Darden’s inaugural Ideas to Action Leader Series program focused on teaching participants the design thinking process by letting them experience it themselves over the 2-day workshop. Hosted in late September at the new UVA Darden Sands Family Grounds in Rosslyn, Virginia, the program welcomed professionals from a wide variety of organizations and industries, including Deloitte, Wells Fargo, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the US Department of Defense, Tetrapak, and several others.
Design Thinking pioneer, Professor Jeanne Liedtka, led the program, introducing the participants to design thinking by exploring three examples of how design thinking had been applied in the private, public and non-governmental sectors. This revealed how a dynamic process could produce unique insights to drive more inclusive and innovative outcomes. The 4-part process was laid out and participants started applying the 10 tools that through first a divergent and then convergent process to reveal the quality of innovative ideas and actionable insights that can emerge from the design thinking approach.
Individual and team discussions were leveraged to work through tools such as customer journey mapping, value chain analysis, mind mapping, deep brainstorming and concept development. One exercise that proved to be extremely valuable to participants was to extract a set of customer personas from 15 fictional clients for a wellness company. In their groups, they moved into using rapid prototyping to explore divergent solutions to a common challenge. And then practiced creating storyboards to present prototypes, ultimately refining them to present ideas to the larger group.
The second day of the workshop focused on scaling and measurement of the impact of design thinking to become part of the culture of an innovative organization. Examining Intuit as an example, participants discovered how, with executive sponsorship, building innovation ambassadors and skills training, the small business accounting software developer has become one of the most client-centric organizations in Silicon Valley.
Participants shared that they left the event with a comfort level and confidence to manage a design thinking initiative within their own organization.
Ready to tackle more current issues and emerging trends impacting today’s leaders and their organizations? Join us for our next Ideas to Action Leader Series Event, Fintech: Strategic Challenges and Opportunities. You’ll develop a working knowledge of fintech, its impact on the global economy, and your business.
