In the lobbies of its extended-stay hotels, Marriott installs wall maps of nearby hot spots, organizations and community events. The result: Guests feel like part of the local community, instead of just visitors.

Healthcare provider Kaiser Permanente gives its physicians and nurses aprons to wear that read LEAVE ME ALONE or DO NOT CROSS as they do their rounds. As a result, they are interrupted half as frequently and medication errors go down significantly.

Innovative ideas like these don’t just appear out of thin air. In both instances, these are solutions generated by design thinking, a problem-solving method that investigates problems from the customer’s perspective and then hunts down wild, previously unthinkable solutions.

Natalie Nixon, principal at the consulting firm Figure 8 Thinking and author of the book “Strategic Design Thinking: Innovations in Products, Services, Experiences and Beyond,” explains that design thinking is a problem-solving process that is borrowed from traditional designers as well as designers of objects, products, apparel and building structure. You transfer that process to the design of the intangible — to the design of services, experiences, processes and even systems.

What artists and designers have known for a long time as a step-by-step process for creating, business owners and managers are just now discovering. The process can be boiled down to five steps: framing the problem, understanding the customer, brainstorming a solution, prototyping and reiteration.

For car wash owners and operators, the problem could be about improving some aspect of service, such as how to improve the payment process, launch the most effective marketing campaigns or offer a more-consistent wash year-round.

Understanding the Customer

After the problem is identified, then owners and operators dedicate time to fully understanding the problem from the customer’s perspective. Too often, small business owners are reluctant to examine current procedures because they are either too attached to their own ideas or they’ve become complacent and content with the way things are done. Instead, owners need to embark on a mission to understand the customers’ experience and what they value. An easy way to do this is to observe.

“My local car wash had the consideration to provide a sitting area and magazines for patrons who have dropped off their keys,” said Adam Leon, creative director of the web-design consulting firm Transmitter Studios Inc. “Had the owners observed people experiencing this amenity they might not have allowed filthy floors, stained chairs and overflowing garbage bins to push waiting customers out of the room.”

Car wash operators can dedicate an hour a day to watching customers purchase and receive services. While observing, operators should write down everything they see about their customers’ experiences, including body language of both customers and attendants, wait times and the appearance of the operation. This can provide owners with critical information about what the real problem is.

Before Marriott installed the successful community-centered wall maps in their TownePlace Suites lobbies, they had the more conventional idea of remodeling their lobbies. They envisioned cool, upscale spaces where guests would want to hangout. But when the design consultants from IDEO – the California design firm founded by David Kelley, originator of the design thinking method – spent time observing and talking with guests in the Marriott lobbies, they discovered that guests had no interest in spending their time in lobbies. What they wanted was to be out, experiencing nearby restaurants, gyms, health food stores and churches like the locals.

Free-Range Brainstorming

Next, the designers brainstormed ways Marriott could help guests feel like locals in their temporary community. From that, the idea of a large, electronic map where guests can both find and post information about well-loved local spots was born.

The purpose of the brainstorming process is to unlock creativity and to generate as many solutions as possible. To do this, IDEO has developed rules that anyone, including car wash owners and their staff, can use to generate effective solutions. First, brainstorming participants should defer judgement of ideas, encouraging even the most outlandish ones. Too often, ideas are quickly discarded because people can’t imagine having the resources to develop them. Second, build on the best ideas already listed. A wildly unfeasible idea might spur another idea that’s more workable. Lastly, stay focused on the specific problem at hand. Avoid drifting into other innovation for other problems.

Prototyping – A Quick and Dirty Rough Draft

The next step is to identify one good solution to try out, developing and launching a miniature version of the service or procedure. The solution does not need to be perfect. “The goal of prototyping is to get feedback in small stages so you can fine-tune so that the thing you are designing actually meets the needs of the customer,” Nixon said.

Nixon recommends role-playing as a simple form of prototyping. “You can record on an iPhone or iPad a role play of a new type of service interaction. Make it no longer than 60 seconds, and then walk through a mall or wherever you think your target audience would be, and ask them to take a look at this interaction. What do you think about this? What are we missing? Would you want to engage in the process?” Nixon said. From this, owners can gain valuable insights about the real effectiveness of the solution, and then use that information to revise the service, product or solution.

This process of creating, prototyping and revising is the final stage of design thinking: re-iteration. Once an owner is confident in a solution, all that’s left to do is implement it and monitor its effectiveness.

Contrary to popular belief, good creative ideas can happen to anyone — not just those who call themselves artists or designers. The step-by-step design thinking process empowers small business owners to solve problems both innovatively and systematically. It not only gives owners the freedom to explore ferociously wild ideas but also the tools to shape those ideas into effective solutions. In an industry constantly adjusting to new technologies, a new generation of drivers and new vehicles, car wash owners would be wise to also embrace a new way of thinking.