Design Thiniking for Innovation

This lesson introduces the thinking of design thinking into innovation development. Innovation may involve new products or services but also new processes, ways of interacting with the customer, and new business models and practices. Design thinking is an anthropocentric, interdisciplinary approach that aims to help businesses (eg start-up companies) change and innovate. Design thinking, as applied to this lesson, partly follows the IDEO approach (www.ideo.com), which combines creative and rational thinking, and includes a process consisting of emphasize, prototype creation. Students will learn the design principles, methodologies and frameworks and implement them through a work-project. In particular, the course includes the development and design of innovative products - services, the strategy of recognizing innovative trends and creativity techniques, the design and evaluation of the business model using the business model canvas, the presentation of innovative applications and case studies, mockup and customer-centric design, the development of presentation and support skills for an innovative product / service to potential financiers (Pitching). In the course of the course, students are involved (in groups) with a project - for the better consolidation and application of knowledge. In the context of the work, students will understand all the steps of design thinking starting from capturing a business opportunity, designing and developing the business model through the implementation of original screens (mockups) and a first version of the product / service (prototype).

Learning Objectives

The aim of the program is to provide participants with the knowledge, tools and strategies needed to implement the design thinking approach to:

• apply creativity techniques and generate innovative ideas
• analyze how to design and evaluate alternative business models from the customer side
• understand the concept of design thinking in a working group
• design and develop innovative products / services or business models