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Introduction
Dunne and Martin (2006) argue that integrative thinking, in its various forms, offers something of value to
business, which can complement established analytical techniques in management. Discussions about co-creation,
design thinking or integrative thinking is most commonly framed as a method to achieve innovation outcomes, and
by extension competitive advantages, through the design of products and services that better meet the needs of the
market. In general, the main idea of integrative thinking is that the ways professional designers solve problems is of
value to firms trying to innovate and to societies trying to make change happen (Kimbell 2011).
Until today, the real ways in which design innovation and integrative thinking can improve organizations
remain widely ignored (Heiman and Burnett 2010, p.1). Therefore, both academics and management practitioners
criticize MBA programs for their lack of relevance to practitioners, the values they impart to students, and their
teaching methods. But what is effective training in a business and organizational context in integrative design?
Conversely, how can designers prepare for immersion into the business world? How can educational programs in
integrative thinking sustainably feed the innovation cycle on an individual and organizational level?
To answer these questions, integrative thinking will be defined and an outline of design education models
will be discussed. Then, this paper proposes a framework which helps to define academic standards in integrative
thinking education and assists students and organizations to identify educational gaps in existing programs.
In the following, we understand the term integrative thinking as an umbrella term for several approaches
and, similar to Buchanan (1992), as a mental shift from a focus on giving form to objects (Kimbell 2009) and
towards a cognitive process to problem (re)framing and (wicked) problem-solving that acknowledges the social
aspects of design work. From a didactical perspective, this shift towards a problem-based learning goes in line with a
constructivist concept of learning.
The following key themes are proposed as constituting the transdisciplinary approach of integrative thinking
in practice and are mentioned in most of the literature:
Human-centered: Places people at the centre of the design process, rather than tackling design challenges from
internal, organizational or technical frames.
Research-based: Qualitative, ethnographic and observational research techniques applied in the aid of
responding to design challenges.
Broader contextual view: Expanding the design question to a wider frame of reference, to examine the system
and context in which design challenges exist.
Collaborative & multi-disciplinary: Exploratory approaches to problem-solving, including co-design methods
specifically designed to encourage participation from a broad array of stakeholders and multi-disciplinary design
teams.
Iterative delivery, critique & prototyping: Use of iterative project management approaches and prototyping,
incorporating rapid feedback loops from end-users, to evaluate and evolve ideas and prospective designs.
calling for a fundamental reorientation of business school curricula. Martin (2006) is not specific about what courses
would be added to the curriculum, and which might be discontinued.
Lawson and Dorst (2009) state that there is not the one best way to train design. They distinguish between
seven levels of design expertise: Naive, Novice, Advanced Beginner, Competent, Expert, Master and
Visionary. In their understanding, these levels of design expertise roughly correspond with seven different ways of
operating in design practice, namely: 1. choice based, 2. convention based, 3. situation based, 4. strategy based, 5.
experience based, 6. creating new schemata and 7. redefinition of the field. These seven approaches each come with
their own practices. (Dorst 2011, p. 526).
This discussion shows that a framework for teaching modes in integrative thinking is necessary to be
developed. It must reflect epistemological and ontological dimensions of thinking, acting and being, and must
overcome a separation of mind from body, in the form of embodied understanding of practice. (Adams et al., p.
590).
Source of Status
Dominant Attitude
Constraints
To Design Shops
Drivers of Innovation
Projects
Defined terms
Collaborative
Iterative
Deductive
Inductive
Abductive
Solving wicked problems
Nothing cant be done
Constraints increase the challenge and
excitement
Tab. 1: Traditional Firm vs. Design Shop (adapted to Dunne and Martin 2006)
Traditional firms are tentatively following trends and innovations. Design shops are on the other hand the
drivers of innovation who give input for traditional firms. According to Dunnes and Martin (2006), design shops
work on projects that have defined terms; whereas a traditional firm sees itself as engaged in an ongoing task. The
traditional firm treats its activities as an ongoing assignment even though it is really a bundle of projects. As a result,
it ends up with big budgets and large staff; whereas, for a design firm, its all about solving problems. The designers
who work on what are called wicked problems (i.e. problems which have no clear solution and have broad impact
over multiple systems) do it through collaborative integrative thinking, using abductive logic, which means the logic
of what might be. Conversely, deductive and inductive logic are the logic of what should be or what is. The attitudes
change to everything is possible and constraints are perceived as challenges and excitements.
