Design thinking is an innovation culture that promotes creative developments to better address fundamental human needs. While the practical successes of design thinking have always been obvious, initially relatively little theoretical explanation was available as to why and how design thinking works in scientific terms. In this talk Dr. Julia von Thienen shares insights gleaned over ten years of respective research. It specifically elucidates why and how creative developments at low levels of novelty differ drastically from developments at high levels of novelty. Moreover, this talk explores in detail how the so-called “three pillars” or “3P” of design thinking (namely Processes, People and Places) help to describe, explain, predict and facilitate creative developments in all areas of life. This is illustrated with examples from various application domains, including Digital Engineering. Dr. Julia von Thienen gave this talk as part of the HPI Colloquium on January 10, 2019.