Dear participants,
We would like to warmly welcome you to our online learning course “Beyond Brockhaus Thinking: With Design Thinking to a Networked Culture”. During the next 5 weeks we would like to take you on a joint learning journey about the core principles of Design Thinking and their value for a cultural change within organizations. In the following we would like to give you an overview about the content and the (weekly) important dates, as well as the assignments and the important role of the discussion forums.
Content
This online learning course is a combination of video lectures, some texts, some analytic & reflective exercises, as well as some further readings that consider as being additional to the core content. Our videos are only a small part of this online learning course as we use them to introduce topic areas & conceptual underpinnings as well as to raise challenges, while the exercises (and therefore the assignments) are designed to help you to analyze and assess the status quo of either yourself and/or of your organization. We invite you to share the outcomes of the exercises in the respective discussion forum(s). Furthermore, we want to invite you to share our thoughts, experiences and opinions triggered by our topic areas in our weekly discussion forums as well.
Our content is structured as follows:
Videos: We will introduce the core topic areas of this online learning course in several short videos.
Texts: We will support your learning experience by summarizing key aspects about the advanced mindset of Design Thinking on the conceptual level.
Exercises: Our introductory videos and texts are typically followed by an exercise that is designed to help you to analyze your current status quo and/or to develop your own perspective on the introduced content.
Discussion forums: The discussion forums are a great space not only to upload your findings about the exercises, but also to share and exchange your further thoughts, experiences, and opinions with us and more importantly with your peers who are also experienced in applying design thinking tools, methods, and principles. We highly recommend to take an active role in the forum and to discuss with your peers – other experienced design thinkers – from around the globe. Please note that once this online learning course leaves its active mode after 5 weeks you can no longer actively contribute to the discussion forums. From there on the discussion forums will be only available in “read-only format”.
Meet the team: As your online learning team, we will try to best support you during these 5 weeks. Apart from initiating our and answering your questions in the forum, we will try our best to follow all your contributions. For important topics and crucial questions that will come up, we will address them weekly with a short video. We will inform you about these developments in the course announcement section.
Further readings: For each module we will recommend some further reading material as part of this online learning course. And we will provide you with additional resources.
Final certificate: A confirmation of participation will be issued to those who have completed at least 50% of the course material. You can view your current point status when you click on the Progress icon in the navigation bar below the course title.
Structure & Important Dates
Zooming Out / Week 1 (8.5. – 14.5.2019)
At the beginning of your start we want to invite you to participate in our pre-course start survey. In week 1 we would like to introduce to you the strategic vision that goes beyond the innovative power of an individual (From IQ to WeQ) and to further extend this to an organizational level. Time commitment: approx. 1.5 hours
Collaborative Space / Week 2 (15.5. – 21.5.2019)
The most important component of making change visible in an organization is to change the material layer of organizational culture as tangible artifacts above rituals/behaviors and values/assumptions. In week 2 we want to discuss with you the visible strategic frame of change. Time commitment: approx. 2.5 hours
Creative Power of Teams / Week 3 (22.5. – 28.5.2019)
Diverse teams build on a broad array of functional roles is considered key to team building in innovative environments. In week 3 we want to tap into diversity beyond this criteria and address issues around personality and areas of expertise. We will also discuss the concepts of team(ed) leadership and leading teams-of-teams in Design Thinking. Time commitment: approx. 2.5 hours
Iterative Process for Co-Innovation / Week 4 (29.5. – 4.6.2019)
Introducing and implementing Design Thinking is quite often limited to the process-level and is quite often used as a creative means to produce ideas. We would like to challenge this perspective by introducing our model of co-innovating developed in our academic programs. In week 4 we will discuss the iterations build on gaining inspirations and insights, co-creating within an innovation network and implementing ideas into new business designs. Time commitment: approx. 2.5 hours
Zooming In / Week 5 (and after) (5.6. – 11.6.2019 and 12.6. – 18.6.2019)
In week 5 we want to zoom in with our participants and share & develop key strategic steps into the future of a networked organization build around Design Thinking principles. After this week we would like to wrap-up with you and provide a summary of the key learnings and discussions. Time commitment: approx. 1.5 hours
See you here and in the forum,
Claudia Nicolai & Uli Weinberg