MASTERING

DESIGN THINKING

Delivered in collaboration with

 OVERVIEW

Design thinking is a powerful approach to new product development that START DATE
begins with understanding unmet customer needs. It’s a human-centered
March 12, 2020
design process that approaches problem-solving with understanding the
user needs. Design thinking encompasses concept development, applied
creativity, prototyping, and experimentation. When design thinking
approaches are applied to business, the success rate for innovation has PRICE
been seen to improve substantially.
$3,300*
Design-driven companies such as Apple, Coca-Cola, IBM, Nike, Procter &
Gamble, and Whirlpool have outperformed the S&P 500 over the past 10
years by an accumulated 211% in what's called the Design Value Index—a DURATION
portfolio of 16 publicly traded companies that integrate design thinking into
corporate strategy. According to a 2016 report from the Design 3 months, online
Management Institute, this marks the third consecutive year the index has 6-8 hours per week
shown an excess of 200% over the S&P 500.

The Mastering Design Thinking program will lead participants through a

step by step, design thinking process. To be considered successful,
innovations have to solve the three key dimensions of Desirability,
Feasibility, and Viability.

Desirability: Is this product or service addressing a real customer need?

Feasibility: Can we develop a solution that is technically feasible and

better than competitors?
*Program fee is exclusive of GST
Viability: Is there a viable business model around this product or service? applicable to Singapore residents.

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IMPACT A GLOBALLY
CONNECTED
Upon completion of this program, you will be able to:
CLASSROOM
Understand the design thinking process
At MIT Sloan, peer learning and
Identify and assess opportunities through customer needs analysis real-world application are
Create clear product specifications based on customer needs that are integral to a participant’s
desirable, feasible, and viable learning experience. This
approach has been replicated
Generate and evaluate new product and service concepts through
in our online "Globally
applied creativity
Connected Classroom". While
Implement a proven 4-step method for planning and executing a
the course frameworks are
prototype
delivered via video lectures,
Design services for enriched customer experiences two-thirds of the learning time is
Create and establish a robust product architecture devoted to application of these
concepts through working in
Evaluate the economics of product development
collaborative teams (which we
Design products and services with sustainability in mind
call “Learning Circles”).
Plan and manage innovation projects effectively

Byte-Sized Learning

WHO SHOULD ATTEND Games and Role

Plays

Real-World
This program is for teams and individuals who want to learn a proven,
Application
systematic approach to new product development. Anyone responsible
for driving innovation, growth, and the customer experience should
Peer-to-Peer
attend, including functional and cross-functional teams.
Learning and
Feedback
Roles of past participants include those from creative, design, customer
experience, engineering, innovation, product, R&D, strategy, and UX,
Mobile App
such as:
Learning
Product Manager, Marketing Manager, Growth Manager, R&D
Manager, and Product Head
Cohort-Based
Senior Designer, UX Designer, Design Engineer, Creative Manager,
UX Design Consultant, Art Director
Evaluation
C-Suite executives including CEO, COO, Managing Director,
Founder, President, Chief Strategy Officer

Innovation and Growth Consultants

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 PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS

Mastering Design Thinking is for teams and individuals who want to learn a proven, systematic approach to
new product development. The process puts unmet customer needs at the center of the problem, and
every step brings you closer to solving the problem.

Submit your
project ideas Translate needs Build out the Choose the right
around user into product product development
innovations specifications architecture process

BEGIN YOUR
DESIGN
THINKING
LEARNING JOURNEY

Learn the Identify customer Create a Analyze the Present your final
concepts that needs and user prototype economics of ideas, get
drive design groups the innovation real-time feedback
thinking

128 3 3
VIDEO LIVE TEACHING GROUP
LECTURES SESSIONS PROJECTS

10 1 7
ASSIGNMENTS CAPSTONE REAL WORLD
PROJECT APPLICATIONS

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PROGRAM MODULES
This executive program integrates rich, interactive media such as videos, infographics, and e-learning
activities as well as traditional components such as live faculty lectures, group projects, and individual
assignments. The program design facilitates collaborative learning through discussion forums and a
team-based capstone project. This results in an enhanced peer network that delivers value long after the
course ends.

