Remote Design Thinking Class at ESSEC Business School

Remote Design Thinking Class at ESSEC Business School

Brief
Teaching design thinking in virtual classrooms to people from different disciplines, especially at the executive level, can be extremely challenging. Uncertainty and the iterative nature of the design process have always been challenging for students who come from strict methodology-based working cultures.
The design thinking class on the ESSEC Business School’s EMBA program was connected to the entrepreneurial project assignment. Therefore, the aim of the class was twofold: to teach design thinking methodology and develop the student’s project using the methodology.
ESSEC Business School’s EMBA program is ranked the fifth-best EMBA according to the Financial Times. Gaining admission for students is a big challenge. Therefore, one of the main tendencies we observed, which was different from other groups we have trained, was that the students want to get the most out of the class by obtaining very tangible outcomes.
Since classes have been taught remotely due to the pandemic, many students have been overwhelmed by being in front of screens and have not had the opportunity to get to know each other to form groups.
The executives in the class were from several countries and companies and levels of expertise. Therefore, class diversity was high.
Our question was: How we can make the executive’s experience “smooth” and at the same time make them understand design principles?

Aproach
Our design management strategy effectively used digital tools to make the executives understand user-centricity and the iterative design approach, which needs to be used at different stages of their projects. We designed the class from the perspective of the students, who were overwhelmed by virtual classes at the same time and unfamiliar with disciplines like design. Although the class was scheduled for one block of 2.5 days, we added two extra 1-hour sessions before and after the class to understand needs in advance and follow up with the class. Those two sessions improved class performance and interactions substantially.

Focus on the digital tools
Running a design thinking course in class is a challenge but teaching remotely can be even more challenging. However, we considered the digital space as a new context and positioned everything accordingly.
Since we heavily rely on digital tools in the virtual environment, we chose tools that gave us flexibility. We chose Zoom as the video conferencing tool and the Miro education version as the main platforms to work on. We prepared in advance dedicated areas which we called stations on Miro for each team. Therefore, when students came to “class” on the first day, everything was ready for them.

Punctuality
Since in a virtual environment, and you do not see people in person, it is crucial that the schedule is followed precisely so that people can build on their own discipline in order to follow such a long class.

Dynamic class design
Since the digitals tools that we use in the design are not commonly used in the business world, we projected that the first day would be a different challenge for the students. Therefore, we have a detailed introduction to the working methods and tools.
However, on the second and third days, we were unsure of what challenges the students would experience, as they would be different for different groups. Therefore, at the end of each day, we canvassed feedback from the class to modify the next day’s class content.

Service design
People who work on entrepreneurial projects are mainly product-driven, whereas any product experience is a service experience for a user. Therefore, it would be very helpful in making students understand the service context and use it to manage the iterations of their projects. Although it was not part of the class, it was given to them as part of their final work.

Results
Our online class results are 6% higher than the 2019 on-campus class, although students are overwhelmed.
The second day's class evaluations were 30% higher than the first day.
We have had great feedback from the class:
“Thanks a lot for taking our comments into account that seriously. We decided to highlight ‘responding rapidly to feedback’ in our entrepreneurial project values thanks to this experience. Thanks for this lesson beyond design thinking.”
“You delivered more than a Design Thinking course. You delivered a concrete illustration of how to adapt to and interact with your audience.” The class achieved its aims thanks to the design-management approach.