Innovation by Design in Organisational Settings

In this course, students learn how design can contribute to achieving innovation within organisations, both public and private. The focus is on what comes after the design phase: how an innovative concept can be effectively implemented in an existing organisational context.

Students delve into theories of organisational behaviour, innovation, and strategic design, such as the Game Changers model, C-K theory, exploration vs. exploitation, sensemaking, and co-evolution. In interactive Fishbowl sessions, they jointly build a theoretical framework to interpret and reframe organisational challenges.

Subsequently, students apply these insights to a self-selected real-world case. Working in teams, they reformulate an innovation challenge from a “problem as given” to a “problem as taken” and develop a proposal for an intervention. This intervention is developed as a boundary object – a tangible representation that helps the organisation engage in discussions about change and innovation.

The course stimulates critical thinking, collaboration, and reflection, and prepares students for a role as designers who actively contribute to innovation in complex organisational environments. Theory and practice are actively connected throughout the course.