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Enterprise Design Thinking Graduate Course

Introduction

Enterprise Design Thinking is a framework that aligns multi-disciplinary teams around the real needs of their users..

IBM SkillsBuild for Academia
Self-paced course

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Explore topics and skills required for successful application of design thinking techniques to key industry problems.

Think that design thinking is all about sticky notes, Sharpie pens, and whiteboard walls? That’s nothing more than innovation theatre. It’s so much more! And it’s not as straightforward to master effectively and deploy as most people think.

This course will teach your students a comprehensive approach to design thinking that will make them effective at applying it whether in a startup or a large company, in the public or private sector, or even to the more effective running of their dorm.

Students will learn the history of design thinking, a case study and overview of IBM’s Enterprise Design Thinking, the anti-patterns to avoid, and they will get instruction and hands-on practice with IBM’s Loop comprised of Observing, Reflecting, and Making.

They’ll experientially learn everything from conducting user research, summarizing it with empathy; stakeholder, and as-is scenario maps and personas, identifying key areas to improve, individually and collaboratively ideating and prioritizing solutions, fleshing out those solutions with storyboards, prototypes, and Hills; testing those solution prototypes with users, and using Playbacks to communicate the solution’s user experience to stakeholders.

When teams apply these scalable methods, they’re able to move faster and deliver differentiated outcomes over and over again.

Successful design thinking teams operate as an ecosystem of different people with unique skills and responsibilities, working together to deliver human-centered experiences.

Objectives

Design thinking unifies everyone around a very clear approach. One that is oriented around the customer as opposed to different people’s objectives.

Design thinking Practitioners

Acquire required knowledge of design thinking and its value proposition. A practitioner finds opportunities to apply design thinking methods in their everyday work.

Learning objectives:

  • Understand predecessors to design thinking and how it is built upon previous approaches
  • How design thinking is introduced in an organization and understand the transformation
  • An overview of the entire approach to design thinking
  • Seven key habits of effective design thinkers
  • Understand the importance of iteration
  • Learn how to observe, reflect, and make
  • Understand the importance of user research
  • Appreciate empathy through listening
  • Learn ideation, storyboarding, and prototyping
  • Understand user feedback and the loop
  • Learn the different types of user feedback
  • Understand the challenges of teaching EDT and learn valuable hints and tips
  • Understand the domains that are applicable
  • Learn about digital versus physical
  • Explore technology specializations

What is design thinking?

Enterprise Design Thinking is a framework that aligns multi-disciplinary teams around the real needs of their users. When teams apply these scalable methods, they’re able to move faster and deliver differentiated outcomes over and over again.

The framework is comprised of three principles which guide the team: a focus on user outcomes—ensuring users achieve their goals, restless reinvention, and diverse empowered teams.

Three keys to align the team: Hills to align teams on meaningful user outcomes to achieve, Playbacks to stay aligned by regularly exchanging feedback, and Sponsor Users to ensure the work stays true to real world needs.

The foundation of the framework is called the Loop which drives the team to: Observe by immersing the team among real world users, Reflect to understand what was observed, and Make to give concrete form to the team’s ideas.

Loop which drives the team to: Observe, Reflect, and Make

IBM’s design thinking practice returned over 3x

IBM’s design thinking practice extends across its diverse portfolio of products and services. Forrester Consulting conducted a Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) study to provide readers with a framework to evaluate the potential financial impact of IBM’s design thinking practice on their organizations. Data was gathered from interviews with four IBM clients and 60 executive survey respondents.

Forrester concluded that IBM’s design thinking practice has the following three-year financial impact: $48.4 million in benefits versus costs of $12 million, resulting in a net present value (NPV) of $36.3 million and an ROI of 301%.

IBM helped accelerate projects, increase portfolio profitability, and streamline processes

Forrester quantified the following key risk-adjusted benefits, which are representative of those experienced by the organizations interviewed:

Project teams achieved profits and savings of $20.6M by doubling design and execution speed, delivering $678K per minor and $3.2M per major project.

  • Organizations slashed the time required for design and alignment by 75%
    • Project teams leveraged better design and user understanding to reduce development and testing time by 33%
    • IBM’s design thinking practice helped projects cut design defects in half
    • Faster time-to-market enabled increased profits from net-new customers and the higher present value of expected profits
  • Organizations reduced risk and improved product outcomes, driving an increased portfolio profitability of $18.6M for the composite
    • Discovered and invested in projects that had the highest profit opportunity
    • Minimized the risk of failed projects, or muted adoption, by weeding out poor investments that may not have paid off
    • Designed better products that resonated with users to increase adoption, retention, satisfaction, productivity, and sales
  • Cross-functional teams collaborated to share problems and find solutions, reducing costs by $9.2M in streamlined processes.

What were your organization’s top three priorities or business objectives for introducing design thinking?

Prerequisites

Instructor workshop

Facilitator delivering this course has taken the course previously and successfully passed the exam.

  • Mastery of the lecture material
  • Telling of illustrative stories
  • Facilitating ‘at the wall’
  • Focus on experiential learning
  • Appropriate critique and redirection
  • Evaluation of student accomplishment
  • Completion of practitioner and co-creator badges, and understanding of toolkit methods and techniques

Classroom format

Individuals with an active interest in learning and applying design thinking methods.

  • No prerequisites

Digital credential

Graduate Badge

Enterprise Design Thinking Graduate Certificate Badge

Enterprise Design Thinking Graduate Certificate

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About this certificate

This credential earner acquired the skills required to gain practice in the successful application of design thinking techniques to address key industry problems. They demonstrate proficiency on the following topics: History of design thinking, Design thinking overview, Design thinking key habits, Iteration, User feedback, Listening, Ideation, Storyboarding, and Prototyping. They gained the ability to apply the concepts of design thinking to real world scenarios, suitable for educational purposes.

Skills

Collaboration, Communication, Design thinking, Empathy, Experience design, Ideation, Iteration, Personas, Problem solving, Prototyping, Storyboarding, Teamwork, Use cases, User-centered design, User-centric, User experience, User feedback, User research, UX.

Criteria

Instructor Badge

Enterprise Design Thinking Instructor Badge

Enterprise Design Thinking Instructor Certificate

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About this certificate

Through an IBM instructor-led workshop, this credential earner acquired the skills required to gain practice in the successful application of design thinking techniques to address key industry problems. They are proficient at: Mastering lecture material; Illustrative story telling; Facilitating ‘at the wall’; Experiential learning; Critiquing and redirection; and Utilizing the toolkit methods and techniques. They can deliver the course as an instructor applying pedagogical skills to drive group work at an IBM instructor-led workshop.

Skills

Advisor, Collaboration, Communication, Design thinking, Empathy, Experience design, Ideation, Iteration, Lecturer, Personas, Problem solving, Prototyping, Storyboarding, Teamwork, Trainer, Use cases, User-centered design, User centric, User experience, User feedback, User research, UX.

Criteria