Laura Pickel – Design Thinking for Beginners: Develop Innovative Ideas (Download)
Every workplace faces complex challenges—from improving employee engagement to designing better customer experiences. Traditional problem-solving often leads to solutions that miss the mark or fail to address real user needs. Design thinking offers a structured, human-centered approach that helps you develop innovative solutions that truly resonate with your audience.
What Is Design Thinking and Why Does It Matter?
Design thinking is a five-step creative problem-solving framework that prioritizes understanding user needs before jumping to solutions. Pioneered by Stanford’s d.school and IDEO, this methodology has helped organizations worldwide tackle difficult challenges by focusing on empathy, experimentation, and iteration. Whether you work in HR, product management, or any field requiring innovative thinking, design thinking provides a practical roadmap for discovering breakthrough ideas.
About the Course and Instructor
Laura Pickel brings extensive experience teaching and applying design thinking across leading organizations including IDEO, Lyft, SAP, and Stanford’s d.school. After mastering the methodology as a d.school student, she has dedicated her career to helping professionals harness its power in their daily work.
This beginner-friendly course guides you through completing your own design thinking project from start to finish. You’ll work on a real challenge from your organization while learning each step of the process, supported by a comprehensive workbook with ready-to-use templates.
What You’ll Learn
Empathize: Conduct user interviews and observations to deeply understand the people you’re designing for, challenging your assumptions and uncovering genuine needs.
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Define: Synthesize research findings using frameworks like personas and point-of-view statements to identify the core problem worth solving.
Ideate: Generate creative solutions through structured brainstorming techniques, including “How might we…” statements that open up possibilities.
Prototype: Build rapid, low-fidelity prototypes that bring your ideas to life without significant time or resource investment.
Test: Gather user feedback on your prototypes, treating testing as another opportunity for empathy and learning.
Pitch: Use storytelling principles to communicate the value of design thinking and your solutions to stakeholders.
Course Structure
The course includes seven comprehensive sections covering everything from foundational concepts to practical application. Each section features hands-on activities, review quizzes, and real-world examples. You’ll see design thinking in action and immediately apply what you learn to your chosen challenge.
Perfect for employees seeking structured innovation methods, HR professionals creating human-centered programs, and product managers prioritizing user experience. Not recommended for formally trained designers or those already familiar with advanced design thinking concepts.
