This paper will discuss how design and design thinking can contribute to an innovative development process in a conscious, controlled, and cost effective way. The subject will be reviewed from a theoretical and a practical point of view. In order to analyse and build an understanding of the design thinking phenomenon in practice, the paper will analyse a case study based on interviews at IDEO, a company successful in its work with innovative development using design thinking and comparing this with generic success factors and Schön’s paradigm of the reflective practice.