d.school: DESIGNING EMPATHY BASED ORGANIZATIONS

Tuesday Afternoons
October 22, 29 & November 5, 12, 19
3:15p – 5:15p
d.reserve
1 Unit, GSBGEN 555, Pass/Fail
 

Organizations are often designed for efficiency or optimization of workflow, not for user empathy. How do you design for both?

This pop-up class is geared toward the design (or redesign) for empathy-based organizations.

It will teach early-stage leaders about the three basic levers they have for organizational design/re-design: organizational culture, organizational structure (informal and formal), and organizational routines.

Emphasis will be placed on how to align these levers to facilitate communication and to structure workflows for empathy-based organizations. The class will work with a fast-growing, design-driven startup, which will articulate to students its goals as a business, as well as its challenges in designing the business. Students will interview and observe multiple stakeholders from diverse teams and use design thinking to address uncovered needs and insights with respect to organizational design.

Teaching Team
Chris Flink, IDEO and d.school
Justin Ferrell, d.school
Mike Volpi, GSB and Index Ventures
Sarah Soule, GSB

Questions
justin@dschool.stanford.edu