Assessing the Development of Design Thinking: From Training to Organizational Application

Abstract

Increasingly organizations are turning to off-site design thinking professional development programs as a way to grow design competencies in their workforce. This paper has two main goals (1) to develop an initial assessment tool that helps identify how well organizations support employees’ continued learning and application of design thinking. (2) To describe a process for constructing design thinking assessment tools. The assessment created is informed by an exploration of existing design thinking Executive Education programs and tested in a large organization committed to using design thinking.