Business Design Thinking and Doing: Frameworks, Strategies and Techniques for Sustainable Innovation

This textbook aims to guide, instruct and inspire the next generation of innovation designers, managers and leaders. Building upon an evidence-based innovation development process, it introduces, explains and provides visual models and case examples of what Business Design is, how it is applied across sectors and organizations, and its impact on decision-making and value creation.

Students will read and analyze design-led innovation business cases from across the globe, discover multi-disciplinary strategies (from marketing to anthropology) and practice applying a designer’s toolkit to find, frame, and solve business problems in contemporary ways. Throughout the book, students will break down the process of innovation and move from initiation to implementation, engage in iterative feedback loops, and develop concrete plans for personal and professional collaboration and workplace application.

For MBA and senior undergraduate students, this book offers a step-by-step and comprehensive reference guide to creative problem framing and solving - inside and beyond the classroom. It integrates marketing principles and management frameworks, with anthropological and design methods reflecting the diverse and in-demand skills vital to tomorrow’s workforce.

For instructors, this book offers a way to confidently engage learners in the realm of design practices and strategies relevant to business decision-making. The pedagogical framework, along with a comprehensive suite of techniques and templates, offers both novice and experienced teachers a step-by-step reference guide that facilitates skills development in creative problem framing and solving.

Angèle Beausoleil is Assistant Professor of Business Design and Innovation in the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, Canada. She is a ’pracademic’ who teaches design methodologies for business innovation and leads research on organizational innovation process design, navigation and management. A former communications designer, senior strategist and innovation lab executive, she applies her extensive industry experience to crafting high impact student-centred learning experiences. At Rotman, Beausoleil is the Academic Director of the Business Design Initiative, an emerging education and research centre focused on design-led innovation leadership. She also teaches human-centred design, innovative leadership and creativity to executives, MBA and Commerce students.