Design Thinking for Innovation Training Course

Duration 5 days 10 modules · 33 contact hours
Level Intermediate Certificate on completion
Who attends Strategy Managers, Innovation Managers and others
Fee from USD 1,100 KSh 95,000 for Kenyan organisations
Where 52 cities + online See dates by city
Next start 7 Nov 2026 Course code SD-SP-045

Before you join: Participants should have experience contributing to projects, service improvement, planning cycles, policy development, product work or change initiatives.

Dates & prices

Two start dates a month in every city, and live online on weekdays or weekends. Fees are per participant; classroom fees include tuition, materials, lunch and refreshments, and the certificate.

Suggest a date or city

Showing the next six months. Later dates, other cities and private deliveries for your team are available on request.

Course overview

Strategic plans often define priorities without enough evidence of what customers, citizens, employees or partners actually need. Teams may invest in initiatives based on internal assumptions, struggle to distinguish symptoms from root problems, or produce innovation ideas that cannot be delivered within budget, policy, technology or operating constraints. Design thinking provides a disciplined way to connect human insight with strategic choices, test assumptions early and build plans around evidence rather than opinion.

This course teaches participants to use design thinking as a strategic planning method. Participants frame ambiguous challenges, conduct stakeholder research, synthesize evidence, develop opportunity areas, generate concepts and assess options against desirability, feasibility, viability and strategic fit. They apply Double Diamond, Jobs to Be Done, journey mapping, scenario thinking, Business Model Canvas, prototyping and experiment design. The course also covers innovation portfolio choices, governance, measurement, roadmaps and stakeholder engagement needed to move promising concepts into funded delivery.

Teaching combines short instructor briefings with realistic cases, facilitated group analysis, research and synthesis activities, concept development, prototype simulations and application planning. Participants work with planning situations relevant to public services, financial services, corporate transformation, infrastructure, NGO programmes and customer-facing operations. They leave with a reusable design-led strategic planning toolkit and a 90-day action plan for applying the methods to a current organisational priority. The five-day instructor-led course is available in classrooms in 50+ cities or live online, with a certificate of completion.

The course is suited to managers and specialists who contribute to strategy, service improvement, innovation, transformation, product development or policy design and need a practical method for turning stakeholder evidence into strategic action.

What you will be able to do

  • Frame strategic challenges using human-centred design questions and decision boundaries
  • Conduct stakeholder research using interviews, observation protocols and evidence matrices
  • Synthesize qualitative findings into insights, personas, journeys and opportunity areas
  • Apply Double Diamond stages to strategic planning, governance and innovation decisions
  • Generate and assess strategic concepts using structured ideation and selection criteria
  • Design prototypes and experiments that test critical assumptions before major investment
  • Prioritise innovation options using impact, effort, confidence, risk and strategic-fit criteria
  • Produce a 90-day design-led implementation plan with metrics, ownership and review points

Benefits of attending

For you

  • A structured method for replacing assumptions with stakeholder evidence
  • Stronger facilitation of strategic conversations around needs, choices and trade-offs
  • Practical experience translating research findings into strategic opportunity areas
  • Confidence testing proposed initiatives before seeking major funding or approval
  • A personal 90-day plan for applying design thinking to a live priority

For your organisation

  • Strategic initiatives grounded in customer, citizen, employee or partner evidence
  • Earlier identification of weak assumptions, delivery constraints and adoption risks
  • Better prioritisation of innovation funding across competing opportunities
  • Clearer links between strategic themes, measurable outcomes and accountable owners
  • Reduced waste from developing solutions before validating the underlying problem

Course modules

10 modules over 5 days

Participants can position design thinking within strategic planning and define a focused innovation challenge.

  • Strategic intent translated into design questions, assumptions and decision boundaries
  • Double Diamond stages linked to planning cycles and governance gates
  • Human-centred design principles compared with expert-led planning assumptions
  • Systems mapping reveals interdependencies, feedback loops and unintended consequences
  • Problem framing distinguishes symptoms, needs, constraints and strategic choices
  • Design criteria set desirability, feasibility, viability and public-value thresholds

Participants can plan and conduct focused stakeholder research for a strategic challenge.

