Design thinking brings together what is desirable from a human point of view with what is technologically feasible and economically viable. It also allows people who aren’t trained as designers to use creative tools to address a vast range of challenges.

Each IDEO U course focuses on a different aspect of the design thinking process, and features video lessons taught by IDEO practitioners, activities to apply what you learn, a toolkit of methods, and additional resources. We've highlighted a few of those resources for you here.

Insights for Innovation

• Going Deeper, Seeing Further
  IDEO's Chief Creative Officer Jane Fulton Suri and IDEO U Dean Suzanne Gibbs Howard explore corporate ethnography in order to uncover more valuable insights.
• Extremes and Mainstreams: Design Toolkit by IDEO.org
  In IDEO.org's Design Toolkit — a resource created to help increase the capacity to design for the global poor — you'll find a set of methods and approaches for learning from extremes.
• Getting Better Data from User Studies by Google Ventures
  16 tips for interviewing. E.g., Ask WWWWWH questions; you’re more likely to elicit more information and better stories by asking open-ended questions that start with who, what, when, where, why, and how.
• The Risks and Rewards of Empathy by Radiolab
  This Radiolab podcast explores the relationship between empathy and objectivity.

From Ideas to Action

• Brainstorming
  Learn how IDEO approaches brainstorming in this short 2-minute session facilitated by IDEO Toylab founder Brendan Boyle.
• Prototypes as (Design) Tools for Behavioral and Organizational Change
  Explore the relationship between prototyping and behavioral change.

• The Future of Prototyping Is Now Live (HBR)
  A new prototyping approach to explore the customer value proposition and market appeal of a concept in the more turbulent and distracting context of the live market, but without full investment in a pilot.

Storytelling for Influence

• Transform the Way You Give Presentations
  At a First Round Capital Design+Startup event, IDEO's Nicole Kahn shared a set of best practices for giving high-impact presentations.
• Your Presentation Needs a Punchline
  Five tips for business storytelling that emerged Annette Ferrara's work training comedy performers for Mortified.

• The Irresistible Power of Storytelling As a Strategic Business Tool
  What does Budweiser have to do with Shakespeare? In this article from Harvard Business Review, learn about Clydesdales, Shakespeare, and the irresistible power of storytelling.

Leading For Creativity

• Change by Design
  The myth of innovation is that brilliant ideas leap fully formed from the minds of geniuses. The reality is that most innovations come from a process of rigorous examination through which great ideas are identified and developed before being realized as new offerings and capabilities.
  
  Tim Brown's Change by Design introduces design thinking, the collaborative process by which the designer’s sensibilities and methods are employed to match people’s needs with what is technically feasible and a viable business strategy.
• 8 Habits of Curious People
  As children, we’re all curious. But for some reason, over time, we sometimes lose that childlike wonder. Maybe it’s because answers are more valued than questions in the modern age. But we’re telling you it’s important to refocus your attention on questions and curiosity. This article from Fast Company agrees.

• What Google Learned From Its Quest to Build the Perfect Team
  What makes for the perfect team? Do they eat more together? Do managers avoid the urge to micromanage? In 2012, Google set out to explore how teams worked. They got together the company’s best statisticians, organizational psychologists, sociologists, and engineers. You might be surprised by what they found out.