Abstract:

Design Thinking is a systematic approach used to unlock creative potential and solve complex problems. We often image Design Thinking as an intensive, innovation Design Sprint where teams uncover solutions by prototyping, testing, and validating with users in a condensed timeframe. For real value to be achieved, the process is a Design Marathon where you dig in and embrace the process and the hard work.

A sprinter in the hundred-yard dash may complete their race in matter of seconds, while a marathon takes hours. Design Thinking is no different. Both the Design Sprint and the Design Marathon have the same goal, to finish the race, but the execution is slightly different.

The authors teach a four-course, two-semester, 12-credit sequence in Design Thinking for Social Product Innovation. As a Design Sprint you could ask students to develop a product to help the homeless in their community. As a Design Marathon, the students are challenged to work outside their comfort zone tackling one of the UN Sustainability Goals for 2030, in a country from the base of the economic pyramid. In the Honors College where we facilitate classes, students have little exposure to the UN Goals or the world’s economically poor.

In the first semester students begin learning about the UN Goals and start to think about what the problem looks and feel like in another country. The ability to empathize, to understand what life might be like for a person living in a tropical climate on a dollar a day, is hard to imagine. Students are exposed to exercises that lead to a better understanding of other cultures including dinners featuring cuisines from around the globe, online research, observation using video and pictures, and connecting to people in country via What’s App. At the end of the second month, students have chosen an opportunity from the UN Goals and a country. They have defined a problem and a segment of people they are hoping to help. At the end of the first semester, they have completed countless ideations and have more than 50 ideas to sort through to narrow down to the best four possible solutions.

In the second semester, in the first month they develop and test concepts with a panel local to their country. They work on developing this panel from the moment they choose a country. In months two and three, they complete a deep dive into prototyping. You can build protype models out of paper, carboard and trash to get started. Then comes model critique and refinement, followed by scale and finally model functionality. By the end of the third month, these models are drastically improved with the input of the class, specialist who visit, and feedback from their panels. In the final month, the models are further refined, and a business plan is developed around the Business Model Canvas.

This is not a Design Sprint done in a single class. It is four-course, eight-month, Design Marathon with the goal of making something that might be useful and marketable in their selected countries.

The Design Marathon approach allows the students to explore the process, develop skills, share with others, and learn the value of working together on meaningful projects. A Design Sprint is useful, but a Design Marathon can change lives and be a framework for multidisciplinary learning.

Keywords:

Multidisciplinary, Design Thinking, Prototyping, UNESCO Sustainability Goals, Empathy.