Design-Led Strategy: Design thinking for business strategy and entrepreneurship

This course is for entrepreneurial managers who are looking for tools and techniques to introduce exciting, innovative products or services to market quickly and informed by high-quality customer insights. It is applicable to a range of organizations from small-medium sized enterprises through to corporates, and across a range of industrial segments.

The problem this course helps address is the constant pressure managers face to be innovative and introduce novel products and services for their customers. However, many creative ideas get ‘stuck’ in the boardroom or are subject to intra-organizational tensions or group think. This course provides methodologies to break through these challenges.

We build on the widely known concept of design thinking but update it and apply it to advance business strategy and entrepreneurship. Over five weeks you will learn what ‘design strategy’ is, how it differs from traditional design thinking and business strategy, and how it can be used to improve existing products or services in your business, or introduce breakthrough ideas.

We will also provide an exclusive, deep-dive into the practical application and impact of these strategies in one of Australia’s newest, most innovative financial institutions, UBank, and the global re-insurance giant, Swiss Re. Through conversations with their Senior Executive Leadership Teams, including UBank’s CEO, we will explore how they have embedded innovation through design thinking. By the end of this course, you will have a set of tools to inform product design and development for your own start-up, or to extend the product roadmap of an established organization.

What you will learn

What is design-led strategy?

This module gives you an introduction to design strategy. We will look at design thinking and the tools behind it and explore the elements of corporate strategy. Then, we will explore how design strategy can be used as a vehicle to communicate corporate strategy.

Primary market research and problem statement definition

In this module we’ll look at how to plan and conduct primary market research and how to analyse the results. We’ll then step through how to craft a meaningful problem definition statement.

Prototyping and product ideation

In this module, we look at creating usable models and frameworks for gathering user feedback and testing solutions, through prototypes and a minimum viable product.

Design-led strategy in practice: Corporate case studies

In this module, you will be introduced to two practical case studies which demonstrate how two Australian based companies are using design strategy to innovate and solve problems every day.