Design Thinking

2026/2027

Academic Year

ENG

Instruction in English

3

ECTS credits

Delivered at:

School of Marketing and Entrepreneurship

Course type:

Compulsory course

When:

4 year, 1 module

Course Syllabus

Abstract

The module presents design thinking as a structured, human-centred approach in business that develops the students’ creative mindset. Design thinking employs methodologies of design to address a vast range of challenges in business and society. The module engages creative problem-solving and can be applied in learning as well as other activities and professions. The emphasis is on learning about ideas in a meaningful and motivating way, developing insights on contemporary business problems and generating potential solutions that are desirable from human perspective, technologically feasible and economically viable. The module aims to encourage students’ transferable skills, creative confidence and collaboration.

Learning Objectives

• To develop a working understanding of human-centered design thinking as a methodology for product, service, and process innovation, and of the conditions under which it is appropriate.
• To equip students with analytical and design tools — 360° empathy maps, personas, customer journey maps — for examining user needs and cultural variation in behavior.
• To develop systematic problem-solving capability through divergent and convergent techniques and through value-innovation frameworks (value curves, ERRC).
• To build practical prototyping, testing, and pitching skills that allow students to advocate for a design decision with evidence and customer need awareness.

Expected Learning Outcomes

• Explain the principles, stages, and applications of human-centered design thinking, and identify the types of business problems for which it is suited.
• Plan and conduct qualitative user research, e.g., observation, auto-ethnography, express and in-depth interviews, and structure the resulting evidence.
• Synthesize research data into 360° empathy maps, culturally informed personas, and customer journey maps, and identify friction points from them.
• Frame a design problem as a written design brief, and generate, structure, and select ideas using divergent and convergent techniques.
• Frame a design problem as a written design brief, and generate, structure, and select ideas using divergent and convergent techniques
• Apply value-innovation tools (value curves, ERRC) to differentiate a proposed solution from existing alternatives, taking into account the cultural and institutional constraints that affect its adoption.
• Build and test low-fidelity prototypes and storyboards, and present design decisions persuasively to a non-specialist audience.

Course Contents

• Introduction to design thinking and human-centred innovation
• Fieldwork, deep empathy and 360° empathy mapping across diverse markets
• User synthesis: culturally informed personas and customer journey mapping
• Problem definition and formulating the strategic design brief
• Ideation techniques: mind mapping, brainstorming and forced connections
• Value innovation strategy: value curves and the ERRC framework
• Prototyping, storyboarding, rollout planning and strategic pitching

Assessment Elements

• Design Challenge and Poster Presentation Defense
  This challenge positions students as designers and the assessment itself as the product. Working in teams of 3–4, students apply the five stages of design thinking to conceptualize, prototype, and pitch a new, culturally relevant assessment method for the Entrepreneurship course. The user group is the program's culturally diverse student body, which each team must research directly rather than assume. In a context where formal education often favors structured, hierarchical formats, the challenge asks students to exercise safe autonomy, articulate their learning needs, and connect academic theory to practice. The proposed method must be AI-supported and must be grounded in the principles of andragogy and project-based learning, and the team must show how institutional constraints — regulation, workload, fairness, resources — shape what is actually implementable. Results are presented as an A3 poster and a 10-minute team defense to a commission, followed by questions. Adoption of the winning prototype: the proposal judged strongest by the commission is recommended to the program committee for inclusion in a subsequent edition of the course program. It does not alter the assessment of the cohort that produced it, since the assessment architecture of a running course is fixed by the approved ПУД and published in advance.
• In-Class Activities and Attendance
  Students are expected to attend both lectures and seminars, participate in discussions, complete the in-class templates and formats, develop strategies, take part in role-plays, solve mini-cases, and present. Completed templates are collected in an individual design log, which is submitted at the end of the course. The teacher will monitor attendance, and being more than 10 minutes late will count as absent. Class participation will also be monitored and scored.
• Seen Case-Based Exam
  An individual, scenario-based written examination on a case is distributed to students seven days in advance. The case describes a venture whose product performed well in its home market but failed upon entry into a culturally different market. Students have exactly 120 minutes to complete all three sections; time management is part of the assessment. • Section 1 — Diagnosis (30 minutes): analyze why the product failed, separating user-level and cultural causes from symptoms. • Section 2 — Divergent thinking (30 minutes): explore multiple redesign and pivot strategies, generating a wide range of possibilities without immediate judgment. • Section 3 — Convergent thinking (60 minutes): synthesize the evidence, apply the course frameworks, and make a decisive, well-substantiated recommendation.

