“It’s not ‘us versus them’ or even ‘us on behalf of them.’ For a design thinker it has to be ‘us with them’”.  –Tim Brown  Reflections by Marita Ruotsalainen and Katja Räisänen The workshop days of Design Thinking with engaging pracademic Daniela Marzavan felt like looking at something familiar through a pair of new glasses ..read more

Design Thinking refers to a human-centered, iterative approach for solving complex problems, often leading to innovation. The process involves empathy, creativity, and experimentation, helping teams come up with solutions that may not emerge from traditional methods. Over a weekend learning experience, we delved into the nuances of Design Thinking, gaining insights into both its potential ..read more

Reflection by Nikhil Agarwal, Heini Hutinen and Sahan Ganegama Design thinking has emerged as a dynamic, multifaceted approach to problem-solving, blending creativity, user-centered insights, and structured methodologies to foster innovation. Reflecting on the literature and discussions surrounding design thinking, several key insights arise, highlighting both the potential and complexities of this approach. A Shift from ..read more

How often have you thought of empathy as a skill which can be trained? During the Design Thinking class, we found out that empathy is an important characteristic for a service designer to have, but it is also a quality and a tool which can be improved. Empathy is a prolific discussion point in Design practice and academia, not without a reason. We, the service designers in training, had an opportunity to experience the importance, as well as the complexity of empathy firsthand when, in the classroom exercise, we sought to understand the needs of our pretend users and create desirable solution ..read more

By Julia Reinhard and Jasmin Tossavainen In our fast-evolving world, linear problem-solving methods fall short when dealing with the intricate challenges we encounter daily. The book and a majority of the articles we explored highlight the inadequacy of linear approaches in addressing today’s complex obstacles and opportunities. These are so-called “wicked” problems with no straightforward solutions and multiple interconnected factors. This blog post explores how design thinking offers a fresh perspective on complexity and why it should be adopted as a versatile problem-solving approach across ..read more

By Leonardo Caetano & Mahlet Adenew Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash “HOW CAN WE solve the problem of single-use plastic that comes from cigarette butts?” – this was the question we chose to solve in just one day as part of our Design Thinking masterclass with Daniela Marzavan. It was a brief but intense journey where we witnessed the transformative power of Design Thinking and its potential to reshape products, services, strategies and solutions, including for some of our most pressing global challenges. It also has shown us that it’s not limited to designers, being a tool for all indi ..read more

by Carolina Faria & Irina Tikanvaara The teaching sessions with Daniela Marzavan, where we had two thought-provoking days and a hands-on workshop, provided a widening experience of the practical use of design thinking to solve a given task. The goal was to find the solutions for practical cases using design thinking, its methods and tools and also get valuable insights. Day 1: Find a sustainable solution We started by learning that team members need a safe environment and team spirit to express their ideas, thoughts and creative mindset. For this, we did a series of exercises and warm-ups ..read more

Imagine this: a group of experts in one specific field are working together on an incredibly challenging problem. They are intelligent, proficient, and polite. They ask reasonable questions, answer them and everyone agrees with each other. Perfect picture, isn’t it? Or not?   Picture: AI generated image that represents the homogeneous team.  According to Linda A.Hill and her book Collective Genius (3), one critical step of the innovation process is creative abrasion. This appears when two ingredients exist: intellectual diversity and intellectual conflict. You cannot create inn ..read more

The quote in the title was spoken out by our lecturer, Daniela Marzavan, on our first day of the Design Thinking-course (DT) in Laurea. Here, we learned how one could adopt the mind of a 5 year-old by asking numerous Why`s and deciding that a tape roll can be an airplane if it’s said to be an airplane, the outcome often covers the means in a creative process. It was groundbreaking to realize how our biases or expertise might block our way to understand our users and approach their world with empathy. “The Red Model, 1935 – Rene Magritte.” The power of empathy Kelley & Kelley (2013, 13-18 ..read more

You know the Fazer chocolates, right? You have seen them at the airports at least.   Some years ago, a construction company called NCC in Finland had to renovate an office above a nursery at the Fazer chocolate factory. This created a challenge: how to keep the noisy construction from waking up the toddlers during their daily nap? The solution was clever yet straightforward. NCC gave a big button to the nursery staff. When pressed, it sent a message to the construction team to stop making noise temporarily. There was a schedule for quiet times, but if a child was still sleeping, they ..read more