You don’t have to be a designer to think like a designer. But it helps.

Title: In Defense of Design Thinking, Which Is Terrible
Context: I could tell you all the secrets of being a designer, but then I’d have to kill you. Just kidding. Or am I?
Synopsis: We designers are a misunderstood lot. We bring a wide-ranging set of skills to bear on complex problems and leverage a library of processes as the route to discovering an optimal solution, yet we are considered more akin to alchemists than trained professionals. People think of us as mysteriously creative, divining inspiration from some unseen wellspring of imagination that only those born like us can access. To be fair, we don’t do much to rebut these misconceptions in mixed company. We remain aptitudinally inscrutable partially because it’s kind of amusing to be thought of as so enigmatic, but mostly because it’s just easier than the alternative of trying to explain distinctly what we do and precisely how we do it. That is, at least, until design thinking came into fashion, a process by which we open our methods to all comers and allow them to engage in the dark arts of design without the mystical training or cryptic insight that made us who we are today. Allowing our non-designer colleagues to engage in a little designer role play from time-to-time hurts no one, as long as we never, ever share the secret handshake with them.
Best Bit: “Any embrace of design by non-designers is a good thing, and design thinking qualifies here.”

via subtraction.com