The Double Diamond

Overview

The Double Diamond was developed and published by the Design Council (UK) in 2005 as part of their research report Eleven Lessons: Managing Design in Eleven Global Companies. It emerged from studying how leading design-led organizations actually worked — and finding that they consistently moved through two distinct problem-solution cycles rather than going straight from brief to solution.

The model has since been widely adopted beyond product design into service design, business consulting, and organizational change, because it formalizes something experienced consultants already do intuitively: the discipline of not jumping to solutions before the problem is understood.

The two diamonds:

• First diamond — Problem space
  • Discover (diverge): explore broadly, gather inputs, challenge assumptions, understand the full landscape
  • Define (converge): synthesize what you've learned, agree on the problem statement, write the brief
• Second diamond — Solution space
  • Develop (diverge): generate multiple potential solutions, prototype, experiment
  • Deliver (converge): test, refine, and implement the best solution

The key insight — easily stated, consistently violated — is that the first diamond is not optional. Most teams skip directly to "develop" because it feels more productive. The Double Diamond forces a visible pause between understanding the problem and solving it.

When to Use It

When the problem is genuinely uncertain, or when there's any chance the client's initial problem statement is incomplete. Especially valuable for innovation, service redesign, and strategy work where the problem space is ambiguous. Less critical when the problem is already tightly defined and solution development is the clear task — don't add process where it isn't needed.

How It Works

First Diamond: Problem Space

Discover: Talk to customers, stakeholders, or anyone affected. Observe. Gather data. Stay deliberately open — you're not yet forming hypotheses, you're building a rich picture of the situation. In a consulting context, this means asking questions that challenge the brief rather than confirming it.

Define: Look across your discoveries for patterns, tensions, and surprises. Write a clear problem statement: what is actually going on, for whom, and what does success look like? This is the end of the first diamond — and the most important output of the whole process.

Second Diamond: Solution Space

Develop: Generate multiple solutions without premature judgment. Prototype at low fidelity. Try things in parallel. The goal is breadth before depth — you're creating options to choose from, not perfecting one answer.

Deliver: Select, refine, and implement the solution that best addresses the defined problem. In a consulting context, "deliver" is the recommendation and the plan to execute it.

The model is iterative, not strictly linear. Discovering new information during the develop phase that redefines the problem is normal and healthy — loop back to define if you need to.

Common Pitfalls

• Skipping the first diamond — going directly from client brief to solution generation; produces solutions to the wrong problem
• Treating it as strictly linear — good teams loop back when they discover something that changes the problem definition; that's the method working, not failing
• Over-process in a short engagement — in a 90-minute session, "discover" is 20 minutes of sharp questioning, not weeks of research; calibrate depth to the stakes
• Confusing diverge with brainstorm — diverging means staying genuinely open to input that might contradict your assumptions, not just generating more ideas

Recommended Books

• The Design Thinking Playbook — Lewrick, Link & Leifer
• Creative Confidence — Tom Kelley & David Kelley
• Sprint — Jake Knapp