Design Bones: Decoding the Correlates of Design Thinking

Abstract:

Design Thinking is all the rage ... and everyone wants to be one.  But what exactly is "design thinking" and what makes it different from other forms of "thinking"? Studying people/designers that are associated with design thinking reveals some of the core pillars of design thinking behavior, who might inherently have those behaviors and who are likely to develop those behaviors in the course of their academic and working lives.  This raises important issues for the teaching of design thinking and how it might be tracked in student progress.

Short Bio:

Mark is a Senior Teaching and Research Fellow at the Design School within the School of Engineering at Stanford University. He has a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford, an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management from Northwestern University, and a BSS also from Northwestern University. Mark had a 25-year career at The Procter & Gamble, retiring as a Senior Vice President General Manager, followed by a 5-year stint at Intuit as Chief Marketing Officer and Senior Vice President of Tax Services. He teaches classes on Solid Mechanics, Design Process, Team Management, Product Management, and Leadership with research interests on innovative behaviors and the development of a scale to measure engineering, innovation, and design thinking self-efficacy.