The Stanford d.school and Stanford
Business School have joined together to offer a new executive program for
people who want to immerse themselves in the design thinking process. This
program, called Design Thinking Boot Camp: From Insights to Innovation is
the next logical step after the Customer-Focused Innovation class that
Huggy Rao and I teach every November, which combines traditional lectures and
case studies with hands-on d.school type experience – as you can see in earlier
posts here,
here,
and here.
Bootcamp
is mostly hands-on. The pictures are from the hands-on experiences that we
gave executives in our Customer–Focused Innovation executive program last
November — and reflect the kinds of experiences that executives get in both
programs (although Bootcamp emphasizes that "doing" part nearly 100%,
and Customer-focused Innovation is roughly 50% traditional case-style
discussion ("clean models" we call it) and 50% hands-on stuff
("embracing the mess of innovation" we call it).
Here is the description of the new program
from Kerry O’Connor, the d.school Fellow who is leading our executive education
efforts (she is pictured to the left). Sounds like a lot of fun and, I can assure you, that you will learn a
lot if you sign-up.
Design Thinking Boot
Camp: From Insights to Innovation offers executives the chance to learn design
thinking — a human-centered, prototype-driven process for innovation that can
be applied to product, service, and business design. We believe that innovation
is necessary in every aspect of business, and that it can be taught. We invite
you to join us at the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design, affectionately called
"the d.school," for an experience that will enhance your ability to
drive innovation in your organization. The 3-day program will take place
July 7th through the 9th, 2008.
The d.school design
thinking process is user-centered and prototype-driven. As a participant in
Design Thinking Boot Camp, you will be part of a small multidisciplinary team
and work through a hands-on innovation challenge from start to finish. You will
walk away from the workshop with a strong understanding of the key tenets of
design thinking and be able to execute them at home.
Key Takeaways and Tenets
of Design Thinking
- Develop Deep Consumer Insights: If you are looking for insights about
your consumers that your competitors don’t have, our field observations and ethnographic methods will take you beyond the limitations of
traditional market research. Our tools will help you to understand how to
tap into what is meaningful for consumers and to uncover what they need. - Reduce Risk and Accelerate Learning Through Rapid Prototyping:
If you are responsible for launching new products and services into the marketplace, design thinking can help you to greatly reduce the risk of failure and accelerate organizational learning through an iterative process of prototyping and user testing. - Drive Towards Innovation, Not Just Incremental Growth: Uncover and capitalize on the
unexplored innovation spaces in your business or industry. - Empower Your Employees To Be Innovative: If you seek to unlock the creative potential of your organization, design thinking can help you to transform your organizational structure and internal processes so that your business shifts to a more innovative stance.
To learn more about the
program and how to apply, look here.
There is room for just 35 executives in the Boot Camp, so apply early to
enhance your chance of being admitted.
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