Following Kimbells (2011) reasoning for a sustainable anchoring of integrative thinking in organizations
the following four dimensions of an educational framework for integrative thinking can be derived:
1. Impart knowledge of the general idea about creativity and integrative thinking (general theory)
2. Train and experience individuals of how to use integrative thinking in real-world settings (cognition)
For the community, this framework can help to define academic standards in integrative thinking education.
It further helps students and organizations to identify educational gaps in programs and assists program coordinators
to properly define the high-level learning objectives to reach academic standard after completion of the program.
Analyzing Educational Design Approaches
In the past 20 years various academic and training programs to impart integrative thinking approaches have
emerged. These programs show a wide range of forms including ad hoc courses in design/integrative thinking,
classical instructional programs in classrooms, firm-specific executive education programs, full-fledged MBA
programs, approaches of leveraging in-house design resources for educational purposes (Heiman and Burnett 2008)
and in-house design thinking departments to involving firm internal staff in firms projects.
Some programs are based on single courses, instructed by individual professionals, such as the MBA class
for executives in creativity skills at the San Francisco State University. Some courses are co-taught by professors
from design, business, and other departments, such as at the Jacobs University Bremen. Other pedagogy-based
concepts rely on part-time or fulltime master-level programs such as at Stanford's School of Design Thinking.
Others, such as a partnership between various schools in Helsinki or the Potsdams Hasso Plattner Institute of Design
(d.school), bring together students from different universities for cross-disciplinary project work. An innovative
approach is the dual degree program in business administration and design from Illinois Institute of Technology. All
of these programs cover parts of the proposed educational framework in their curriculum but only very few programs
cover all four aspects.
Heiman and Burnett (2008) and Matthews and Wrigley (2011) identify different approaches to impart
integrative thinking.
1. Pedagogy-based solutions outside the firm (Management Development Trainings)
These approaches have in common that students are trained in a university/school setting. Trainers are
normally university faculty with academic and practical experiences in integrative thinking. An adequate
environment (room, technology, furniture, etc.) is offered. These approaches focus on the theory and
cognitive learning components.
2. Solutions in the firm (Human Relation Initiatives)
In-firm trainings take place in firms by practitioners or by well experienced in-house trainers or from
consultancy companies or universities. Advanced in-firm based approaches allow for changing from
traditional work patterns to something closer to a design shop where the focus is on the flow of work life,
style of work, mode of thinking, source of status and dominant attitude. These approaches are mostly
project-based and focus on the cognitive and affective learning components.
For evaluating various integrative thinking programs, they need to be sorted - in a first step - according to
the classification from Heiman and Burnett (2008) and Matthews and Wrigley (2011). In a second step, programs
need to be evaluated according to the criteria proposed in the educational framework. The following matrix helps to
evaluate programs in a structured way (see tab. 2).
Evaluation
criteria
Pedagogical
Concepts
(1) Imparting/
understanding
knowledge about
process and idea
(2) Experience in
practicing
integrative thinking
(3) (Sustainable)
change of individual
mindset
(4) (Sustainable)
change of
organizational mind
set
Education outside
the firm
Subcategorie 1- n
In-firm-based
solutions
Subcategorie 1- n
Tab. 2 Evaluation Matrix for Programs for Integrative Thinking
We suggest to rate the courses and programs by using a three point scale or a color coding scheme: +1 fully
achieved (green); 0 achieved to a certain degree (yellow), and -1 not achieved (red) for each criteria.
