Summary

Over the last decade, design thinking has moved considerably into many facets of organisational life. It has also been widely drawn upon and utilised to address deep-rooted social and global challenges. Its evolutionary development continues to inform its character and value as a highly creative problem-solving approach to often complex problems. Many regard it as a panacea to solve all known ills and wicked problems with one prescribed dose of application; then magically, solutions and desired endpoints are successfully achieved. Sadly, however, this is not the case. We strike a strong cautionary note here, to argue that design thinking does have a leading role in effecting meaningful change, but, (here is the caveat) it does have limitations as to what and how it can contribute to leading this ‘change.’ Complex problems, by their very definition, are complex, and as such, demand the input and voice of many differing stakeholders, many of whom are drawn from a diverse range of disciplinary backgrounds. In addition to these, a further layer of complexity is that of context—the very specific conditions and surrounding phenomena—in which it is applied. When these two factors are not taken fully into account, design thinking often over-promises and under-delivers to expectant and subsequently, disappointed audiences.