We created this workshop for product innovators who want to make an impact. The design thinking mindset, tools, and methods taught in this program are best suited for novel, disruptive opportunities. We encourage entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs alike to think in terms of category innovation, not just innovation for a single product.
The design thinking workshop curriculum provides product and marketing managers with the creative mindset, tools, and techniques to manage risk and uncertainty through Design Thinking. The course is intended to build a practical set of skills that will allow participants to become better at finding novel solutions based in the unmet needs of the stakeholders. Each team will collaboratively develop an active learning project that will mature into a Pitch Concept at the end of the workshop.
Product innovation teams of 2-5 people from the same organization will be able to advance their projects through an active learning process. The first week will include a common project that all teams can participate in and share non-confidential ideas. The following weeks will be focused on team-specific projects that are protected under non-disclosure agreements. All intellectual property generated during the workshop will be assigned to the product innovation teams. At the end of the workshop, teams will present their confidential Build plan to their advisor(s) for the next phase of reducing risk in their project.
What will my team learn? The Design Thinking Workshops are broken up into six core Design Thinking topics that are the foundation of our process (see below). It was crafted for partnering with our clients and works great for taking an innovation journey along their side. The goal is to use our process as a starting point to build yours!
Discover the world of your stakeholders by immersing with fresh eyes. Identify customers, key influencers, and their respective personas. Research design inputs, competitive brands and market trends.
Define patterns of behavior, thoughts, and aspirations as well as opportunities that will set the strategic focus for your project. Generate and validate unmet needs relevant to the project scope.
Conceptualize ways to approach your stakeholders’ challenges from different perspectives. This phase is all about quantity as you brainstorm as many ideas as possible that meet your project’s defined needs.
Filter attributes of your team’s concepts by what would ultimately delight your stakeholders. Early ideas will be synthesized and converged according to decision-making best practices.
Develop core concepts to fit into the context of your stakeholders’ needs. You’ll be building out high level strategic guidance, translating needs to specifications, methods of prototyping experiences.
Produce your case for the most promising concepts to pursue with strategic stakeholder feedback. Set a north star for your ultimate design deliverables using refined experiential prototypes.
