Hasso-Plattner-Institut
Prof. Dr. Falk Uebernickel
 

MSc. Selina Mayer

Program Lead Corporate Innovation (HPI Academy) and Ph.D. Student

Phone: +49 331 5509 202


Room: Campus II, Building E, E-2-03.2


Email: selina.mayer(at)hpi.de


Web: LinkedIn, Researchgate, Google Scholar

 

 

About me

Selina Mayer studied Psychology with a focus on organizational and business psychology at Freie Universität Berlin and Duke University. She received her M.Sc. from the Freie Universität Berlin and studied Design Thinking at the HPI D-school in Potsdam. The background of business psychology and design thinking add up to her overall interest in user-centered design and her passion for human behavior.

As a researcher in the Design Thinking Research Program at HPI/Stanford University and at the chair of Design Thinking & Innovation Research, she is interested in the Impact of Design Thinking on individuals within organizations. Topics such as Innovation Leadership, Meaningfulness of Work, Leading Transformation, The Mindset of an Innovator are of further interest.

Outside of research, Selina develops and conducts various professional education formats at the HPI Academy on a daily basis. She facilitates and consults both method focused design thinking workshops, solution driven long term projects and leadership development programs.

Education


2011– 2015 Master of Science in Organizational Psychology, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany


2014– 2015 Design Thinking Program, Universität Potsdam, Hasso-Plattner-Institut, Germany


2012 – 2013 Duke University, Durham, NC, United States of America Visiting student in the PhD-program in Social Psychology


2008 – 2011 Bachelor of Science in Psychology, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany


 

Experience


since 10/2019 Hasso-Plattner-Institute, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany - Researcher in the HPDTRP (Hasso Plattner Design Thinking Research Program) - investigating the impact of Design Thinking in Organizations and Individuals


since 01/2016 HPI Academy GmbH, Potsdam, Germany - Program Manager & Design Thinking Coach - conceptualization and conduction of various customized Design Thinking programs


09/2015- 12/2015 Loopline Systems / LLS Internet GmbH, Berlin, Germany - Project Manager & User Experience Designer - content development and creation of training material for organizational feedback


04/2014 - 08/2015 GE Energy Power Conversion GmbH, Berlin, Germany - Internship and working student in the department of Business Process Transformation - development and implementation of technical customer trainings


06/2013 - 08/2013 Duke Corporate Education, Durham, NC, United States of America - Internship in the department of Business Development and Marketing - analyzed 38 interviews with CEOs concerning current challenges and implications


 

Research Projects

Current Project

The Impact of DT on Individuals: The impact of Design Thinking (DT) is widely discussed, yet under-researched. In particular, research on DT impact is strongly dominated by an organizational perspective, but neglecting the individual. While prior work has discovered that DT exerts impact on the individual innovators and not only on organizations, so far, this impact has not been assessed in a quantitative way. In addition, there has been no substantial research taking into consideration the virtual context of doing Design Thinking. We aim to fill this gap by investigating the research question of: What is the impact of DT on the individual?

Other Projects

Understanding the impact of DT: Current research on the Impact of DT is fragmented, rather descriptive, and typically focuses on particular effects or elements, and builds quite often on single case studies or other qualitative methods. Thus, a common understanding of impact within a conceptual framework from an integrative perspective leading to purposefully designed quantitative measurement metrics are missing, yet needed to assess the impact of Design Thinking in a holistic and comparable manner. The purpose of this project is to investigate what impact Design Thinking has on individuals, teams, and organization as well as how we can measure this impact and determining factors.

 

Measuring DT: This research project wants to investigate the overarching research questions: What is the impact of Design Thinking on individuals, teams, and organizations? How can this impact be assessed, measured and strengthened based on a theoretical framework combining existing research with expert interviews? How can this theoretical framework be used to measure the impact of Design Thinking and help for implementation for impact?

Teaching


Design Thinking method trainings and implementation coaching in various countries: e.g. Chile, China, England, Russia, SA, Spain, USA, and industries: health care/ retail / automotive / banking


Human-centered innovation strategy conceptualization and conduction of a recurring internal annual innovators development program – pharmaceutical industry.


Human-centered organizational & cultural change coaching redesign of the performance management – retail industry


 

Publications


> Mayer, S., Haskamp, T., & De Paula, D. (2021, January). Measuring what Counts: An Exploratory Study about the Key Challenges of Measuring Design Thinking Activities in Digital Innovation Units. In Proceedings of the 54th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (p. 4951). Link

> Mayer, Selina. "Measuring Design Thinking: An Exploratory Study about Metrics in Organizations." In ISPIM Conference Proceedings, pp. 1-15. The International Society for Professional Innovation Management (ISPIM), 2021. Link

> Mayer, S., Schwemmle, M., Nicolai, C., & Weinberg, U. (2021). Assessing the Impact of Design Thinking in Organizations: Foundations of a Framework. In Design Thinking Research (pp. 255-272). Springer, Cham. Link

> Full Publication List