Dr. CJ Meadows teaches design thinking using the IDEO methodology. Companies that embed it see three times higher operating-income growth and 60% more shareholder value. Students work in teams on real problems, get mentoring and user feedback, and learn to move ideas from concept to market.
Chapters
Companies that directly capture customer insights, as with design thinking, earn 3 times the growth in operating income, twice the return on assets, and 60% more shareholder value. There are tons more statistics showing the business value of design thinking, and that if you have a dollar to spend on innovation, this is the way you want to spend it. If you'd like to learn what people really need and want and design great solutions for them that succeed in the marketplace, then Design Thinking is probably for you. In this course, you'll learn the methodology of the top Design Thinking consultancy in the world, IDEO. You'll learn how to frame challenges so that you choose the right problem to work on in order to get the right solution, how to engage with people deeply and in a rigorous research-based way so that you find out what they need and want, how to draw insights from your experiences with users and the data you've gathered, how to frame opportunities and envision the future, how to brainstorm radical solutions creative ways to solve people's problems, and then to prototype and experiment fully enough that when you launch a new product or service to serve people's needs, it will really succeed in the marketplace. This course is a team-based course. It's experiential learning. You'll be involved in a project, and I ask the teams to choose an area about which they're passionate. It could be a social enterprise venture, it could be a social cause, it could be some new technology use, it, it could be anything. It's gotta be something you're passionate about that serves a real need or want of someone else. And most of my teams find out very early on that what they thought was important may not have been. They learn to connect with users, and create solutions for them, which will— may be the most important thing you learn in your business career. So not only will you have a group experience, but you'll also have the latest articles from Harvard Business Review and more, the latest studies on design thinking efficiency and business value from McKinsey and more. You'll also have personal mentoring from me. A longtime design thinking consultant and educator, and you'll have a peer-reviewed experience as well as, very importantly, feedback from the people you're designing for. With this course, you'll be able to find new needs, design solutions that really serve them better, and can be launched in the marketplace for good.
