13 June 2026 · 3 min read

Design thinking

AI Can Generate a Thousand Answers. But Who Defines the Right Problem?

AI can generate a thousand answers. But it cannot tell you whether you're solving the right problem. The hardest work still begins with a human asking the right question. Why problem definition, not answer generation, is where Design Thinking and leadership matter most.

5 June 2026 · 4 min read

Design thinking

User Journey Mapping vs User Persona: When to Use Each

Personas summarize who the user is. Journey maps show what they go through. Both live in Empathize - but teams often build one when they need the other.

21 May 2026 · 5 min read

Product strategy

5 Design Thinking Mistakes Product Teams Make in India

From solution-first workshops to adoption afterthoughts - common patterns I see in Indian product and operations teams, and what to do instead using the Growth Diamond Model.

7 April 2026 · 4 min read

Design thinking

AI + Design Thinking: Workflow Intelligence Without Losing the Human

AI speeds synthesis and prototyping - but it cannot replace empathy, judgment, or adoption. A practitioner's map for where AI belongs in the Growth Diamond Model, and where it does not.

25 March 2026 · 4 min read

Growth Diamond Model

Growth Diamond Model vs IDEO's Approach: A Practitioner's View

IDEO helped define modern design thinking. The Growth Diamond Model extends it for product and operations teams who must ship, adopt, and iterate - with tools at every phase, not mindset alone.

8 February 2026 · 5 min read

Growth Diamond Model

Market Space in Design Thinking: Beyond Build

Shipping is not market success. Market space - launch, adoption, positioning, and enhancement - is where the Growth Diamond Model proves whether user pain was actually solved.

12 January 2026 · 4 min read

Teaching notes

How to Run a 90-Minute Design Thinking Workshop in an MBA Classroom

A minute-by-minute agenda for a single class session - Growth Diamond Model intro, live Empathize and Define exercises, and outputs students can reuse in cases and projects.

8 December 2025 · 5 min read

Product strategy

Design Thinking for Operational Excellence (Not Just UX Workshops)

Design thinking is not only for app screens and innovation labs. Operations leaders can use it to fix processes, reduce rework, and scale adoption - if the framework goes beyond Empathize and Ideate.

4 November 2025 · 4 min read

Growth Diamond Model

From Empathy Interview to Problem Statement: A Worked Example

Walk through one real design thinking cycle - from a single empathy interview through pain point clustering to a problem statement your team can build against.

20 October 2025 · 6 min read

Growth Diamond Model

The Implement Phase Most Teams Skip (and Why Products Die There)

Design thinking workshops end at prototype. The Growth Diamond Model treats Implement as a first-class phase - launch, adoption, and enhancement - because that is where products actually win or fail.

2 September 2025 · 3 min read

Growth Diamond Model

Design Thinking vs Double Diamond: Which Framework When?

Both models help teams solve the right problems - but they stop at different points. A practitioner's guide to choosing between them, and when you need a third path.

12 August 2025 · 6 min read

Product strategy

Why 80-95% of Products Fail - and What Teams Can Do About It

Most products fail not because teams lack talent, but because they solve the wrong problem. A practical lens from two decades of product and program leadership.

17 July 2025 · 7 min read

Design thinking

Empathy Interviews in Practice - Beyond the Checklist

How to run interviews that surface real pain points instead of polite confirmations - a field guide for product teams and MBA classrooms.

26 June 2025 · 6 min read

Growth Diamond Model

From Pain Points to Problem Statements That Teams Can Execute

A step-by-step path from scattered user feedback to a problem statement your product team can actually build against.

28 May 2025 · 5 min read