At a Glance
Taught
by practitioners
for practitioners, this five-week course offers real-life examples to inspire your thinking and application of design principles. Expect to focus 5-8 hours per week on coursework.
Course Overview
Tim Ogilvie, CEO of Peer Insight, an innovation consultancy, and co-author of
The Designing for Growth Field Book with Darden Professor Jeanne Liedtka, guides your exploration of the most effective design thinking tools available. In this course, you will learn to use tools from the field of human-centered design: stakeholder mapping, journey mapping, personas, value-chain analysis, the job-to-be-done, ethnographic interviews, and more. Learn to connect with your customers on a human level, to get beyond what they
say and observe what they
do. You'll learn to recognize weak signals about unarticulated needs and capture overlooked ideas. Each week's lesson contains video instruction, practical applications and action ideas and do's and don'ts from professionals who've extensively field-tested these concepts.
Accelerate Your Skills
- Fuel discovery sessions and connect with those you most want to serve in new, exciting and more powerful ways
- Experiment with a range of possibilities for uncovering customer, client or benefactor needs
- Amplify weak signals about unspoken desires to create truly novel insights that move your company or cause forward
Takeaways
You'll walk away from
Discovery Tools with:
- Five distinct human-centered tools for solving challenges at the core of your business or social cause
- Strategies to connect with your customers on a human level, to get beyond what they say and observe what they do to inspire deeper problem solving
- Research-based insight and hands-on best practices for implementing journey mapping, personas, framing, the job-to-be-done and ethnographic interviews right now in your organization
- The ability to generate products, services and experiences customers will truly love
Participants
This course is designed for managers who are ready to become design practitioners within their organizations. An independent but complementary training to Darden's popular
Design Thinking courses,
Discovery Tools benefits leaders who want to apply world-tested design principles to public or private sector development, including finance, engineering, technology and administration, as well as healthcare, education and social nonprofit causes.
Faculty
Natalie Foley
VP & COO, Peer Insight
With a background in strategy, technology implementation, and change management, Natalie has led projects for Peer Insight, IBM and PricewaterhouseCoopers in various countries, functions, and industries. The diversity of her experience is brought to bear throughout the innovation lifecycle, enabling strong exploratory and divergent thinking while maintaining a grasp on the ins and outs of execution. Natalie has worked with clients such as Allstate, DTE Energy, the World Bank, Kimberly-Clark, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and the Good Samaritan Society. Natalie serves on the board of the DC Social Innovation Project. She holds an MBA from UVA's Darden School of Business and a BA in Psychology from The College of William and Mary.
United Technologies Corporation Professor of Business Administration
Jeanne M. Liedtka is the former chief learning officer at United Technologies Corporation, a Fortune 50 corporation, where she was responsible for overseeing corporate learning and development. At Darden, Jeanne works with both MBAs and
executives in the areas of design thinking, innovation and
leading growth. Her current research focuses on design-led innovation in the government and social sector, as does her forthcoming book,
Designing for the Greater Good. She authored
The Designing for Growth Field Book: A Step by Step Guide(2014), The Catalyst: How You Can Lead Extraordinary Growth, which was one of
Bloomberg Businessweek' s best innovation books of 2009;
Designing for Growth, which was named the best management book of 2011 by 800-CEO-READ; and
Solving Problems with Design Thinking: 10 Stories of What Works.
Tim Ogilvie
CEO, Peer Insight
Prior to forming Peer Insight in 2004, Tim was a software startup CEO, a strategy consultant, and an Army brat. At Peer Insight, Tim has helped pioneer the emerging methods of design thinking, including co-authoring two best-selling books on the subject:
Designing for Growth and
The Designing for Growth Field Book. He has led breakthrough service innovation projects for AARP, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Kimberly-Clark, Procter & Gamble, Siemens, Starwood and The Hartford. Tim's education includes a Masters in Computer Integrated Manufacturing Systems from Georgia Tech and a BA from the University of Virginia.
Assistant Professor of Business Administration
Assistant Professor Bidhan ("Bobby") Parmar teaches First Year Ethics and a Second Year elective on collaboration at the Darden School of Business. Parmar's research interests focus on how managers make decisions and collaborate in uncertain and changing environments to create value for stakeholders. His work helps executives better handle ambiguity in their decision making. His recent research examines the impact of authority on moral decision making in organizations. Parmar's work has been published in Organization Science and the Journal of Business Ethics. Parmar is a fellow at the Business Roundtable Institute for Corporate Ethics and the Olsson Center for Applied Ethics. Prior to teaching at Darden, Parmar taught at the UVA McIntire School of Commerce.
Tuition & Specialization
Tuition for this course is $395. Payment is required in advance of the program and is not refundable or transferable after the start of the program.
By taking this course, participants earn credit toward the
Specialization in Design Thinking and Innovation.
SPECIAL OFFER: BUNDLE PRICING
We're offering a bundle price of
$1,200 for the online courses that make up the 4-credit
Specialization in Design Thinking and Innovation. A special offering of the
Design Thinking Online Workshop counts as two credits toward the specialization, as it combines Design Thinking Parts I & II into one 8-week course running
4 June-5 August 2018. Along with the workshop, you will just need to complete
Discovery Tools and
Creating the Innovative Workplace. To qualify for the bundle pricing, you must pre-register for all three courses by
June 4, 2018. To take advantage of the bundle pricing and receive your discount code to use at registration, please contact Brandi Shifflett (
shifflettb@darden.virginia.edu). Please note specific rules and policies for this promotion:
- No refunds, including any online courses previously taken
- Registration is required for all three courses at once for the special pricing to apply
- All three courses must be completed by
October 2018. We recommend you take
Creating the Innovative Workplace in April and
Discovery Tools in September.
Policies & Procedures/FAQs
Registration: You can register for any of the online courses by completing a registration form directly from the course page on our website. Payment is due upon registration. We accept payment online from American Express, MasterCard and Visa. You'll receive a confirmation email after we receive your registration. Registration for each course closes on the course start date. We offer a 10% tuition reduction for groups of 10 or more.
Email us for approval and pricing.
Cancellations & Transfers: If you must cancel your enrollment, you must do so within seven (7) calendar days of the course start date. Please
email us with the name of the course, followed by "cancellation" in the subject line. If you cancel or withdraw within seven (7) days of the start date, you will be refunded 100% of your tuition. No refunds will be permitted after the first seven (7) days of the course.
If you prefer, you may transfer to one subsequent course offered within one year, if available.
Email us with the name of the course, followed by "transfer" in the subject line. This request must be made within seven (7) calendar days after the original course start date.
Access to Course Materials: Each of the four courses is designed to run for five (5) weeks. We leave each course open for a full ten (10) weeks. Once a course is closed, you will not be able to access our lectures and course materials, information pages, or assignments (including peer feedback). You may continue to access your network, submissions, discussions, conversations, and team workspace in archive mode (no new posts or comments) for up to six (6) months.
For more information,
review a complete list of our online course policies and procedures, as well as frequently asked questions.
Learn more about
related courses.