Cultivating an innovation-driven mindset through Design Thinking

Course reserved for students of the Master in Corporate Communication and Master in Marketing and transformative economy 2 year.

Innovation has become increasingly important in the fast-paced and ever-changing world in which businesses operate. At its core, innovation is about seeing the world not as it is, but as it could be, and, thus, requires the ability to explore complex problems and to turn them into new opportunities through imagination.

Design Thinking provides a human-centred approach to solving these complex and ambiguous problems (the so-called 'wicked problems') through an innovation-driven mindset. This mindset can help unlock the hidden value in existing products, services and technologies, and develop new business models, redesign complex systems and find new solutions for societal issues. 

Moreover, this mindset represents the next competitive advantage for professionals inside organizations.
As such, Design Thinking offers a powerful way to unleash the creative potential of employees, managers and leaders in organisations and to prepare them for current and future business challenges.
This module, therefore, will help students develop innovative thinking skills as well as a design thinking mindset conducive to innovation.

•    Develop an innovation-driven mindset
•    Know how to think more expansively, creatively, and effectively through all phases of an innovation project, and how to apply these innovative thinking skills to solve problems in relevant business situations;
•    Be able to identify user needs, collect appropriate data, generate ideas, create sound concepts, and develop a prototype that allows for meaningful feedback in a real-world environment
•    Translate broadly defined opportunities into actionable innovation possibilities and recommendations for client organisations; 
•    Design desirable, viable and feasible business solutions.
 

In presenza

The module takes the view that Design Thinking can be learned through repeated practice. As a consequence, the course will be based on interactive sessions combining case discussion, independent fieldwork, and in-class exercises to help you familiarise with the fundamental concepts and tools of Design Thinking, and apply these tools to a concrete business challenge.

The module has no textbook but relies on a selection of books and articles outlining some fundamental ideas in Design Thinking, as well as case studies and examples. Reading the readings in advance is highly recommended as it will help students follow the content of the sessions.

•    Brown, T. (2009). Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation. Harper Collins.
•    Brown, T. (2008) Design thinking, Harvard Business Review, June Issue.
•    Ignatius, A. (2015) How Indra Noovi Turned Design Thinking into Strategy. Harvard Business Review, September 2015.
•    Martin, R. L. (2009). The design of business: Why design thinking is the next competitive advantage. Harvard Business Press.
•    Verganti, R. (2009). Design driven innovation: changing the rules of competition by radically innovating what things mean. Harvard Business Press.
•    Osterwalder, A., Pigneur, Y., Bernarda, G., & Smith, A. (2015). Value proposition design: How to create products and services customers want. John Wiley & Sons.
•    Bland, D. J., & Osterwalder, A. (2019). Testing business ideas: A field guide for rapid experimentation. John Wiley & Sons.
•    Knapp, J., Zeratsky, J., & Kowitz, B. (2016). Sprint: How to solve big problems and test new ideas in just five days. Simon and Schuster.

Attendance is highly encouraged and active participation to the team project is expected due to the highly participatory and hands-on nature of the course.

Evaluation procedures & grading criteria 
•     Course evaluation is pass/fail.
•     Individual project participation 30%
•     Final team presentation 50%
•     Individual reflective essays 20%
•     Detailed instructions will be provided during the course.
•     Peer evaluation will be activated upon request.