Dear Stefanie,

There is much in your careful and thoughtful post that I find
to agree with, and happily so.  You make, I think, a number of
usefully clear remarks about Design Thinking, but the one I 
like most is your first one, that 

 "...  design thinking is as much about *doing* as it is about
 thinking."

Yes!  I would put it as, the doing is the thinking.  And the
variety of techniques you speak of are useful and effective
ways of doing the kinds of thinking needed in designing.
Sketching (in designing) is, I have argued [1], a form of
thinking, not, as some Cognitive Scientists argue, an aid to
overcome cognitive limitations, on memory, mostly.  Sketching
is perhaps one of the clearest examples of thinking being an
embodied, enacted, situated affair.  Not something that goes
on only inside our heads.  So, as you emphasise, without the
doing there is no thinking.

You're right to point out, as Ken has also done, that Design
Thinking is not a new term, nor a new notion.  Indeed, you
might include the The Ten Books on Architecture, by Marcus
Vitruvius [2]--discussed here not so long ago--as an early
example of an attempt to codify and document a kind of design
thinking.  So, perhaps it goes back about two thousand years.

I also like your point about not trying to refine (the whole
of) Design Thinking into some method or procedure.  And I
would add, nor should it be presented as if it is, and not, as
does happen, sold as such.

Historically, I think work on Design Thinking was mostly about
theoretical and philosophical foundations and developments,
and this work was mostly done by designers, design
researchers, and some more philosophical people.  Erik's list
contains many of writings of many of these people.  More
recently--in the last ten to fifteen years--I think a kind of
Design Thinking practice has grown up.  Ballooned might be a
better way to put it.  And this inflation of Design Thinking
practice has become rather detached from the (mostly) earlier
Design Thinking theory work.  This has left the latter quite
hidden from and forgotten or ignored by many of the new
practitioners ...  many of whom, in my experience, have never
done any actual designing.

Bringing back in to visibility, and strengthening the Design
Thinking theory part, which is what I understand Erik's
desires and intentions are, is needed: I agree.  I just think
that this needs serious and substantial work, not just
collecting lists of our favourite writings.  And, to be
worthwhile, it needs to bring about a change in the current
Design Thinking practices; to turn these practices into
something more like real design doing, with real design
outcomes.

Let me make one final comment, on defining Design Thinking,
with a view to reinforcing your point about not refining
Design Thinking.  

Design Thinking is not to be defined.  Designing Thinking is
not a thing.  It's more like a cloud of things.  Stuff, I'd
prefer to say.  And, like clouds in the sky, it's quite defuse
on the edges, and, although it becomes more dense as you
enter, it nowhere solidifies into some kind of core.  Inside
this cloud are the remnants and pieces of the earlier Design
Thinking theory stuff, and it just might be possible to bring
these back together, strengthen them, and further build on
them to form a more solid core.  But, I think the practice
will always cloud around this.  I don't have a difficulty with
this: a more solid core could exert enough force on the more
cloudy practices for everything to hang together enough for
Design Thinking (as a whole) to change and evolve in a stable
and understandable way.  But, again, forming this core needs
solid work.  More like what you seem to be doing, I'd say.


Side note: Terry is a robot! He's just told us we all are, so 
he must be one too. Unless he's not human, that is.

So, the above is just some results of my robotic clanking.  I
hope you'll not mind the noise.


Best regards,

Tim


References

[1] Tim Smithers, 2001.  Is sketching an aid to memory or
    a kind of thinking?, in Gero, J, Tversky, B, and Purcell,
    T (Eds), Visual and Spatial Reasoning in Design II,
    proceedings of 2nd International Conference, Bellagio
    Conference Center, Bellagio, Italy, July, 2001, pp
    165--176.

[2] Vitruvius: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitruvius>


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