  • Stakeholder maps identify users, buyers, influencers, blockers and affected communities
  • Interview guides elicit behaviours, workarounds, motivations and decision triggers
  • Observation protocols capture service journeys, handoffs, waiting and workarounds
  • Jobs to Be Done statements separate functional, emotional and social progress
  • Research ethics address consent, confidentiality, power and vulnerable participants
  • Evidence matrices distinguish facts, interpretations, assumptions and research gaps

Participants can convert research evidence into validated insights and strategic opportunity areas.

  • Affinity mapping clusters interview evidence without premature solution selection
  • Persona profiles represent distinct needs, contexts, behaviours and barriers
  • Customer journey maps expose moments of truth, pain points and handoffs
  • Insight statements connect observed evidence to unmet needs and opportunity
  • How Might We questions convert validated insights into generative prompts
  • Opportunity portfolios rank needs by strategic relevance, scale and urgency

Participants can assess external change and connect it to evidence-based innovation priorities.

  • PESTLE analysis tests external forces shaping priority innovation opportunities
  • Porter's Five Forces clarifies industry pressures, bargaining power and substitutes
  • Scenario axes frame plausible futures around critical uncertainties and drivers
  • Trend scanning distinguishes weak signals, established shifts and transient noise
  • Assumption mapping tests certainty and impact before strategic commitment
  • Strategic themes connect user opportunities with mission, mandate and market position

Participants can define strategic options that connect stakeholder needs with value and delivery logic.

  • Value proposition canvases align customer pains, gains and proposed benefits
  • Design principles guide consistent choices across services, products and policies
  • Concept posters state target users, need, proposition, evidence and measures
  • Business Model Canvas tests value creation, delivery, costs and revenues
  • Public-service logic models link activities, outputs, outcomes and impacts
  • Strategic option statements specify scope, exclusions, dependencies and required decisions

Participants can generate diverse strategic concepts and select promising options using explicit criteria.

  • Brainwriting 6-3-5 produces alternatives before group discussion shapes judgment
  • SCAMPER prompts challenge existing offers through substitution, combination and reversal
  • Crazy Eights accelerates divergent concept generation under fixed time constraints
  • Morphological analysis combines solution dimensions into deliberately varied concepts
  • Analogous inspiration transfers patterns from adjacent services and operating models
  • Convergent selection uses design criteria, evidence and strategic fit scores

Participants can select and create prototypes that answer specific strategic and operational questions.

  • Prototype fidelity matches the question, risk, audience and decision required
  • Paper prototypes test workflows, messages, interfaces and service touchpoints
  • Service blueprints connect frontstage interactions, backstage processes and support systems
  • Role-play simulations reveal operational friction, staff needs and customer reactions
  • Assumption-led prototypes isolate the riskiest belief for rapid learning
  • Experiment cards specify hypothesis, method, metric, threshold and owner

Participants can test strategic concepts, interpret evidence and define meaningful innovation measures.

  • Usability testing scripts capture task success, hesitation, errors and feedback
  • Structured feedback separates stated preferences from observed behaviour and evidence
  • Pilot plans define cohort, duration, controls, safeguards and review points
  • Leading indicators track adoption, completion, repeat use and referral
  • Outcome measures connect innovation results with strategic objectives and public value
  • Learning reviews decide whether to persevere, pivot, pause or stop

Participants can prioritise innovation options and build governance arrangements for delivery decisions.

  • Prioritisation matrices compare impact, effort, confidence, risk and strategic fit
  • Weighted decision matrices document trade-offs and challenge hidden preferences
  • Now-next-later roadmaps sequence experiments, capabilities, decisions and scaled delivery
  • OKRs translate strategic themes into measurable outcomes and accountable ownership
  • RACI charts clarify decision rights, consultation, delivery and escalation routes
  • Portfolio reviews balance core improvements, adjacent bets and transformative options

Participants can prepare a practical plan for applying design thinking to a strategic priority.

