Design Thinking Workshop, Qualification, and Practice

Attend the workshop and you’ll fell in love with the subject, attain its qualification and you’ll crave to apply the learning into practice. That’s what has happened to me.

Workshop > Qualification > Practice

A few years ago, I participated in a Design Thinking Course at SAP Mawared Program and started to explore it further. Lately after earning a title, called SAP Certified Associate – Design Thinking, I’m interested in applying it to the work I do.

Learning and Application

Since the approach can be applied to solve different types of challenges we face in our daily lives, I thought to provide a brief summary of

1. The Content, I used to learn about its application, and
2. The Concept, to describe what Design Thinking is all about?

During this time, I have explored a variety of resources to know how the approach can help us to

1. Discover the Problems / Challenges,
2. Design the Prototypes / Solutions, and
3. Deliver the Products / Services.

The Content

While looking for the formal courses on the subject, I came across the Design Thinking for Business Innovation – Live Experience course. Teaching its audience the methodology, and guiding them with the Design Thinking workshop facilitation process, the course also provides additional valuable references.

The course introduces the topic by describing the

1. major design thinking principles,
2. overall methodology approach,
3. history, referring to the product designing, and
4. relevance to its application within IT Solution space.

It further explains the activities, from understanding the challenge in hand to brainstorming the possibilities and ultimately designing the prototypes to get these validated for further development of products or services.

The course is easy-to-understand and is enjoyable. While going through the content, one can easily relate it with his/her day-to-day life.

The Concept

The SAP Consultants can use the concepts, taught in the course, to help their clients better by

1. understanding the business requirements correctly, and
2. delivering the solutions to not only meet but exceed expectations.

“What happens if there is a gap between the requirements and the understanding” was well-explained by the famous illustration which you and I’ve seen many times, provided below:

Q. So how Design Thinking helps?

A. Mainly by guiding the learners to follow a structured approach i.e. a combination of various techniques used in many other disciplines, for

1. Investigating, Researching, and Understanding the Challenge,
2. Generating Ideas, Creating User Experience, and Gathering Feedback on Designs,
3. Developing, Testing, and Implementing the Solutions.

A valuable addition to other knowledge areas

As customers, we are always interested in getting the highest-quality products and best-possible services. We can be better Product Developers, Problem Solvers, and Service Provider if we learn and apply the Design Thinking concepts.

Within SAP profession, I think it’s an additional skill which Consultants can learn on top of their core areas of expertise, to serve customers better.

Do you have any thoughts?