Design Thinking

Design has been defined variously as a ‘User-led problem-solving process’ or a ‘Human-centered opportunity-resolution journey’. Design goes beyond aesthetics and is about evolution and progress; the underlying force behind creating compelling new things, new policies, new services, new brands and even new business-models. Design is about discovering what people really want or need and translating insights into great solutions. Design Thinking or User-Centered Innovation is not the exclusive preserve of Designers – It is an approach that deploys a high degree of empathy and collaborative spirit to solve complex challenges and create ideas with enduring value — all great innovators in literature, art, music, science, engineering, medicine and business have practiced it. Some of the world’s leading brands, such as Apple, Google, Samsung and GE, have rapidly adopted Design Thinking and integrated it into their management toolkit. Design Thinking is now being taught at leading universities around the world, including d.school, Stanford, Harvard and MIT. During the course, we will also select a public policy challenge and learn how to empathize with users, generate ideas to solve the problem, prioritize and select and come out with a prototype for the new solution.

What you’ll learn

By the end of this course the scholars will:

• Learn about the discipline of design thinking that helps innovation, value addition and problemsolving
• Build capability on how to identify and redefine problems, needs, make hypothesis, collect and analyse data in a real-world environment
• Learn about various design thinking tools like empathy maps, storyboarding, idea generation, rapid prototyping
• Learn how to apply design thinking methods in variety of areas including policy creation and implementation

Instructor

Amit Krishn Gulati

Entrepreneur, Professor at ISPP