This course is a 1-day hands-on experience, teaching you the tools and techniques to help you apply design thinking to government.
Applying the analytical tools and generative techniques that designers use can transform the way organisations create value for their ‘customers’ and themselves. This approach, design thinking, is a human-centred approach that enables organisations to solve complex problems and define opportunities.
Design isn’t about sitting at a desk, it is about ‘learning by doing’. Design Thinking for Government will teach you some of these essential tool and techniques, and the basics of the design process in a hands-on way.
Who is the course for?
Anyone can take Design Thinking for Government. It has been designed for people wanting to: know more about design thinking, get hands-on experience using design thinking tools and techniques, understand how design thinking can be applied to the public sector.
If you’re wanting to create new public services (or products) that are valued by people or you want new tools and approaches to enhance your thinking skills, this course is for you.
Leaning by doing?
The design thinking ethos is ‘learn by doing’. This is how we teach the course. It’s not just learning what design thinking is but actually doing it and getting your hands dirty. We won’t just talk about what design is, we will let you practice design in the real world with real people. Together we will walk through the steps: understanding users needs, identifying pain points, defining the problem, exploring possible solutions, prototyping these ideas, and testing with real people. This is a fast-paced taste of design thinking.
What will you get?
During the course
You will learn key tools that underpin the three phases of design thinking – Understand, Create and Deliver.
Understand – gaining user empathy and defining how this is valuable to your organisation
We will teach you how to observe and interview in order to gain empathy for your target audience. We will show you how to understand the needs, wants and desires, and how to translate these to a value proposition that is right for your organisation.
Create – generating ideas that will create value to your user and you
We will teach you how to ideate, using brainstorming techniques, how-might-we questions and selection techniques.
Deliver – advancing your ideas through prototyping and testing with real users
The day will end by teaching you how to prototype selected ideas and how to test these ideas with real users. You will learn how to capture feedback and iterate.
All courses are run at Awayday, a specialist room for innovative thinking.
After the course
Once the course is over we will give you a digital slide presentation of your day at Design Thinking for Government for your own reference and for you to share with others. It will be full of images from our day together (you out there actually doing design), so you can remember all the steps in the process. It will also contain the techniques and tools we use in the process so you can practice yourselves.
Course tutors
At least two tutors will run each course.
Matthew Ellingsen
Matthew was trained in the design process at one of the world’s most prestigious design schools, Central Saint Martin’s in London. He has been highly sought after to lead design teams within major companies around the world, including Sony Design Centre Europe and the New Zealand 2011 Office during Rugby World Cup.
Emilie Fetscher
Emilie obtained her M.Sc from the Design Program at Stanford, where she earned her degree in Product Design. During her time at Stanford she taught at d.school on topics including user research, innovation process, and visual design. She has worked across the US from California to Alaska for companies such as Black Diamond Equipment and agencies such as Alaska’s electronic Health Network.
Emma Saunders
Emma’s background weaves together academic training in psychology (PhD ’01) and people-based research with business experience in strategic design. She has uncovered customer insights into populations as diverse as teenage drinkers and Europe’s wealthy mums, and lead business design projects for clients including New Zealand Post, the Royal New Zealand Air Force, and Ministry of Economic Development. Emma has been trained as d.think facilitator by Stanford d.school staff.