Mastering Design Thinking in Organizations (openHPI)

Mastering Design Thinking in Organizations (openHPI)

Design thinking (DT) is a valuable approach for enabling effective innovation in organizations (Kolko 2015). Just as a company’s, objectives for DT are diverse, so is the diversity of how and why organizations implement and succeed DT. While some companies start small in one department, others make DT part of their strategy and implement DT globally throughout the whole organization and embed it into their corporate DNA.

As part of this course, experienced DT practitioners were invited to share success stories of the different implementation strategies their organizations adopted when implementing design thinking. Besides that, they shared with us the critical cultural and organizational changes that were necessary to make that happen, such as, how to EMPOWER employees to use DT, how to ENACT DT in different industries, and how you can PROVE that DT works. Finally, the practice will then be complemented with academic talks concerning the most recent theoretical developments in the area of design thinking and innovation research.

If you are curious to know about how organizations are leading through design and their paths to achieve sustainable innovation, enroll for this course. We will guide you throughout this fascinating journey, which is promoting organizational change through design!
Join us!

Course content

Course Week 1
Lecture Unit 1: The importance of design to digital innovation (Introduction)
Lecture Unit 2: Using design as a driver for innovation strategy (Strategy)
Lecture Unit 3: Leadership as enablement (Leadership)
Lecture Unit 4: Curating and enacting design thinking (Process & Practices)
Lecture Unit 5: Exploring the implementation of design thinking (Application Areas)
Course Week 2
Lecture Unit 6: Building long-term internal design capabilities (education & training)
Lecture Unit 7: Case for Innovation in Large Organisations ( Business Model)
Lecture Unit 8: Creating innovative spaces and the dream team (Spaces & Team Composition)
Lecture Unit 9: Developing design thinking further (Impact & Measurement)
Lecture Unit 10: Combining Design Thinking with AI and Data Engineering

Target groups

  • CTO’s, R&D heads and innovation responsible who want to build and introduce new products, services, and business models
  • CIO’s who want to succeed with digital transformation projects
  • Managers who seek to understand how to enable organizational change and transformation
  • DT practitioners in companies of various size and industry
  • Anyone who is interested in innovation
  • Students who want to pursue a career in innovation management and R&D functions

Learning objectives

  • A comprehensive overview of how DT is implemented in different organizations
  • An understanding of how to implement, enact and embody DT in organizations based on successful cases
  • How to support and empower employees to use DT to promote change
  • How to measure and customize the process to account for business goals and organizational culture.
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