Design Thinking

The HEC Managing Innovation and Design Thinking Specialization will close for enrollment on August 11, 2020. If you are interested in earning a Specialization Certificate, please upgrade or apply for Financial Aid in each course of the specialization by August 11, 2020, if you have not already done so. After August 11, 2020, learners will no longer have access to courses they have not paid for.

In order to earn a Specialization Certificate, you will need to complete all graded assignments, including peer reviews, by February 8, 2021. After that point, no new assignment submissions will be accepted for Certificate credit.

If you are enrolled in the degree or certificate version of this course, you will not be affected and can continue your studies beyond August 11, 2020.


You want to identify an opportunity or to uncover creative insights and innovative solutions.

You are curious about design thinking – a creative approach that is being used more and by entrepreneurs and in new ventures as well as in established firms.

You do not understand why so many innovations, apparently developed with care, are not adopted by the users.

You enjoy using services that provide a user-friendly experience and are curious to know how these innovations are developed.

You are concerned by the growing complexity of innovations that require more focus on the usage and the user.

If one of the situations above applies to you, then this course is for you! In “Design thinking for Innovation,” you will have the opportunity to discover and experiment with​ a systematic approach to uncover creative insights and innovative solutions. You will learn to recognize the specific type of situations where analytical approaches are not efficient and where design thinking is more effective.
The course will follow a clear and structured process and you will work through several phases to understand what design thinking is, its foundations, principles and main phases. You will also understand the diffusion of design thinking in established firms.

This course is part of the HEC Paris MSc in Innovation and Entrepreneurship. If you are admitted to the full program, your coursework will count towards your degree program

Module 1: Overall approach to Design Thinking
-Welcome to the first module of the course Design Thinking for Innovation. You will discover design thinking in theory, through definitions and in practice through many examples from speakers in diverse firms, presenting their projects and practices.

MODULE 2A: INSPIRATION-DATA COLLECTION
-Welcome to the second module of the course design thinking for innovation. You will start practicing design thinking.
This module is dedicated to the first phase of a design thinking project: the inspiration phase. It combines divergent and convergent thinking.


Module 2B: INSPIRATION- DATA ANALYSIS

MODULE 3A: IDEATION
-Welcome to the third module of the course design thinking for innovation. You will solve the problem defined and reframed in the previous module.
This module is dedicated to the second and third phases of a typical design thinking project: the ideation and the implementation phase. It combines divergent and convergent thinking.


MODULE 3B: IMPLEMENTATION

Module 4: Organizational setting for Design Thinking
-In this sixth and last module of the course Design Thinking for Innovation, we will show the diffusion of Design Thinking within firms no matter their size or sector. We will also analyze this diffusion. Our guests will share with us how they adopted Design Thinking within their firms. We will discuss the required organizational design, the performance and the key success factors of such an adoption in an existing firm.