Interim Assessment

• 2026/2027 1st module
  0.2 * Seen Case-Based Exam + 0.5 * Design Challenge and Poster Presentation Defense + 0.3 * In-Class Activities and Attendance

Bibliography

Recommended Core Bibliography

• Chesbrough, H., Lettl, C., & Ritter, T. (2018). Value Creation and Value Capture in Open Innovation. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 35(6), 930–938. https://doi.org/10.1111/jpim.12471
• Creative Management. Chrestomathy: Case-study of managerial situations in English : учебное пособие / А. А. Степанов, В. И. Салыгин, М. В. Рыбин [и др.] ; под общ. ред. А. А. Степанова. — Москва : КноРус, 2026. — 189 с. — ISBN 978-5-406-15709-1. — URL: https://book.ru/book/960774 (дата обращения: 09.12.2025). — Текст : электронный.
• Design thinking for business growth : how to design and scale business models and business ecosystems, Lewrick, M., 2022
• Jack J. Phillips, Frank Q. Fu, Patricia Pulliam Phillips, & Hong Yi. (2021). ROI in Marketing: The Design Thinking Approach to Measure, Prove, and Improve the Value of Marketing. McGraw-Hill Education.
• Perez-Breva, L. (2016). Innovating : A Doer’s Manifesto for Starting From a Hunch, Prototyping Problems, Scaling Up, and Learning to Be Productively Wrong. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=1470564
• Roberge, J., & Kumar, V. (2021). Vijay Kumar, 101 Design Methods: A Structured Approach for Driving Innovation in Your Organization, Wiley, 2013.
• Ляндау, Ю. В., BUSINESS ARCHITECT: Business management systems modelling : монография / Ю. В. Ляндау, К. А. Черницова, М. В. Холод, М. Г. Умнова. — Москва : Русайнс, 2016. — 146 с. — ISBN 978-5-4365-1122-1. — URL: https://book.ru/book/921196 (дата обращения: 09.12.2025). — Текст : электронный.
• Максимов, М. И., The best practices of modern administration and management in cases and essays. Volume 3 : учебное пособие / М. И. Максимов. — Москва : Русайнс, 2024. — 119 с. — ISBN 978-5-466-06996-9. — URL: https://book.ru/book/954222 (дата обращения: 09.12.2025). — Текст : электронный.
• Управляя будущим. Дизайн-мышление: как думать иначе / Managing the Future. Design Thinking: how to think differently: сборник докладов XV международной студенческой научно-практической конференции : сборник научных трудов. — Москва : Дело РАНХиГС, 2022. — 238 с. — ISBN 978-5-85006-470-9. — Текст : электронный // Лань : электронно-библиотечная система. — URL: https://e.lanbook.com/book/397256 (дата обращения: 00.00.0000). — Режим доступа: для авториз. пользователей.

Recommended Additional Bibliography

• Analyzing social settings : a guide to qualitative observation and analysis, Lofland, J., 2006
• Cohen, A. M. (2015). Prototype to Product : A Practical Guide for Getting to Market: Vol. First edition. O’Reilly Media.
• Daniel Marco-Stefan Kleber. (2018). Design Thinking for Creating an Increased Value Proposition to Improve Customer Experience. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsbas&AN=edsbas.B1673540
• David J. Bland, & Alexander Osterwalder. (2020). Testing Business Ideas : A Field Guide for Rapid Experimentation. Wiley.
• Dekker, T. den. (2019). Design Thinking. Groningen: Noordhoff Uitgevers BV. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=2109232
• Design thinking for tech : solving problems and realizing value in 24 hours, Anderson, G. W., 2023
• Design thinking for the greated good : innovation in the social sector, Liedtka, J., 2017
• Dodgson, M. The Oxford Handbook of Innovation Management [Электронный ресурс] / M.Dodgson, D.M.Gann, N.Phillips, eds.; БД oxfordhandbooks. - Oxford University Press; 2014– Режим доступа: http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199694945.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199694945 – Загл. с экрана.
• Jurafsky, D., Chahuneau, V., Routledge, B. R., & Smith, N. A. (2014). Narrative framing of consumer sentiment in online restaurant reviews. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsbas&AN=edsbas.18543C32
• Managing the demand-supply chain : value innovations for customer satisfaction, Hoover, W. E., 2001
• Marinova, S., Larimo, J., & Nummela, N. (2016). Value Creation in International Business : Volume 1: An MNC Perspective. [Place of publication not identified]: Palgrave Macmillan. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=1288243
• Pressman, A. (2019). Design Thinking : A Guide to Creative Problem Solving for Everyone. New York: Routledge. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=1923524
• Segmentation and lifetime value models : Using SAS, Malthouse, E. C., 2013
• Seidman, I. (2019). Interviewing As Qualitative Research : A Guide for Researchers in Education and the Social Sciences (Vol. Fifth edition). New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=2168597
• Warfel, T. (2011). Prototyping : A Practitioner’s Guide. Sebastopol: Rosenfeld Media. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=516053

Authors

• Nazarov Mikhail Gennadevich
• Belokhlebova Natalia Aleksandrovna
• Akhmed Vakas