ORIENTATION MODULE

Welcome to Your Online Campus

MODULE 1 MODULE 2

Design Thinking Skills Identifying Customer Needs

Skills expected of design thinking practitioners Product development process and concept
development phase in design planning and
Innovation challenges, Real-Win-Worth framework
analysis
Altitude case study – innovation processes,
Customer needs and markets
leadership, and overall culture
Types of product users

Customer needs analysis

MODULE 3 MODULE 4

Product Specifications Applied Creativity

Translating customer needs into measurable Problem decomposition techniques and
specifications solution concepts

Benchmarking needs vs. specifications Brainstorming principles and their efficacy in

creative thinking
Dynamics of product specifications
System exploration and concept / down-
Quality function deployment (house of quality)
selection

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 MODULE 5 MODULE 6

Prototyping Design for Services

Prototyping and its relevance in the Service development process
concept development phase
Service cycle experience map
Types of prototyping
Product vs. service systems
Prototyping strategy
Service innovation examples
Rapid prototyping and virtual prototyping

Prototyping examples

MODULE 7 MODULE 8

Product Architecture Financial Analysis

Types of product architecture: Product development economics
integral and modular
Project financial modeling
Examples of integral and modular
architectures Calculating Net Present Value (NPV) and its
influence over product decision making
Implications of product architecture on
the design process selection Cash flow analysis

MODULE 9 MODULE 10

Design for Environment Product Development Processes

DFE principles and decision making Systematic innovation process: Altitude case
How DFE integrates with the product study
development process Types of development processes – staged,
spiral, and agile methodologies
Product life cycle and environmental
impacts
Herman Miller story

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 PROGRAM FACULTY

Steven Eppinger General Motors Leaders for Global Operations Professor of Management
Professor of Management Science and Engineering Systems
Co-Director, System Design and Management Program

Steven D. Eppinger is the General Motors Leaders for Global Operations

Professor, a Professor of Management Science and Engineering Systems, and
the Co-Director of the System Design and Management Program at the MIT
Sloan School of Management. Steven served as deputy dean of MIT Sloan from
2004 to 2009; as faculty co-director of the Leaders for Global Operations
(formerly MIT Leaders for Manufacturing) and the System Design and
Management programs from 2001 to 2003; and as co-director of the Center for
Innovation in Product Development from 1999 to 2001. His research efforts are
applied to improving product design and development practices.Conducted within
MIT’s Center for Innovation in Product Development, his work focuses on
organizing complex design processes in order to accelerate industrial practices,
and has been applied primarily in the automotive, electronics, aerospace, and
equipment industries. At MIT Sloan, Steven has created an interdisciplinary
product development course in which graduate students from engineering,
management, and industrial design programs collaborate to develop new
products. He also teaches MIT’s executive programs in the area of product
development.

Director and Founder, MIT Integrated Design & Management (IDM)

Matthew Kressy
Senior Lecturer at MIT
Principal, Designturn Inc.

Matthew S. Kressy, director and founder of the MIT Integrated Design &
Management (IDM) master’s degree track, is an expert in product design and
development. As an entrepreneur and founder of Designturn, he has designed,
invented, engineered, and manufactured products for startups, Fortune 500
companies, and everything in between.

Matt believes in interdisciplinary, design-driven product development derived

from deep user research, creative concept generation, and rapid prototype
iteration. He is passionate about teaching this approach to the design process.

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 Senior Lecturer at MIT
David Robertson
David Robertson is a Senior Lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management
where he teaches Product Development and Digital Product Management. Prior
to MIT, David was a Professor of Practice at the Wharton School at the University
of Pennsylvania and from 2002 through 2010 was the LEGO Professor of
Innovation and Technology Management at IMD in Lausanne, Switzerland.

