Design Thinking
Creativity and innovation are the key drivers of success for many of today’s leading companies. Some of the most dramatic gains in shareholder value over the last few years (e.g., Google, Apple) are due to a culture of creative innovation. Indeed, a culture of creativity and innovation is commonly recognized as the only sustainable competitive advantage. An important element of a creative culture is the use of breakthrough design thinking. Design represents a powerful alternative to the dominant management approaches of the last few decades and is an important perspective for business leaders to embrace. This course will focus on developing new ways of thinking, which are different from those typically learned in MBA programs. The course provides many opportunities to apply these new ways of thinking through class exercises and a course project, where you will develop creative concepts for an assigned topic. The project will follow the phases conducted by an innovation consulting firm to synthesize real-time research, and approach ideation and investigation on parallel tracks. Teams will present their work at the end of three project phases and vote on each other’s presentations.