International Master in Strategic Design for Innovation and Transformation

The International Master is developed jointly by POLIMI GSoM and POLI.design.

“A new breed of design leader can help companies unleash their business potentials by meaningful innovations.”

Envisioning meaningful innovations, leading human-centric transformations, and engaging employees through responsible purposes represent the ultimate goals to address.

The cultural project at the basis of the International Master in Strategic Design for Innovation and Transformation (SDIT), developed jointly by MIP Politecnico di Milano and POLI.design, aims to prepare designers and managers for navigating and driving the actual complex challenges and for intercepting the growing demand – by big corporations and enterprises that operate in business management consulting – of professional profiles capable of combining design attitude and abilities with classical analytical-managerial skills. This entails planning, coordinating, and implementing consistent design operations and processes to meet the design direction, the strategic framework, and performance targets.

The Master SDIT aims to prepare designers and managers for navigating and driving the current complex challenges, which means being able to:

• imagine meaningful innovations able to improve human well-being and to impact society;

• inspire colleagues and stakeholders to pursue strategic transformation;

• lead design projects activating virtuous employee engagement and breaking the culture of silos among different business areas;

• exploit the opportunities provided by digital technologies through the interplay between artificial intelligence and human intuition as well as big and thick data;

• stimulate entrepreneurial mindsets to activate and promote agile projects;

• organize the creative process to favor the integration with operations.

The International Master in Strategic Design for Innovation and Transformation (SDIT) is a 1-year programme. The academic structure is divided into 4 main blocks and ends with a final Project Work.

This programme includes a combination of different initiatives: face-to-face experiences such as company visits to meet innovation and design managers, a cultural tour to witness the Italian evolution of design, and a visit to professional Labs of modern masters of design. Furthermore, during the Master course, candidates will participate in two Digital boot camps: remote workshop sessions promoted by leading design-driven companies.

A typical week for our students is structured as follows:

• WEEK type A: Video Clips available on the Digital Platform (max 16) + One Live session (2.5 hours)

OR

• WEEK type B: Two live sessions (2.5 hours each)

Each course will last for two weeks and can combine the two structures (A+B) or include two live sessions for each week (B+B).

Live sessions are held online on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 7.00 until 9.30 PM CET.

The teaching project is divided into 4 main blocks:

Innovation and Design

The “Innovation and Design” block interprets strategy-making as a process strongly affected by the development of innovation and the role that design plays in the organisation. Mainly, it provides an overview of strategy-making concepts related to a specific industrial setting where creativity management and design represent key assets. On the other hand, the block treats Corporate Entrepreneurship and Organisation Transformation as fundamental components to sustain continuous renewal and align the organisational posture to the strategic purposes.

Leadership and Engagement

The “Leadership and Engagement” block provides an overview of theories and actional behaviours to illustrate leadership to create a culture of innovation, inspiring the team and stakeholders and activating a virtuous process of engagement across organisational silos. This part of the Master presents the different nature of Leadership: effectively developing capabilities to manage change and innovation in organisational contexts. The block connects Decision-Making approaches with an in-depth review of the constructs of Organisational Behaviour and Business Process Management. Furthermore, the conclusive part presents the overlapping area between Design culture and Organisational culture.

Data and Creativity

The “Data and Creativity” block is hinged on the central theme of data. Over the last twenty years, the subject of data has profoundly changed how companies create strategies, generate innovations, and interface with users. While Big Data provides immediate market feedback on consumer preferences and trends, creativity often works with other data: it analyses the dataset differently from the way in which data mining systems can. Creativity feeds on ‘weak’ data, peripheral data that is not collected globally, but derived from a specific context of use. After a general overview of the role of Big Data in innovation strategies and processes, the block will focus on how to conduct User research and gather qualitative data to generate valuable insights. Thus, the content will present how to transform services leveraging multiple data sources and how data can be grasped

Design Ops and Transformation

The “Design Ops and Transformation” block aims to break down the myth of the designer and his chaotic work outside the organisational rules and business procedures. After an overview of open innovation and collaborative mechanisms logic, the block focuses on modern creative project management methodologies: agile methodologies, design methods and the organisational rules underlying UX/UI projects. The modules in this block articulate advanced didactic methods that see the cohabitation of the discussion of case studies, the development of group projects, and the introduction of some software related to the management of DesignOps.

During the second half of the Master, participants are required to carry out a Project Work, which will be discussed at the end of the course. The objective of the Project Work is to develop a consultancy project with the support of the MIP Politecnico di Milano Faculty.

Working closely with Politecnico di Milano professors and researchers, participants in the programme will have the opportunity to apply the tools and methods learned during the SDIT Master to tackle issues of interest to companies and build relationships of great value to their professional careers.

The professional figure, once achieved, may occupy positions and cover roles traditionally linked to the development of product-service innovation, such as Design Manager, Design Strategist, Innovation Manager, Product or Brand Manager. Alternatively, given the increasing recourse to design by business management companies, the figure created may be employed as Design Consultant or Design Specialist in medium and large design agencies and design consultancies.

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