The most significant difference is that the lean learning cycle is arranged in a circular form, while the design thinking process: AGILE Methodologies and Design Thinking Assignment, GGBS, Ireland

The most significant difference is that the lean learning cycle is arranged in a circular form, while the design thinking process is arranged in a linear way. This might suggest that design thinking should be executed in subsequent steps, while lean startup appears to be more flexible.

Unlike the design thinking process, which begins with the “Understand” phase, the lean learning cycle has no clear beginning or ending—the circular alignment of the steps suggests that they are supposed to be executed in a continuous and repeated manner.

The goal of the build-measure-learn cycle is learning. What is built is based on a problem or solution hypothesis. The test of a hypothesis is therefore the intended learning step. For testing the hypothesis, appropriate metrics must be defined.

For generating these metrics and then testing the hypothesis, an experiment has to be designed. Therefore the build-measure-learn cycle could also be regarded as a classical scientific hypothesis-metric-experiment cycle that starts with the learning goal and ends with an experiment to test the hypothesis.

When comparing the individual steps of both processes, some interesting similarities become obvious: e.g. “learn” in a lean startup could be interpreted as “understand” or as “point of view” in design thinking. “Build” in a lean startup might be similar to “prototype” in design thinking.

And “measure” in a lean startup can either be “observe” or “test” in design thinking. This is in line with the before-mentioned assumption that the lean learning cycle could start at any step of the process model.

And finally, the lean learning cycle might be applied to different levels of a project. On a meta-level, it could be applied to the entire process, and on a micro-level, it could be applied to specific details.

That means, it is possible to zoom into sub-processes and execute the lean learning cycle also for smaller design decisions. The design thinking process model, however, seems to be only applicable to the entire problem; not to specific sub-problems.

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