8 years ago, Y Combinator launched a program called ‘How to Start a Startup.’ This was very influential and a good majority of the startup community watched some form of it or another. The major consulting firms (aka. Big Three) BCG, McKinsey, and Bain offer business consulting services to their clients. In fact, some frameworks in business have been coined after them: the BCG matrix, the McKinsey way, MECE, etc.
Of all the companies mentioned above, none of them will deny the fact that they have experienced moments of total misjudgment. Y Combinator has invested in startups that turned out to be horrible. Mckinsey infamously advised LG (dominant player in the cellular industry back in the day) that smartphones would be nothing but a quick fad: focus on the foldable phones.
My point is, I do not believe that the examples given in the short version reading are enough to convince a reader that a certain framework is a fraud. [Pro] Frameworks give a certain level of clarity to a task, and systemizing an ideology is never expected to have no flaws whatsoever. Also, a fixed methodology is able to streamline the work of a team and thus lead to increased productivity.
[Con] That being said, the needfinding aspect of the projects seemed to be lacking in both cases. The Gainesville project lacked attention to the population’s general needs. The case of Kaiser Permanente also was lacking in understanding of the customer. I see needfinding as being all about empathy. The more empathy one has for the user, the more realistic a solution one is able to derive. So I would argue that the stakeholders involved in the mentioned projects did not have a sufficient level of empathy for the user. They might have fallen into a mannerism trap and just mechanically chekced off one box at a time from their Design Thinking checklist.
This leaves implications for all product teams alike.
