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

Today we have all kinds of complex problems that need holistic solutions. Sometimes we do not even know what the problem is – so how can we ideate solutions then? A non-linear and iterative approach, Design Thinking, has offered a choice for solving complex problems – and impacted extensively the modern world’s innovations in business and society. We dove into the world of Design Thinking as fresh Service Innovation and Design students, and this is what we found out. Mr. Bean tries out different solutions in the movie Bean, 1997. What is and what if? There are many parties involved in the Des ..read more

A reflection by Alvaro Valls Boix and Erson Halili – Students at Service Innovation and Design MBA @Laurea UAS Defining Creativity is a complex task, since the term is interpreted differently in different cultures and contexts. However, from a cognitive and mental activity perspective, Creativity is defined as the cognitive capacity to develop something new where we can identify that it’s a cognitive ability. This means that the cognitive ability it’s in all of us, loaded in our ’Operating Systems’ from the factory.   Did you know that ALL individuals can be creative? Yes, you read i ..read more

Mind shaking Our Design Thinking (DT) journey started with two days of mind-shaking by Katja Schimmel (Katja). Learning by doing was absolutely engaging. We warmed up with creative thinking skills exercises. While perceptive thinking felt like a hard nut, associative thinking felt familiar and easy to master. In a playful spirit, we got to explore the concept and process of DT. Different DT models were discussed. Finally, using DT Model Evolution 6² as a base, we got to work in teams on a service design challenge. It was curious to work with the DT model incorporating sustainability. Surprisin ..read more