1. Stand-alone courses in universities: All approaches aim at imparting relevant design thinking skills to
high-school, graduate and undergraduate students as well as to managers (Mellesa et al. 2012). These courses offer
regularly a workload of three to 20 hours by providing three hour introductory trainings session to three day
workshops.
2. Firm specific executive education programs: These programs offer custom-tailored classes to particular
firms to fit their needs and to train their executives in integrative design/design thinking. Groups normally work on
projects after a short theoretical introduction. Members in one cohort are quite homogenous as they consist regularly
of managers from one firm. These courses normally comprise of a three day to a one week workshop.
3. Master programs (MBA) in integrative thinking: These programs cover either 30 (part-time) to 60 (fulltime) credit points with a workload of around 900 (part-time) to 1800 (full-time) hours. Students in these programs
work on several projects, starting with small (1-3 days) projects up to three month projects. Students work in a team
of people from various heterogeneous disciplines.
Inside-of-firm program types include:
1. Adhoc approaches to integrative thinking: Institutes such as the D-Forge Lab at the Jacobs University in
Bremen or the D-School at the Hasso Plattner Institute in Potsdam and many consultancy companies offer one to
three day seminars for firms. This approach can be described as small firm-specific (customer-tailored) executive
trainings.
2. Leveraging in-house design resources: In-house resources such as engineers and designers capacities
within an organization are used to impart and spread integrative thinking in the organization. Companies noted for
their successful innovations often have designers, or design-trained managers, in senior positions.
3. In-house design thinking departments: Trained design thinkers are heading a specific project-based or
staff function. For the development of in-house design thinking departments it needs the design manager and the
design leader. Design managers optimize resources to implement programs in the most effective and profitable way.
Evaluation criteria
(1) Imparting/
understanding
knowledge about
process and idea
(2) Experience in
practicing
integrative
thinking
(3) (Sustainable)
change of
individual mindset
(4) (Sustainable)
change of
organizational mind
set
-1
-1
Firm-specific
executive education
programs
-1
MBA Program in
Integrative
Thinking
-1
Ad hoc approaches
to design thinking
-1
-1
-1
In-house design
Pedagogical
Concepts
Outside the firm
In-firm-based solutions
thinking
departments
Tab. 3 Example of evaluation of pedagogical concepts.
Without going into greater details, former studies show that different pedagogical concepts for integrative
thinking have different outcomes in respect to the proposed criteria. Table 3 shows a very high-level exemplified
evaluation of the achievements resulting from different program types. Specific programs can vary from this pattern.
A generalization should be treated with caution. Individual programs need to be evaluated on a one-to-one basis.
This framework supports the conclusion from Glocken (2009) that a holistic understanding of design
leadership is needed in order to maximize efficiency and effect and to understanding the centrality of the
customer is essential to the fuller conceptualization and the operationalization of service design (p. 34). Programs
which combine executive education with a PBL-oriented approach with a profound theoretical basis are rare but
promise to create a powerful and effective tool for learning design thinking in an outside-the-firm classroom setting.
Concluding Summary
This paper proposes a framework to classify educational integrative thinking programs. It allows the
evaluation of existing programs on a rather high level. Through understanding the higher level outcomes required by
both students and businesses, this framework can begin to inform decision making around integrative education
options and appropriateness of setting. It can also serve as a check list for integrative design programs on closing
gaps between outside and inside firm program types especially in the areas of individual and organizational mindset
change.
However, instructors, students and teaching institutions may be interest in obtaining insight into more
detailed questions such as raised by Owen (2007): How long should a program be? Who are the best candidates for a
program? What levels of experience and schooling should be required for entrance to a program? What is the ideal
mix of design tools and thinking from other fields to best prepare students for their working environment? What mix
of academic and internship experience should be planned? To be able to answer these questions, the proposed
framework must be further developed.
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