Double vs. Triple Diamond: Why two Product Diamonds aren’t always enough

Digging into the real story behind the Double Diamond — and why the smartest PMs now think in threes.

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Ever heard of the Double Diamond?

That two-diamond model everyone loves to sketch on whiteboards — one for exploring the problem, one for solving it. It pops up everywhere: UX courses, strategy workshops, design thinking books.

But what if I told you the UK Design Council didn’t exactly invent it? That it’s more of a tidy package of long-standing ideas, wrapped up neatly in a visual everyone could get behind? And that the concept itself has gone through several evolutions — all the way to systemic design thinking?

If you’re curious about the full backstory — how the Double Diamond came to life, how relevant it still is, and how it evolved into the Systemic Design Framework — check out the official UK Design Council page or Benjamin P. Taylor’s deep dive into its intellectual roots.

But my goal — as always — is to save you time and cut straight to the essence:
Why did the Double Diamond become a cult classic in product work? What’s really behind it? And most importantly — how do you actually use it without turning it into a dogma?

The Double Diamond

The Double Diamond (a.k.a. the double rhombus) is a simple four-step model for design and problem-solving.

The Four Stages of the Double Diamond

Here’s the core idea behind the process: