PI: Prof. Bernard Roth, PhD

Abstract

The previous year focused on developing measures to assess design thinking in organizational contexts. It is now time to implement these tools with professional teams using design thinking on real projects. We will compare their creative process to their project outcomes and see the impact design thinking has on their ability to innovate. The primary goal of this research project is to explore the relationship between process and project outcomes from 20 teams in organizations. Our hypothesis is that teams with highly rated design thinking process measures will have more innovative project outcomes. Four companies, each of which have committed to design thinking, have formed an unprecedented collaboration and have asked that we help them better understand the impact of design thinking. These organizations, and their innovation teams, will be our partners in this endeavor. The secondary research goal is to continue to understand the effect of d.school learning experiences. We will conduct two controlled tests of our creative agency scale with participants of the executive education workshop. Additionally, students who take multiple d.school courses will be compared to students who take only one in an effort to explore the impact of multiple design thinking experiences.