3 minute read
Introduction
About this GUIDE
This guide is a FREE Open Education Resource(OER), that includes videos, web links and tools about Design Thinking for entrepreneurship. It describes the methodology and provides a practical point of view with successful cases, tools and materials. The guide is designed to be used by: - Actual Students: To enrich and update their knowledge base with a topic not usually included in academic courses. - Future Students: To attract students to the Higher Education (HE) system by providing for free, innovative methodologies using a gamified approach. - Former Students: To update their knowledge base with fresh perspectives using an innovative methodology to help create successful enterprises. - Start-uppers, business sector actors, accelerators, incubators and all SMEs: Those interested in new perspectives and approaches that have been proven useful to the adaptability and survival of enterprises.
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About: DESIGN THINKING
Design Thinking refers to the creative strategies designers use during the process of designing. It has also been developed as an approach to resolve issues outside of the professional design practice, such as in business and social contexts. Unlike analytical thinking, Design Thinking includes “building up” ideas, with few or no limits during the brainstorming phase. This helps reduce the fear of failure in the participants and encourages input and participation from a wide variety of sources during the ideation phase. The basic principles are: The human rule - This states that all design activities are ultimately social in nature, and any social innovation will bring us back to the human centric point of view. The ambiguity rule - This states design thinkers must preserve ambiguity by experimenting at the limits of their knowledge and ability, enabling freedom to see things differently. The redesign rule - All design is re-design. This comes as a result of changing technology and social circumstances but previously solved, unchanged human needs. The tangibility rule - The concept that making ideas tangible, always facilitates communication and allows designers to treat prototypes as communication media. + Designers bring their methods into the business by either taking part themselves in the business process or training business people to use design methods. + Designers achieve innovative outputs or products when using DT methodology
About: INNOVATION
Tim Brown, CEO at IDEO and expert in Design Thinking, explains that historically designers were only introduced in the last steps of a product development process. This meant focusing their attention on improving the look and functionality of products, instead of looking for high impact outcomes on the world and society. Design was a tool of consumerism, to make products more attractive, easier to use and more marketable. In recent years, designers developed specific methods and tools to deliver products and services, and businesses started to realise the potential of design as a competitive asset. Consequently, designers now bring their methods into a business either by taking part themselves in the earlier stages of business processes or training business people to use design methods and build business thinking capabilities. Design Thinking, as the perfect balance between desirability, technical feasibility and economic viability helps organisations to be more innovative, better differentiate their offering, and bring their products and services to the market faster.
The impact and transferability potential is expected to be substantial thanks to the access of the guide (through an Open MOOC). Another element of impact to consider is connected to the availability of the guide in five different national languages (English, Finnish, Italian, French and Icelandic). The number of comparable guides in other languages besides English is small. This was an added challenge to the transferability potential, as there was a need to invent novel terminology in some of the languages.
