Design Thinking and the Power of Storytelling in Business (MGMT 971)

2021 Spring
Sabancı Business School
Management(MGMT)
1.50
3
Berna Beyhan bernabeyhan@sabanciuniv.edu,
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English
Doctoral, Master
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CONTENT

This course aims at introducing students to new concepts and methods: design thinking and storytelling. Design thinking promotes user-centered innovation, experimentation to cope with the uncertainties that firms face during the innovation process, which rests on some principles, such involvement of users to the innovation or product/service development and design process, problem framing, leveraging empathy with users, experimentation, and diversity. Offering a new method of problem solving, Design Thinking emphasizes the importance of experimenting, learning-by-doing, listening customers, iterations until finding a satisfying solution to the problems. Entrepreneurs or managers challenge with not only creating viable solutions to the problems and solutions/innovations to customers and stakeholders where narratives and stories always helped to communicate their vision, and how their innovations would shape the future. Although these stories have improved the communication between and within the firms and their stakeholders, the power of storytelling in business has been widely ignored. Today, with the rise of social media and new communicational channels and tools, storytelling has become more and more critical talent/competence. Providing students with practice-based skills is critical in this course, for this aim, they are required to work on two projects. One of them is based on practicing design thinking process and principles, which students are requested to frame a problem, develop a viable solution, develop a prototype as ensuring user/customer involvement and conduct various experiments to understand the viability of the solution. Second project focuses on storytelling practices; students are required to craft an effective story for the innovation/solution that they develop for the first project. They are also requested to deconstruct and analyze the stories told by classmates.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

PROGRAMME OUTCOMES


1. Develop the ability to use critical, analytical, and reflective thinking and reasoning 5

2. Reflect on social and ethical responsibilities in his/her professional life. 2

3. Gain experience and confidence in the dissemination of project/research outputs 4

4. Work responsibly and creatively as an individual or as a member or leader of a team and in multidisciplinary environments. 4

5. Communicate effectively by oral, written, graphical and technological means and have competency in English. 4

6. Independently reach and acquire information, and develop appreciation of the need for continuously learning and updating. 4


1. Develop, interpret and use statistical analyses in decision making. 2


1. Identify and diagnose business problems and opportunities accurately and effectively across a wide range of business domains (accounting, financial management, operations, marketing, strategy, and organizational design), in global and local contexts. 4

2. Incorporate cultural context and complexities in their managerial practice. 4

3. Assess the performance of an organization in a wide range of business domains, using a range of performance criteria. 2

4. Identify, select, and justify strategies and courses of action at the divisional, business, and corporate levels of analysis and to develop effective plans for the implementation of selected strategies across a wide range of business domains and levels. 3