On Tuesday, 5 March 2019, we had a workshop on Design Thinking with prof. Richard E. West, associate professor at Brigham Young University (Utah, USA). The workshop was conducted as part of the course Principles of Entrepreneurship.

In the first part of the workshop, we discussed creativity and its importance in creating ideas. He introduced the methodology of Design Thinking, and explained what is unique in this process and how to use it successfully. The methodology consists of six steps: understand, observe, create a problem statement, ideate, prototype and test/redesign. Later on, we worked in teams on challenges related to the education system.

The most important thing in Design thinking is to understand the needs of potential customers, to understand what they do and why they do it. Therefore, we need to feel like them. In order to understand their needs, we need to talk to them (make interviews) and carefully observe them. What is a successful way to get the best in your interviews? To ask potential customers “why” even if we know the answer, listen carefully, don’t interrupt them in the middle of talking, etc. Then, the “bug list” (thinks that are not working) needs to be written.

In the second part of the workshop, we formed groups of 4-6 students according to our preferences regarding the various aspects of education reforms. First, each group needed to better understand the educational problem they had chosen by interviewing students, then each group formulated the “problem statement”. Once we got the problem statement, we started to look for possible solutions (ideation phase).

In the third part of the class, Prof. Richard E. West introduced us to “Open Badges”. It is a new way to collect microcedentials for the acquired knowledge from various fields and in various ways. Receiving recognition for smaller chunks of learning; easier communication of your skills to employers and other interested parties; being recognized for what doesn’t show on a transcript; providing greater insights into person’s skills, are only a part of the benefits that have attracted our attention for the “Open Badges”. The design thinking microcredentials available for students to earn are accessible at http://bit.ly/CIDBadges.

Prof. dr. Richard E. West visited University of Primorska Faculty of Management within the project InoTeZ, Vključevanje uporabe informacijsko-komunikacijske tehnologije v visokošolskem pedagoškem procesu. He conducted a workshop for the course Principles of Entrepreneurship as part of the Nuvolak2 project (Interreg Italia-Slovenija).

Text: Dajana Siljanoska, 1. year student at the study program Management