Design Thinking for Advancement Professionals-Recording

Video Transcription

Video Summary

Rafe, an assistant professor at Dartmouth's Thayer School of Engineering, introduces design thinking as a human-centered approach valuable in complex, ambiguous challenges, especially in education and systems change. He explains design thinking’s roots across various design disciplines and highlights a generalizable process: empathizing with users, defining success, brainstorming broadly, prototyping, and iterative testing. Rafe emphasizes two key mindsets: need-finding—understanding stakeholders’ functional, social-emotional needs and values—and lateral thinking—generating diverse, novel ideas while deferring judgment to encourage creativity. Through engaging examples like questioning the true need for a bridge, addressing elevator wait times via mirrors, and respecting cultural values in assisting the Mono people, he illustrates how design thinking focuses on real human needs and values rather than assumptions. He outlines practical activities, including writing need statements and collaborative brainstorming techniques, to cultivate these mindsets. Rafe stresses the importance of separating idea generation from evaluation and fostering an environment that encourages quantity, wild ideas, and playful collaboration. Addressing a participant’s concern about influencing without authority, he suggests leveraging curiosity and skillful questioning to lead change. The session concludes with reflections on applying these principles in participants’ work, highlighting design thinking as a learnable, powerful tool for meaningful innovation.

Keywords

design thinking

human-centered design

need-finding

lateral thinking

prototyping

iterative testing

innovation