AI-Enhanced Design Thinking

Programme Overview
Design Thinking has proven to be an effective approach for making organizations more innovative. In this workshop, we will explore how Artificial Intelligence (AI) can enhance and augment the Design Thinking process. The Design Thinking approach consists of five stages: empathy, define, ideate, protype and test. AI tools, especially Generative AI, can augment all of these stages. For example, AI can be used for sentiment analysis to understand customers or for creating customer persona during the empathy stage. AI-driven analytics is already widely used to gather customer insights for problem definition. Generative AI is particularly well suited for expanding ideation due to its ability to integrate ideas from diverse sources. Moreover, AI tools can make it easier to design prototypes and test them quickly.

This workshop will help you develop a strategic innovation toolkit, teaching you when and how to effectively apply AI tools to Design Thinking. The workshop also focuses on improving team performance and collaboration and enhancing the iterative development process. Participants will be encouraged to draw from their diverse professional experiences, fostering stronger collaboration and innovative thinking. The workshop will also address the limitations and challenges of using AI in Design Thinking.

Programme Objectives
Through this workshop, you will learn to:

• Apply the principles and processes of Design Thinking to real-world challenges in organizations.
• Use AI tools at all stages of the Design Thinking process.
• Challenge underlying assumptions to uncover deeper insights and go beyond obvious surface-level observations.
• Cultivate creative confidence in yourself and your team through structured methods and enhance collaborative problem-solving skills.
• Leverage empathy to understand and map your network of beneficiaries and stakeholders, and develop user-centric solutions that address their needs.
• Overcome the fear of failure by building a culture that embraces prototyping and experimentation to learn and iterate.
• Enhance team collaboration and communication through design thinking practices and learn to leverage the benefits from diverse perspectives.
• Foster a culture of innovation within your organization with systematic approaches and practical implementation of the design thinking mindset.

Programme Content
Our workshop on AI-enhanced Design Thinking covers key topics to help you understand and apply the Design Thinking approach effectively. Adopting a Design Thinking approach enables managers to question surface assumptions, take a more expansive view of problems, and understand the needs of stakeholders more deeply through empathy. Further, Design Thinking empowers managers to leverage their networks creatively and build a culture of innovation within their organizations.

In this workshop, you will learn the Design Thinking mindset, exploring how to use it in different roles and situations to encourage innovation. We emphasize empathy and user research, teaching techniques to deeply understand user needs and create empathy maps and personas. You will learn how to frame the right problem and create problem statements by considering various perspectives and points of view. The ideation phase will focus on encouraging creative thinking and brainstorming, helping you develop the skills needed to come up with innovative solutions. Moving from ideation to prototyping, you will learn methods to quickly turn ideas into tangible solutions.

Across all these stages, you will learn how AI tools can be effectively integrated with traditional approaches. We emphasize that AI is not a replacement for human designers but a powerful complementary tool. You will learn how to leverage your strengths alongside AI capabilities to generate powerful ideas and creative solutions. We will also discuss the limitations and challenges of using AI for Design Thinking, helping you understand when and when not to use AI tools.

A key part of the workshop is overcoming the fear of failure and building a culture that learns through prototyping and experimentation. You will explore strategies to foster a culture of innovation within your organization, supported by case studies and success stories showing design thinking in action.

Improving team collaboration and communication will be another major theme. You will enhance your ability to work together and communicate effectively within your teams using shared design thinking practices.
Throughout the three-day workshop, you will work on a hands-on project, applying what you learn in real time. By the end, you will experience a shift in your mindset towards being more empathetic, user-centered, creative, and collaborative in problem-solving and innovation. You will gain the confidence to use AI-enhanced design thinking tools and scenarios to continue to innovate, and spread your learning with others in your organization.

Programme Pedagogy

• Interactive Lectures: Engaging presentations to introduce and explain key concepts.
• Hands-on Activities: Practical exercises and group work to apply AI-enhanced Design Thinking techniques.
• Case Studies: Analyzing real world examples to illustrate the application of AI-enhanced Design Thinking.
• Collaborative Learning: Opportunities for participants to share experiences and insights.
• Feedback Sessions: Constructive feedback to refine ideas and approaches.
• Project Work: Participants will work on a project throughout the program, giving them an immediate chance to implement their learnings.

To ensure you have adequate time and an appropriate space for these project activities, we strongly recommend that participants opt for residential accommodation on our campus

Who Should Attend

• Business Leaders and People Managers: Executives, managers, and HR professionals seeking to foster a culture of innovation within their teams.
• Entrepreneurs & Intrapreneurs: Individuals involved in developing concepts for new projects or businesses.
• Product, Service & Process Managers: Professionals focused on driving innovations in products, services, or business processes.

Top-notch faculty, contemporary content, a great learning environment, and application orientation make the IIMB Exec Ed programmes world-class.