Design Thinking vs Lean Startup ​
| What | Design thinking | Lean Startup |
|---|---|---|
| Goal | Innovations | Innovations |
| Scope, Focus | General innovations | High-tech innovations for Startups |
| Approach | User-centered | Customer-oriented |
| Uncertainty | Solve wicked problems | Unclear customer problem |
| Testing | Fail early to succeed sooner | Pivoting is at the heart of the ‘fail fast’ concept. The sooner you realize a hypothesis is wrong, the faster you can update it and retest it. |
| Iteration | Yes (Iteration) | Yes (Pivoting) |
| Ideation | Ideation is part of the process, solutions are generated in the process | Ideation is not part of the process, product vision is initially provided by company founders |
| Qualitative Methods | Strong focus: elaborated ethnographic methods, user research, observations, etc. | Not a focus |
| Quantitative Methods | Not a focus | Strong focus: metric-based analysis; provides matrices, and testing |
| Business Model | Not a focus | Focus |
| Adaption of deployments | Not a focus | Five Whys Method |
| Typical Methods | Shadowing, Qualitative Interview, Paper Prototyping, Brainstorming (with specific rules), Synthesis, etc. | Qualitative Interview, Smoke Test, Paper Prototyping, Innovative Accounting, Split (A/B) Tests, Cohort Analysis, Funnel Metrics, Business Model Canvas, Five Whys, etc. |
| Hypothesis Testing | Not a focus | Focus |
| Prototype Testing | Yes | Yes |
| Rapid iteration | Yes | Yes |
| Target Group | Users (usually end users, sometimes other stakeholders) | Customers (distinguished between Users, Influencers, Recommenders, Economic Buyers,Decision Makers) |