David is the author of the award-winning book about LEGO’s near-bankruptcy

and spectacular recovery: Brick by Brick: How LEGO Rewrote the Rules of
Innovation and Conquered the Global Toy Industry (Crown, 2013). David has
also held several executive management positions in enterprise software
companies, and spent five years at McKinsey & Company in the U.S. and
Sweden.

Senior Lecturer and Research Scientist, MIT Sloan School of Management

Renee Richardson
Gosline Renée Richardson Gosline is a Senior Lecturer and Research Scientist at the
MIT Sloan School of Management. She has been named one of the World’s Top
40 Professors under 40 by Poets and Quants, an MIT “Iron Professor,” and a
scholar at the MIT Center for Digital Business.

Her main interest is in how status-based bias and technology affect

self-perceptions and behavior. Her research projects include: the positive impact
of imitation on brand strength, the effect of social media storytelling on
persuasion, the role of status dynamics in health and performance, and the use
of wearable technology to aid willpower. In order to address these issues
rigorously, she employs experimental methodology, both in the field and
laboratory.

Prior to academia, she was a marketing practitioner at LVMH Moet Hennessy

and Leo Burnett.

Gosline received her undergraduate and graduate training at Harvard University,

including a Doctorate from the Harvard Business School.

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WHAT PARTICIPANTS SAY

“I met and worked with interesting people whom I otherwise would probably
have never had the opportunity to interact with. The group project was the
highlight of the course in my opinion.”
- Tom Rudolph, Senior Director at Jenzabar
USA

“The best parts were the daily lifestyle examples shared in videos, as well as
the group project.”
- Cecile Tardy-Srinivasan, Management Consultant at CapSys Group
SWITZERLAND

“The customer needs identification, ranking, and then the identification of the
real needs. The product architecture and the financial analysis have positively
opened my eyes.”
- Bogdan Andres, Technical Sales at Tenaris
UAE

“It helped me synthesize what design thinking was about, but most importantly,
I understood the correct sequence and how to sell it within the company so our
executives could understand that design thinking is part of innovation.”
- Ines Masallach, Marketing Director and Co-Founder at Imalinx
MEXICO

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 PARTICIPANT PROFILE

On your journey to master design thinking with MIT Sloan, you’ll be in good company. Past participants
come from a wide range of industries, job functions, and management levels—from more than 33
countries around the world. The benefits of adopting a design thinking approach are far-reaching. It all
starts with finding unmet customer needs and taking a human-centered approach to solving those needs.

Participants by Years of Experience Participants by Industry

9% 10% 8%
>26 yrs 1-5 yrs
8% IT Products
15%
13% 19% Education
Consulting

9%
21-25 yrs 6-10 yrs

Banking &
Financial
Services

49%
27% 11% Others*

22%
16-20 yrs IT Services

11-15 yrs
Others* - includes E-commerce, Electronics / Hardware, Fast
Moving Consumer Goods, Healthcare, Industrial Goods,
Media, Real Estate, Retail, Telecommunications and more.

Participants by Job Function

Participants include entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs, individual contributors, and cross-functional teams.
Representative job functions and titles include:

Business Strategy Manager Chief Information Officer

CEO (Chief Operating Officer) General Manager
Digital Product Manager Industrial Design Director
Director of Innovation Marketing Manager
Director of Design Research Project Manager
Director of Manufacturing QA Lead
Director of Sales Senior Engineer
Director of User Experience VP Engineering
Founder VP Innovation
Change Strategy Consultant
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Participants by Region
Design thinking knows no borders, nor does our classroom. Participants from over 33 countries have
joined the program, leveraging our advanced online learning platform. Connect to other innovators around
the world.

40% 41%
United States
Others*

United
4%
4% 5% 6%
Kingdom

Mexico
Canada
India

Others* - includes Belgium, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, France, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Peru, Romania, Saudi Arabia,
Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates and more.

