Then, midway through mopping the dining-room area, I threw my hands in the air. Out loud, I shouted at anyone who was there to listen (just me), “Why does this matter? What’s the big deal? Why do you care so much?”

One such way is to “invest but only a little bit.” Companies need to understand that small tweaks and just a comfortable amount of investments are enough to make creative problem solving, iteration, and innovation a part of their DNA.

While the ideation and synthesis phases often require decision-making and discussion, during prototyping a more fluid and organic interaction came into play. The team members were still making decisions, but they did so by visualizing and, quite literally, building on each other’s ideas. To some extent, I would argue that Eastern cultures were more comfortable with this way of working than Western cultures, which tend to be more comfortable in discussing and debating a focus point or idea.