Today’s workplace calls for a new style of leadership to embolden and accelerate innovation. Design offers a novel way to discover market opportunities, experiment to validate concepts and mitigate risk, and deliver value to all stakeholders. This course offers hands-on experience applying human-centered design process to real-world challenges, and requires you to explore the world around you. Learn how to engage with end users, effectively frame problems, identify potential solutions, and build prototypes to test assumptions and learn what works (and doesn’t). Then dive into a range of ways large and small to bring design innovation into your organization.
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About this Course
Learner Career Outcomes
50%
29%
14%
Instructors
Learner Career Outcomes
50%
29%
14%
Offered by

Northwestern University
Northwestern University is a private research and teaching university with campuses in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, and Doha, Qatar. Northwestern combines innovative teaching and pioneering research in a highly collaborative environment that transcends traditional academic boundaries.
Syllabus - What you will learn from this course
Using Design Principles to Innovate and Find Opportunities
You will learn that the first step in the design process is finding opportunities. Human-centered designers do so by immersing themselves in a particular user context to identify areas of focus for design innovation.
Exploring Ideas
How do we take the opportunities that we've uncovered and turn them into new possibilities? In this module we'll explore ideation, sketching, and storyboarding as tools to generate and communicate ideas.
Prototyping to Learn
It is easy to think of prototypes as “drafts” of the final design, but in this module we’ll teach you to think of prototypes a bit differently: as tools for learning. We will discuss approaches for maximizing the amount that you learn from prototypes, and iterating your way rapidly toward outstanding results.
Leading Design Innovation
How do you bring design innovation to your organization and sustain it over time? In this module we will learn theory and practical techniques to help you lead an organization that routinely produces innovative products, services, and systems.
Reviews
TOP REVIEWS FROM LEADERSHIP THROUGH DESIGN INNOVATION
I liked the format and the assignments. The assignments did however take a lot of time to complete. I think you need to give more info about how to prototype as I'm still not confident with this
SO far I've enjoyed it and it's the course why I started the specialization for, and instead of taking it separate from the others, it's way better to have the full track to get the 360 view
Enjoyed the journey through the course. The projects are integral to gain confidence on applying design thinking. However, they are time intensive and require commitment.
Great course which will tab different ways of solving an issue by design thinking principles. Well structured and paused at right phases.
About the Organizational Leadership Specialization
Equip yourself to successfully lead organizations through clarity of purpose and effective collaboration — by building and motivating teams; designing and delivering powerful stories; developing strategies to appropriately influence; understanding underlying customer analytics and applying innovative approaches to deliver impact.

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