Decision making is when all the information generated through design thinking is put to use. Decisions on complex projects are difficult because it’s hard to use what you’ve learned to support decision making.

Because you probably can't afford to do all the design research you'd like, deciding what design research to do is a critical step in effective design decision making.

When does a design project start? Sometimes it's not clear. A casual conversation about an issue leads to an impromptu whiteboard session. This leads to further conversations and brainstorms and maybe review meetings.

Design teams can easily create mountains of raw data while conducting design research. The task of making sense of this data is often daunting, but it is a critical part of cutting through the ambiguity that is part of any design or innovation project.

There comes a point in most design projects when you realize you have a bunch of half ideas that are half-baked, which you are at best halfway excited about. Taking these ideas to the next level is hard work.

Imagine your project team standing on a single point on a 2-D plane surrounded by a circle. The circle is made up of an infinite number of points. Each point on the circle represents a possible outcome for your project. You can't quite see the outcomes from where you stand.