Not sure what your definition of 'Design Thinking' is.
Design Thinking isn't about people thinking "that they can just come in and design user interfaces, etc. without really having an expertise in the particular field."
It's a problem solving approach using UCD methods amongst others and working with experts in the field to come up with solutions and ideas to a given problem space.
Key thing is you work with the people who are experts in the field, for example working with medical experts to design a new health related application etc.
It is the practice that matters, which is the "designers" trying to elevate their position to something more special by inserting their special rules into the design process, often at the expense of other people involved, including the experts.
"Working with the experts" always turns into weird formalized brainstorming sessions or other rituals, where the designer defines the process and the rules, and others' role is just to be little players in the game, but not the referee.
This is nothing new. We have seen the same thing with PMs and "scrum masters" inserting themselves into the software development process with shit like Agile, Scrum, etc.
If design thinking is just a problem solving approach, experts and practitioners in the field are perfectly capable of doing that. We don't need the shamans of Design Thinking to guide the process.
Those experts and stakeholders have a day job (i.e. don't have time to do this) and are usually in silos. They are not experts in workshop facilitation, user testing, usability, rapid prototyping to iterate on ideas and to think more broadly.
It helps to avoid parts of the innovator's dilemma and to break out of siloed thinking, i.e. involve stakeholders from other functions of the org.
Not sure what you've been sold, but there are no special rules or rigid methods.
But you're right, unfortunately there are consultants who use this term to sell you a new wunder method to solve all your product problems, but they are not really design practitioners.
Same way as people took the Agile Manifesto and bastardized it to create SAFE.
> Not sure what you've been sold, but there are no special rules or rigid methods.
I am not intentionally trying to be argumentative, but
- I have seen UX designers refer to a team of developers as "my developers" and I take it negatively.
- I have been into countless design sessions where the UX designers conducted a weird formalized session with cards, sorting, voting with colored stickers, and assigning equal votes to newly hired participants and senior domain experts. They were beyond stupid.
Sounds like your ego was hurt by a process that's designed to expose ideas from a group on a level playing field. The process was working as intended. If it upset you, it might be worth reflecting on what you can do to be more flexible and open minded, which is hard to do as we gain more experience in life.