Design is about making - and not over intellectualizing. A designers' approach is to combine brainwork and handwork early on in the process. Building a rough prototype can teach you more than endless discussions about ideas. As Designers are used to working with multiple prototypes on their way to a solution to a problem, they are quite used to failing and therefore have less fear of failure. Bringing ideas to life and letting others try them out is part of their process and it's worth it, as long as you stay optimistic, willing to explore, discover and learn from what specifically did not work out yet. As IDEO founder David Kelley says: "fail faster to succeed sooner" is a working mode, which is a great contribution within an innovation process. Because: 'what good is an idea if it remains an idea?'

testing of prototype under 'real life conditions' – in a running elevator, SAP 2013. Image: Gero Lurz