Design-informed Approaches to Address Complex Challenges

This course introduces students to a framework and processes to address complex social challenges, grounded in the principles and methods of design thinking with elements from other schools of thought, such as social entrepreneurship, systems change, lean methodology, and community-centered approaches. Addressing such challenges requires a set of behaviors and mindsets that can be mastered and applied by intrapreneurs or entrepreneurs. Following a conceptual foundation, the course will shift to the analysis of case studies which illustrate the impact and potential scalability of design-informed solutions to complex social problems. Students will then apply tools they have learned moving from insights to execution in an iterative manner. Key steps in the process include:building empathy and relationships; visioning, identifying, and clarifying a community need; analyzing the larger environment in which a need or problem is situated; building coalitions for co-creation; prototyping one or more solutions to address the need; testing and evaluating those solutions; and developing ways to seed and scale the intervention for long-term social impact.

Learning Outcomes  

By the end of this course students should be able to:

1. Demonstrate problem-solving acumen through application of lateral, convergent, and divergent thinking to complex problems. 
2. Apply design-informed approaches to analyze and address complex workplace and/or community challenges.
3. Create legitimate motivating paths for community/stakeholder input in design processes. 
4. Develop effective, values-based collaborations, including with those working in other sectors. 
5. Develop outcomes and measures of success tied to social impact. 
6. Lead, enable, and  catalyze the sensing, visioning, prototyping, seeding, and evaluation phases of a small-scale, community-engaged design for social innovation process.