Representative Companies
Design thinking is an approach that any company can put into practice. Participants include employees
from companies like:

Accenture Ernst & Young

Apple KPMG
Avanxo Nestlé
Bank of America PepsiCo
BASF PricewaterhouseCoopers
Cartier Salesforce.com
Cisco Systems Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc.
Dow Chemical Company The Wall Street Journal
Epsilon Tiffany & Co.

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 CERTIFICATE

Get a verified digital certificate of completion from

MIT Sloan School of Management. This program also
counts towards an MIT Sloan Executive Certificate.

Note: After successful completion of the program, your verified

digital certificate will be emailed to you in the name you used when
registering for the program. All certificate images are for illustrative
purposes only and may be subject to change at the discretion of
MIT Sloan.

ABOUT MIT SLOAN ABOUT EMERITUS

SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT MIT Sloan Executive Education is
collaborating with online education
The MIT Sloan School of Management, located in Cambridge,
provider EMERITUS Institute of
Massachusetts, is one of the world’s leading business schools
Management to deliver its executive
and has a network of over 20,000 alumni across 90 countries.
programs through a dynamic, interactive,
It is a part of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which digital learning platform. By working with
has to its credit 89 Nobel Laureates, 47 Rhodes Scholars, and EMERITUS, MIT Sloan Executive Education
48 MacArthur Fellows (as of 2017). MIT’s motto is ‘Mens et brings its growing portfolio of courses
Manus’, which literally means ‘Mind and Hand’, reflecting the online to address the evolving demands of
educational belief of MIT's founders: education for practical executives. EMERITUS’ approach to
application. learning is based on acohort-based design
to maximize peer to peer sharing and
includes live teaching with world-class
faculty and hands-on project based
learning. In the last year, more than 30,000
students from over 150 countries have
benefited professionally from EMERITUS’
courses.

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THE LEARNING EXPERIENCE

Our programs are designed to meet the needs of individual learning styles, while also leveraging the power of peer
learning. This is achieved through a user-friendly learning platform that enables participants to easily navigate the
program content to achieve learning objectives.

KEEPING IT REAL
Our pedagogical approach, designed to bring
concepts to life, includes:
Byte-sized learning elements
Real-world application
Peer learning discussions
Capstone project
Live interactive teaching

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 KEEPING IT CONVENIENT
Access to program content is flexible, available through multiple devices allowing working professionals
to easily manage schedules and learn remotely — anytime, anywhere. Participants enrolled in the
program obtain access to learning materials via a modular approach, with new content released weekly.
Program modules include a variety of teaching instruments, such as:

Video lectures
Discussions
Class materials: articles, cases
Quizzes
Surveys
Assignments

To further personalize the program modules, live teaching sessions are scheduled during the program
term, often with Q&A. For participants who are unable to attend these sessions live, a recording is made
available so nothing is missed. Our industry-leading learning platform allows participants to create a
profile, connect and collaborate with peers, and interact with academic/industry experts such as program
leaders, coaches, and teaching assistants. Assignments are often linked to participant’s real-world
situations, making these concepts inherently practical.

KEEPING IT INTERESTING
Our globally-connected classrooms enables participants to seamlessly interact with their peers to
complete group assignments and stay on track towards program completion — with culturally-enriching
encounters along the way.

Program Requirements
To access our programs, participants will need the following:

Valid email address Microsoft Office suite and PDF viewer to view
Computing device connected to the content such as documents, spreadsheets,
internet: PC/laptop, tablet, or presentations, PDF files or transcripts
smartphone
Latest version of their preferred browser
to access our learning platform

Other Requirements

Programs may necessitate the usage of different software, tools, and applications. Participants will be
informed about these additional requirements at the registration stage or during program
commencement. Our program advisors are also available to respond to any queries about these
requirements.
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 CONNECT WITH A
PROGRAM ADVISOR

Email: mit@emeritus.org
Phone: +1 315-982-5094
+1 315-277-2746