Workshop 2. Design thinking and Design Doing

Rama Gheerawo, Director
Ninela Ivanova, Post-doctoral Research Fellow
The Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design, Royal College of Art

Small Numbers, Big Impact: the insider’s guide to innovation

We have all heard that we should be more creative, that we should use Design Thinking, that we should be more people-centred in our approaches. And that all of this will lead to innovation.

These are nice ideas … but how can you do this effectively? Especially in terms of limited time, cost and resources? What happens if you have little or no budget but need to maximise results? How can you create and implement better ideas, whether you are an entrepreneur or a business, in public sector or government, a designer or non-designer? How can you actually work smarter in a world that is increasingly demanding of you?

If you want to know the answers, then this workshop is for you. The facilitators have personally developed and used these techniques in over 100 ‘real world’ projects, and they will now give you the insider’s guide to rapid, effective and aspirational innovation which many of their clients have benefited from.

• You will see how to work with small numbers of people to define new innovation directions
• You will learn the concept of Deep Data to complement Big Data
• You will see how to quickly turn Design Thinking into Design Doing
• You will conduct training exercises that help overcome barriers to creativity and empathy, and give you greater clarity
• You will deeply understand how to innovate on a budget – even for the price of a meal
• You acquire new working practice to future-proof yourself personally and organisationally

You will make yourself more valuable to clients and colleagues and learn to focus your innovation strategy – moving from a linear approach to a flexible one, from a consistent approach to a more responsive and intelligent one.