  • Implementation canvases integrate discovery findings, choices, experiments, metrics and governance
  • Change impact assessments identify process, role, technology and policy implications
  • Stakeholder engagement plans tailor messages, channels, timing and sponsorship
  • Risk registers assign mitigations, triggers, owners and contingency actions
  • Resource cases estimate team capacity, budget, partners and procurement needs
  • Ninety-day action plans set milestones, decisions, evidence and review dates
  • Learning agendas schedule research questions, experiments and portfolio review cycles

Exercises and examples are adapted to each cohort's sectors and roles.

What you take back to work

  1. Design-led strategic challenge brief
  2. Stakeholder research plan and interview guide
  3. Insight synthesis and opportunity portfolio template
  4. Strategic option and value proposition canvas
  5. Prototype experiment card and pilot measurement plan
  6. Ninety-day implementation and governance plan

Who should attend

  • Strategy Managers — need evidence-based methods for shaping priorities and strategic options
  • Innovation Managers — need a repeatable process for moving ideas toward tested propositions
  • Transformation Leaders — need to connect change programmes with employee and customer needs
  • Product and Service Managers — need to align service concepts with organisational strategy
  • Policy and Programme Managers — need to test public-value propositions before scaling delivery
  • Senior Project Managers — need clearer problem framing, stakeholder insight and decision criteria

Skills and tools covered

Design-led strategyStakeholder researchInsight synthesisInnovation prioritisationPrototype testingStrategic roadmapping

Tools and standards

Double Diamond, Jobs to Be Done, Business Model Canvas, PESTLE analysis

How the course runs

Training methodology

The course uses short briefings to introduce each method, followed by case-based analysis, group exercises, facilitated simulations and structured reflection. Participants practise research planning, insight synthesis, opportunity framing, concept selection, prototyping and portfolio decisions using realistic strategic scenarios. Instructor feedback focuses on the quality of evidence, clarity of problem framing, decision criteria and implementation logic. Application planning helps participants connect the methods to a current priority, stakeholder group or service challenge from their own work.

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have experience contributing to projects, service improvement, planning cycles, policy development, product work or change initiatives. They should be comfortable discussing organisational objectives, stakeholder needs, operational constraints and basic performance measures. Experience with design thinking, formal strategy frameworks, market research or innovation methods is not required. No specialist software, technical design skills, financial modelling expertise or prior facilitation qualification is needed. Participants gain most value by bringing a current strategic challenge, service issue or innovation opportunity they can consider during the course.

A typical training day

08:30 – 10:30First session
10:30 – 10:45Refreshment break
10:45 – 12:30Second session
12:30 – 13:30Lunch and networking
13:30 – 15:00Third session
15:00 – 15:15Refreshment break
15:15 – 16:30Workshop and daily review

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in East Africa Time, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

  • Instruction by a practitioner facilitator
  • Full course workbook and materials
  • Exercise files, templates and case studies
  • Refreshments and lunch on classroom deliveries
  • Certificate of completion
  • Post-course application plan

Frequently asked questions

You should have experience contributing to planning, projects, service improvement, product work, policy or organisational change. Prior design thinking training is not required, and the course introduces each method before participants apply it.

Bring a current strategic issue, service challenge, stakeholder problem or innovation idea where possible. You do not need to prepare a formal business case, but familiarity with the relevant objectives, constraints and stakeholders will help.

The course suits managers and specialists involved in strategy, innovation, transformation, service design, programmes, policy or product development. It is especially useful for people who need to turn ambiguous problems into evidence-based options.

General design thinking courses often focus on product or service ideation. This course applies design methods specifically to strategic planning, including external analysis, strategic themes, portfolio choices, governance, roadmaps and outcome measures.

Participants can use the templates to frame a priority, plan stakeholder research, test assumptions and structure an innovation proposal. The final module produces a 90-day plan that identifies the first decisions, research tasks, experiments and review points.

Each training day runs from 08:30 to 16:30 and provides about 6.5 contact hours. The course progresses from challenge framing and research through insight synthesis, concept development, testing, prioritisation and implementation planning.

Questions about this course?

Ask about dates, fees, group bookings or running it for your team. Our training team replies by email.

Ask on WhatsApp info@skillsetdevelopment.com

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