The learning journey started at Laurea with course facilitator and lecturer Katja Tschimmel by deep diving in to the course “Design thinking”. This course is one of the foundation stones for the Master Degree Program in Service Innovation and Design.

This blog gives insights about the learning experience that encountered during this course and also to share my thoughts about related material.

During last few years, design thinking has contributed the innovation process and facilitated it by introducing tools and supporting theory which has gained great appreciation from research communities worldwide. During the intensive two days sessions, this course has given an opportunity to learn a professional and structured approach to complex problem solving techniques.

Design Thinking tends to develop and nurture sightfull thinking into innovative idea. It is focused on human thinking and proposes human centered approach that develops empathy for the target group and observe behaviors. The most differentiating aspect of design thinking is that it promotes interdisciplinary collaboration and targets the main project and its solution rather than highlighting the complexities or problems.

There is a wide a variety of models under the umbrella of Design Thinking that have been developed over passage of time. One eye catching fact that I learnt was that customer’s journey is unique for every individual customer and it cannot be generalized.

Mind shake innovation & design thinking model EVOLUTION 62 by “Katja Tschimmel

We started in a group of five students and defined goal was to attract international students to Laurea.

The first step, Emergence involves creation of Opportunity Mind Map(OMM) which represents the visual organization of available information. We, as a group, visualized the thoughts. They key thing was to “draw as much as you can”.

 

 

Empathy, Stakeholder map (SM) is made for better visual illustration of prepared for visual of individual’s project relationship. It focuses on the network we are connected to. The important part is that it considers another person sees the process with perspective that is different from yours.

 

Experimentation, focuses on idea generation and testing with the help of tools of “Brainsketching”. this steps provide practical ideas and gives new but firm and meaningful direction.

 

 

 

 

Elaboration, this step involved creation of prototype. In our case, we used Legos to showcase the idea which was mainly concentrated on the fact that Laurea has close ties with the industries, so promoting practical education that is key to build a better world.

 

Exposition, at this stage vision statement is made which focuses and spread the results in verbal-visual way that helps in catching wider audiences by effective communication. In our case, we promoted Laurea as centre for experiential education which serves to promote innovative and practical knowledge to its students.

 

 

 

Conclusion, in my opinion design thinking provides you with the tools and roadmap that helps in evoking creativity and generate innovative ideas. On key lesson that I learnt from the sessions is that only thing that keeps you away from being innovative is the lack of creative confidence.

More information:

Brown, Tim 2008. Design Thinking. Harvard Business Review, June, 84-95. http://www.ideo.com/images/uploads/thoughts/IDEO_HBR_Design_Thinking.pdf

Van Wulfen, Gijs 2013. The innovation expedition – a visual toolkit to start innovation. Amsterdam: BIS Publishers.

E.62 MindShake toolkit

Tschimmel, Katja 2012. Design Thinking as an effective Toolkit for Innovation. In: Proceedings of the XXIII ISPIM Conference: Action for Innovation: Innovating from Experience.Barcelona.

http://www.academia.edu/1906407/Design_Thinking_as_an_effective_Toolkit_for_Innovation