Design Thinking and Innovative Mindset

Concept and Description 

Competencies in design thinking methodologies and innovation mindset will be developed through training of all FSS staff, on a phased basis, beginning with FSS Standing Committee, Office Managers and Change Ambassadors, in Summer 2019. A system will also be put in place to ensure that the training is employed in everyday work life in the FSS, beginning 2019-2020. 

Design thinking is a solution-based technique for problem solving. Dam and Siang (2019) define it as a process which seeks to ― understand the user, challenge assumptions, and redefine problems in an attempt to identify alternative strategies and solutions that might not be instantly apparent with our initial level of understanding. Traditionally, this technique has been used in business and technology but has recently made its way into the education system mainly because of its capacity to promote creativity and innovation. Design thinking stems from several key components which reflect a process of empathizing, co-creating, scaling, prototyping, experimenting and testing. According to Jeanne Liedtka, Professor of Business Administration at the University of Virginia‘s Darden School of Business, design thinking is a new social technology applied to innovation and problem solving that helps to ― unleash people‘s full creative energies, win their commitment and radically improve processes‖ (p.1). It is a methodology that confronts culture and the status quo with experimentation and imagination. 

A mindset of innovation includes a set of thinking patterns and attitudes that promote creative problem solving, generation of new ideas, and the search for opportunity. Dr. Ian Stewart, Head of Leadership and Organizational Practice, Kaplan says that ―…businesses like Amazon are driven by ‗an infrastructure of innovation‘….Innovation is not left to chance; it is not a nice to have. It is a strategic choice‖. He further states that ―Innovation has to be encoded in your commercial DNA: informing key processes and practices; appropriately embedded in job roles and descriptions, in compensation and reward systems; properly funded and resourced. And above all, guided by leaders and managers who understand what creating and maintaining innovative culture means.

Expected Outcomes

When training in Design thinking is completed and a system is put in place for consistent use of design thinking in every day work, trainees should be able to: 

  1. Design better experiences, products and services for our students, staff and other stakeholders. 
  2. Develop better practical and innovative solutions and opportunities in our resource-strained context. 
  3. Generate more innovations across all categories of staff and for all work processes and many problems. 
  4. Better address stakeholders’ needs because we now have better insights from user-based research. 
  5. Build and test prototype solutions economically. 
  6. Embed an inclusive and collective co-creation approach to solving problems as part of the new FSS REACH culture. 
  7. Embed a mindset of growth and innovation among FSS staff with respect to problem and solution identification, reframing and reformulation; foresight, hindsight and insight; and educated curiosity to generate ideas and formulate analyses