Design Thinking in Action

Who’s this course for?

Professionals from any industry tasked with problem solving, innovation, and reinvention. Of particular interest to internal teams collaborating for ground-up solutions to organizational challenges.

What’s this course about?

The Details
Design Thinking isn’t about graphic design. It’s about solving problems in a holistic, creative way—a methodology that’s led to some of the most innovative advancements in modern times. Think Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk … even Thomas Edison. 

It’s also one of the most effective tools big brands (Jet Blue, Apple, Google, Capital One, GE, and IBM to name a few) use to build unforgettable experiences for their customers. It’s a human-centered, prototype-driven process that helps you frame the right problem, generate a broad range of innovative ideas on how to solve it, and quickly build prototypes to test and learn about your solution and your customers. 

This workshop is very hands-on and activates learning by doing. Participants will learn the concepts of empathy interviewing, synthesizing insights, ideation, and prototyping and will leave with a powerful set of tools to generate innovative ideas for solving the most challenging customer problems.

Program Elements

• Crash course (end-to-end experience of the entire design thinking process)
• Empathy Interviews, Synthesis, and Problem Definition
• Brainstorm ideas, create and test prototypes for a real business case

Who will be teaching the course?

Nan Ives

Brand Marketer

Boston, MA

Nan Ives is a brand marketer who successfully led marketing and corporate communications strategies across a diverse set of functions and business units at Fidelity Investments for 22 years. Nan’s expertise includes brand strategy, experiential marketing, strategic partnerships, corporate social responsibility (CSR), consumer engagement, and design thinking.

As a champion of innovation, Nan became an expert in design thinking leading strategies concentrated on emerging customer segments as well as the modernization of the associate experience. She was part of a small core team of Fidelity employees who helped teach thousands of employees, customers, and community members how to apply design thinking to their work. Nan is skilled in teaching, and coaching teams, in all facets of empathy interviewing, problem reframing, insight synthesis, concept ideation, and prototyping of new business opportunities.