In a constantly changing social and cultural context, organisations must be able to interpret emerging weak and strong market signals to reinvent their products, services and processes. The Design Thinking: Tools for Business Managers course will provide a dynamic, hands-on setting to experiment with innovative problem-solving, idea generation and decision-making methodologies. The goal of the course will be to empower trainees to address concrete everyday business and innovation problems by developing tangible customer-centric tools solutions. During the course students will be introduced to the fundamental concepts of Design Thinking and innovation design. Through a learning-by-doing approach they will be introduced to the practical application of human-centered innovation, ideation, prototyping and testing.

Students will acquire the key theoretical competences and the necessary familiarity with the tools of Design Thinking, enabling them to design innovation processes, develop simple workshops and address some of the critical issues associated with practising the discipline. Basic learning elements: - Understanding the innovation process and its mechanisms. - The ability to shift the perspective of problem analysis by adopting a human-centred approach using qualitative and quantitative observation methods. - Ability to work in an analytical, collaborative and creative way. - Familiarity with discipline-specific tools Specific learning elements: - Use of collaborative working tools, ability to manage brainstorming processes creatively and effectively. - Identify innovative solutions based on a thorough grasp of the context, users, and technology environment - Use benchmarking tools to analyse the competitive spectrum - Develop and prototype business opportunities - Effectively present and communicate a product to stakeholders

Following an initial introduction to the key concepts of Design Thinking and Innovation Design, course participants will be assigned a challenge in the form of project work. They will solve the assigned challenge progressively applying the new skills and methodologies at the heart of the course, with frequent reviews that will allow to evaluate benefits, critical aspects, and potential alternatives. Main contents: - The liquid expectations of society and the adaptability of organisations - Theoretical foundations of design thinking and the main frameworks - Tools for analysing users needs and investigate competitive environment - Brainstorming techniques, analytical selection of results, collaborative enrichment of results - Conceptualisation and rapid prototyping - User-centered prototype validation - Presentation and communication (pitching)

Tim Brown,  Clayton M. Christensen,  Indra Nooyi,  Vijay Govindarajan HBR's 10 Must Reads on Design Thinking, Harvard Business Review, 2020 Selected readings and materials will be distributed throughout the course.

- The course will begin with a theoretical exploration, through lectures, of the fundamentals of the discipline of Design Thinking and its proper placement in the current socio-economic context. - In the second part, structured as a workshop, project work will be proposed. Students will be guided in the construction of a process of context analysis, conception, prototyping and testing through the application of a design thinking framework. - Through the adoption of a learning-by-doing methodology, students will have the opportunity to apply the tools illustrated in the classroom in a hands-on mode in class and out of class through assignments. The development of a concept will be the final outcome of the second part of the cour - Standard digital collaboration tools will be used to familiarise students with their use.

Given the workshop nature of the course, students will be assessed on the basis of: - Attendance of at least 85% of the scheduled lectures. - Overall assessment of the project work.

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