PI: Jens Krüger / Dr. Jürgen Müller

Abstract

Design Thinking has shown its value as a methodology for the generation of innovative ideas in numerous projects, ranging from short boot camps to extensive projects within global companies. But when it comes to the integration of Design Thinking, especially into the software development processes of IT companies, a golden standard is yet to be found.

In this project, we want to identify success factors and obstacles for the adoption of Design Thinking in IT companies by interviewing company employees that received d.school training, as well as employees that were involved in previous and ongoing attempts to integrate Design Thinking into software development processes.

Based on their feedback, we aim to conceive a prototypical software development process that integrates Design Thinking practices with software engineering activities. This process will be tested in a software engineering course that is based on ME310 but adopted to the specifics of software engineering. By integrating the aforementioned interview partners as liaisons and coaches we want to further open up a direct feedback channel to industry that helps them to overcome the previously identified obstacles with the help of means that were evaluated within the course.