The syllabus had been developed as part of a course on design thinking and innovation (TEK495) at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden. It extends common elements of design thinking courses with innovation theory. All slides are available as well. If you have questions or further information, feel free to contact the author.
1.
Course Syllabus:
Design Thinking and Innovation v 1.2
(TEK 495)
4512 Division of Innovation Engineering and Management
Course name: Design and Innovation
Course code: TEK 495
Type: Elective MEI Course
Course leader and examiner: 0720, Maria Elmquist (maria.elmquist@chalmers.se)
Lecturer: Ingo Rauth (ingo.rauth@chalmers.se)
Lecturer: Lisa Carlgren (lisa.carlgren@chalmers.se)
Course administration: Angelica Linnehav (031772 1210)
Merit points: 7.5 hp (7,5 ECTS)
Study period: Lp 1
Year: 2015
Examination: Participation in seminars, course participation, project
presentations, individual project documentation and diary.
Location: Varies, please check online as well as Appendix A.
General info: We will update the document based on your feedback. However, we will keep a
changelog at the end of the document in case you wonder what happened. If you are in doubt or
have questions, please contact Ingo.
Design Thinking & Innovation course syllabus 2015 | 1
5.
Project
No.
Date Session Topic Lecturer/Coach
Deadline:
01.09.2015
15:00
Individual Handin: Write a short essay, max. 500
Words on: Why are you taking this course? What do
you expect to learn? How much time can you invest
outside of class?
n/a
I 02.09.2015
10:0017:00
Wednesday
Course introduction
Introductory lecture:
What is innovation.
What is design thinking.
How do they go together.
Intro: Reflection & Visualizing
Appointment of class representatives
Project 1
Homework: project documentation & reflection, read
one article which will be announced during session.
Maria Elmquist,
Ingo Rauth,
Lisa Carlgren
07.09.2015
8:0012:00
Monday
Project 1 presentations
Introduction to teamwork and how to make
collaboration work.
Handin: Individual documentation. At the latest one
hour before the session. A printout has to be brought
to class!
Homework: watch https://vimeo.com/102508380
Ingo Rauth,
Lisa Carlgren,
Pamela Nowell
II 09.09.2015
10:0017:00
Wednesday
Introduction of Project 2
User perspective in innovation and a practical
approach to ethnographic research (fieldtrip)
Maria Elmquist,
Ingo Rauth,
Kira Krämer
14.09.2015
8:0012:00
Monday
Data synthesis (from data to knowledge)
Idea generation.
Ingo Rauth, Jan
Schmiedgen
16.09.2015
10:0017:00
Wednesday
Prototyping, Testing and iteration (Experimentation). Ingo Rauth,
Julien Mauroy
Design Thinking & Innovation course syllabus 2015 | 5
8. ● KarlMagnus Möller, Design Thinking Oriented Innovation Driver/Strategist and
Technical Specialist at Ericsson.
● Julien Mauroy, Course Director of Stockholm School of Entrepreneurship
● Pamela Nowell, Industrial Doctoral student at the Division MORE.
● Jan Schmiedgen, HPI Academy Program development & Coach, Germany.
Finally, there will also be an expert panel that will be introduced during the course.
3.3 Handin submissions & file names
Deadlines & Pingpong: Project handins (PDFs) must be submitted in time, according to the
course plan, using Pingpong! We expect students to have made sure that they have a pingpong
account and to upload in time to mitigate the risk of not delivering on time.
Put the following Handins into the following folder:
HandIn File name syntax Folder
HandIn 1 (one pdf per person) TEK495 Date Name.pdf
Example: TEK495 150131 Jan Janson.pdf
HandIn 1
Project I Documentation one pdf
per person: consisting of project
reflection (can be a picture of diary
reflection of the day) &
documentation.
TEK495 Date Name.pdf
Example: TEK495 150131 Jan Janson.pdf
Project I
Project II Documentation one
documents per person: consisting of
project reflection & documentation
TEK495 Group [#] Name.pdf
Example: TEK495 Group 1 Jan
Janson.pdf
Project II
Project III Documentation & short
essay one pdf per person:
consisting of project reflection,
essay & documentation.
TEK495 Group [#] Name.pdf
Example: TEK495 Group 2 Jan
Janson.pdf
Project III
Individual Diaries
(one diary per person)
Hand in using Chalmers mail or drop it in Lisa’s or
Ingo’s post box.
Design Thinking & Innovation course syllabus 2015 | 8
9. 3.4 Individual diaries (Individual task)
The course requires you to keep a handwritten journal to train reflection! All students must
write an individual diary where they reflect on their development and group work during course.
This is intended as a tool to train reflection and crease individual learning. Students are
encouraged to not only document tools and insights but to describe and reflect upon their
experience throughout the course. Each session begins with a short reflection based on your diary
entries.
Input to writing your diary: After each class and project group meeting, please reflect on and what
you have learned and answer the questions below. Please note that a Yes or No is not enough,
motivate your answers.
1. Document things you have learned during class. (This can be done by taking notes during
the introductory lectures during Project I and II, Project III will require you to find your
own methods and tools!)
Make a little drawing that points to the most important thing of each technique and
that helps you remember what it was all about.
Write a short introduction to each method for future reference on how and when (in
private or work life) to use each method that you learned.
Reflect upon how each of these methods relate to the skills that the course seeks to
make you develop.
Write about how the use of a technique affected your project.
2. Reflect on your project progress and the interaction with your team members especially in
project III!
● What was your role in the project?
● What was your role in the team?
● Which challenges did you face, personally? How did you overcome them?
● How would you like to improve during the next project/in the future?
3. One question or insight based on your reflections to be shared during class.
Reflection evaluation criteria
1) Did the student document what they did and learned?
2) Did the student reflect on the various experiences in relation to themselves, their (skill)
development and their team role?
3) Did the student make use of visuals to illustrate their learnings throughout the course?
4) Did the student reflect throughout the course?
Design Thinking & Innovation course syllabus 2015 | 9
10. a) Are all course days covered?
b) In case the student missed a session, (s)he should interview 3 fellow students and
reflect and document on what (s)he heard.
3.5 Individual project documentations
At the day of the final presentation of each project (I, II & III), you will not only present your
concepts and ideas but also deliver a project documentation. These should train and show
students’ ability to visualize and present their work in a focused way. The documentation consists
of two parts:
Project description
● the starting point of the project
● the main insight(s) based on your research data (supported by images/videos taken during
research).
● the process crucial/critical steps in the development process (such as main learnings).
● the final solution and how it addressed individual, technical, and business needs (Project
3).
● A 140 character twitter text incl. hashtags, advertising your project work and make a
relevant target audience want to know more. Put the twitter message at the end of your
reflection.
The format of the documentation should be in pdf and max. 3 A4 pages/slides. Here we
encourage you to experiment with formats that you do not commonly use, and to put focus on
visual and storytelling aspects.
Some inspirations regarding visual presentation, can be found here:
http://kisd.de/~jennifer/package_documentation_jenniferschubert_labels.pdf (pdf)
http://vimeo.com/44047852
http://www.frogdesign.com/work/nikefoundationgirleffect.html (video + text)
http://enginegroup.co.uk/work/jaguarcustomerexperiencesupercar (website)
Additional information on how to create project descriptions as part of a portfolio:
http://www.portfoliohandbook.com/PortfolioHandbook_UCID12.pdf
Hint: As project experience is central to develop design expertise, designers usually collect them
as portfolios to show to future employees. As such, students might want to combine project
Design Thinking & Innovation course syllabus 2015 | 10