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Design Strategy

94-866

Units: 6

Description

Design thinking is a collaborative, user-centered process for identifying problems, defining innovative solutions and connecting them to an organization’s strategy. It has been applied to the development of new products, the solution of social problems, the design of new business models and the improvement of existing processes.

Design thinking is based on five premises that pervade the creative process. User-centered: empathy for the people you are designing for, and feedback from these users, is fundamental to a good solution. Experimentation: communicate your vision by creating experiences, illustrations, prototypes and stories meaningful to your users, and test them early. Reframing the problem: formulate the problem in different ways, one level above the current reality, one level below, or from different points of view. Collaboration: problems and solutions are identified with the participation of all key stakeholders, by a cross-functional team that looks at many aspects of the solution. Strategic viability: a good solution is desirable to users, feasible to build and viable for the organization, with a clear path to implementation and continuous improvement.

In this course, students work in cross-functional teams on a challenge of their choosing, from digital products and services to public programs and policies.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of the course, students should be able to (1) decide the suitability of applying design thinking in a given context; (2) explain the design thinking process and its most common tools; (3) apply the design thinking process in the context of a product, service or policy definition; (4) translate evidence from users and testing into actionable recommendations for stakeholders; and (5) assemble a toolkit of design methods, and judge which to use, for any future problem they take on.