Design Thinking: Creating Better Customer Experiences

Design thinking is an indispensable approach in today’s business landscape, transforming how companies address user needs and innovate. This course empowers participants to unearth innovative solutions that resonate with the deep-seated, unmet needs of their customers. Whether designing for employees, students, citizens, stakeholders, or any end-user, this course equips you with the tools to identify and address their needs effectively.

By embracing design thinking principles, team leaders and management gain practical strategies for fostering innovation within their organizations. Through this program, participants cultivate an innovative and empathetic mindset, leveraging techniques such as user research, journey mapping, and rapid prototyping to enhance the customer experience. Additionally, participants explore internal barriers to innovation and strategies for championing groundbreaking ideas within their organizations.

This program welcomes participants to bring their own projects and business challenges to the table, ensuring a hands-on, practical learning experience. Through tangible techniques and applications, participants gain leadership insights that can be immediately applied in their work environments.

Benefits of Design Thinking Training

Upon completion, participants gain practical skills to overcome barriers and effectively implement human-centered design within their organizations. This program equips leaders with the tools to create an environment conducive to innovation and collaboration, navigating team dynamics with finesse.

Participants will learn how to:

• Enhance their Design Thinking toolkit with real-world implementation best practices, prototyping techniques, and strategies for demonstrating success.
• Tackle complex challenges using established design thinking frameworks.
• Collaborate effectively with cross-functional teams, introducing design thinking methodologies within real-world constraints.
• Secure organizational buy-in and support to bring innovative ideas to fruition.

All participants receive a Certificate of Completion from the Harvard University Division of Continuing Education.

Who Should Take Design Thinking

This program is designed for managers and team leaders who want to deepen their integration of design thinking within their organizations to inform business challenges and drive opportunities. It’s ideal for professionals in diverse industries — including education, government, technology, healthcare, retail, finance, and entertainment — who aspire to lead innovation efforts and enhance customer experiences. If you’re a leader looking to create impactful change and foster a culture of innovation, this program is for you.

Curriculum

This program seamlessly blends theoretical knowledge with practical, real-world applications, nurturing and refining participants’ design thinking abilities to lead their teams and organizations through transformation.

The program curriculum will focus on:

• Cultivate customer empathy and uncover user insights to drive more informed and impactful leadership decisions.
• Exploring innovative techniques for generating and prioritizing ideas, driving transformative change.
• Bringing ideas to life through prototyping, transforming concepts into interactive experiences.
• Leveraging instructors’ extensive experiences and case studies to illustrate the practical application of design thinking across diverse organizations.
• Addressing challenges spanning technical, logistical, and cultural dimensions.
• Identifying and overcoming organizational barriers to accelerate the adoption of design thinking and innovation leadership.
• Utilizing the appropriate tools, techniques, and best practices to drive evidence-based decision-making and secure corporate buy-in.

Costs

Design Thinking: Creating Better Customer Experiences is offered as a three-day on-campus program in our state-of-the-art classroom space in the heart of historic Harvard University. Program tuition for on-campus is $4,100 plus the cost of travel.