ME2818 Design Thinking 7.5 credits
Design thinking – a practical, cross disciplinary methodology – is one expression of our focus shifting from the object (artefact, collection or archive – library or database), towards information, including the question how expertise is actualised (performed, articulated) in practice. Such an approach changes the terms by which we describe, and conceive of, our various knowledge concepts and this in turn affects the way we set about what we call, at the Experience Design Group, disruptive innovation. As Jack Burnham writes in Systems Aesthetics “We are now in transition from an object-oriented to a systems-oriented culture. Here change emanates, not from things, but from the way things are done.”[1]
This course arises from a belief in the central relevance of design thinking to a range of disciplines, and the corresponding belief that “designers should be critical thinkers and strategists first, capable of addressing cross-disciplinary problems by designing the social, political, economic and educational ‘systems’ that give them greater reach, responsibility, influence and relevance.”[iii]This is a more expanded role for the designer than simply that of problem-solver; the problem-solver typically works within narrowly prescribed limits, while the creative entrepreneurs that this course addresses must be highly skilled in synthesising information from a diverse range of knowledge traditions. Why? Because they face problems that are neither predictable nor simple, but rather highly complex – as Julie Thompson Klein has noted, “the art of being a professional is becoming the art of managing complexity.”[iv] Design thinking is thus well positioned to make meaningful contributions to today’s wicked problems and entrepreneurial opportunities since it develops the capacity to speculate critically where compelling breakthrough knowledge is likely to occur.
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Application
For course offering
Autumn 2024 Start 28 Oct 2024 programme students
Application code
50561
Content and learning outcomes
Course contents
Design thinking is a powerful tool for devising strategic interdisciplinary or entrepreneurial initiatives, permitting connections between concepts, methods and shifts of perspective that would otherwise be overlooked in a mono-disciplinary ‘problem-solving’ approach. Originating in design, but capable of being applied across a broad range of disciplines, design thinking brings a disruptive, game-changing potential to ways of working that have become routine. People naturally have the ability for design thinking – it deploys the associative, improvisatory logic of play – but are typically encouraged to suppress it in favour of more dependable yet limited problem-solving methodologies.
For entrepreneurs who value the pursuit of validity and innovation over tradition and repetition, this course will equip you with the core skills for furthering such aims. It takes a practice-led approach, teaching design thinking skills through a mix of lectures, workshops and assignments. Having acquired the fundamentals of design thinking, students are then encouraged to explore ways of extending the established techniques – incorporating elements from, for example, other creative and design disciplines such as plotting, characterization, visualisation, role-playing, story-boarding and experience prototyping.
As the course focuses on themes and speculative, post-critical prototyping of actual “wicked” problems, teaching is conducted in an interactive manner with participants expected to take an active role throughout the course.
Intended learning outcomes
The purpose of this course is to teach PhD, MFA, MSc, and MA students the advanced methods for design thinking.
Upon completing the course, students should be able to:
- Acquire and execute design thinking methods
- Evaluate and organize the concepts such a methodology generates
- Discuss and critically assess the strengths, weaknesses and innovative potential of proposals from course colleagues
- Develop, document and articulate a coherent design proposal based on results generated
- Demonstrate how design thinking can change and enlarge the student’s own disciplinary ‘world view’
- Develop and argue for an interdisciplinary entrepreneurial initiative inspired by the design thinking process
Literature and preparations
Specific prerequisites
Students must have a minimum of 120 university points.
Recommended prerequisites
Conditionally elective for TMRSM1 and open for all programs at KTH.
Equipment
Literature
Information om kurslitteratur kommer att meddelas inför kursstart.
literature will be announced in connection to the start and communicated to enrolled students.
Examination and completion
If the course is discontinued, students may request to be examined during the following two academic years.
Grading scale
Examination
- PRO1 - Project, 7.5 credits, grading scale: A, B, C, D, E, FX, F
Based on recommendation from KTH’s coordinator for disabilities, the examiner will decide how to adapt an examination for students with documented disability.
The examiner may apply another examination format when re-examining individual students.
The final grade will be based on:
- The student’s interdisciplinary entrepreneurial proposal, its final presentation and documentation of how design thinking has led to this result
- The grading you receive from your team members, and an evaluation of the way in which you give and motivate the grades you give yourself and your team members
- Successful completion of the individual assignments
- Attendance
Opportunity to complete the requirements via supplementary examination
Opportunity to raise an approved grade via renewed examination
Examiner
Ethical approach
- All members of a group are responsible for the group's work.
- In any assessment, every student shall honestly disclose any help received and sources used.
- In an oral assessment, every student shall be able to present and answer questions about the entire assignment and solution.
Further information
Course room in Canvas
Offered by
Main field of study
Education cycle
Add-on studies
Contact
Supplementary information
Queries can be addressed to SSES Education Coordinator via registrar@sses.se
The course language is English.
The course is offered within the framework of the Stockholm School of Entrepreneurship.
Responsible institution: University College of Arts, Crafts and Design (Konstfack)
Course director: Julien Mauroy, julien@mauroy.info