From Ideas to Action
From Ideas to Action
Go Deeper with Certificate Programs
From Ideas to Action is part of two certificate programs:
What You'll Get
Week 1: Introduction
Week 1: Introduction
Watch a sneak peek
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From Ideas to Action – IDEO Prototyping Example
2 Video Lessons
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From Ideas to Action—Ideate, Prototype, and Iterate Your Way Forward
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Meet Your Instructor—Brendan Boyle
1 Assignment
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Choose Your Challenge: We’ve crafted a series of project challenges for you to choose from, all designed to be the right size and scope for this course. You'll practice your selected challenge during the course and later you can bring your learning into your own work.
1 Discussion
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What do you want to take away from this course?
Week 2: The Art of Ideating
Week 2: The Art of Ideating
5 Video Lessons
- What is Ideation?—Getting comfortable with divergent thinking
- Ideation Methods—Ways to generate ideas
- Brainstorm Rules—Leading your own brainstorm
- Observe Experts Brainstorming—See an IDEO team in action
- Converging After Idea Generation—How to make choices and move forward
1 Assignment
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Ideate: Plan an ideation session, ideate with two to four people, and choose your top ideas. To get the most out of this assignment, we suggest that you involve others. That means you might not complete this in one sitting.
3 Discussions
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Keep a playful mindset and share your thirty circles activity.
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What were some key takeaways from leading a brainstorm? Get visual if you can.
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Reflect on your ideation session. What were some of the challenges you faced? What strategies did you use to overcome these challenges?
Week 3: Rapid Prototyping
Week 3: Rapid Prototyping
5 Video Lessons
- Why Prototype—Make your ideas tangible and shareable
- Types of Prototypes—Anything can be prototyped
- Show Me Your Prototype—Predict what became of early prototypes
- 3 Steps for Prototyping—Build, share, and reflect
- Tinfoil Hats in Action—IDEOers tackle the challenge
1 Assignment
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Prototype: Plan, build, and share your prototype. To get the most out of this assignment, we suggest that you involve two to four people. That means you might not complete this in one sitting.
3 Discussions
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When was a time you failed at something? Allow yourself to be vulnerable—what did you learn from your mistake?
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Share your tinfoil hat prototype and comment on your fellow learner’s prototypes with ideas to build on their designs.
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What about prototyping felt uncomfortable? Which aspects of your prototype were people drawn to?
Week 4: Iterate Your Way Forward
Week 4: Iterate Your Way Forward
3 Video Lessons
- Why We Iterate—Fail early to succeed sooner
- 4 Steps to Iterate—Managing risk and refining your ideas
- School Lunch Activity—A closer look at school lunch and iteration
1 Assignment
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Iterate: This assignment will get you thinking critically about what you've done so far and what you still need to do. You will list questions that will help you iterate, prioritize those questions, ideate again (and again), and plan for the future.
1 Discussion
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How has your plan for future prototyping shifted in surprising ways? What helped you get there?
Week 5: Conclusion
Week 5: Conclusion
1 Video Lesson
- Course Conclusion—Play, build and experiment
1 Assignment
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Final Project: Create a pitch summarizing your key takeaways and highlighting your plans for the future.
2 Discussions
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What does creative confidence mean to you, and how might the skills and perspective from this course get you that much closer to bringing your ideas to life?
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What was your creative confidence before and after the course? Really think about how or why it changed. Did your creative confidence change during the course? How and why? What was the most revealing moment for you?
Meet Your Instructor
Brendan Boyle
Founder of IDEO Play Lab
Brendan has led design teams to invent and license hundreds of consumer products. He consulted with companies about including space for play and innovation, wrote a course for Stanford’s d.School, and co-authored The Klutz Book of Inventions. He holds degrees in design and mechanical engineering.
Brendan Boyle
Founder of IDEO Play Lab
Brendan Boyle believes that play is the key to innovation. This philosophy guides his work as a toy inventor, consulting associate professor at Stanford University’s d.School, and Partner at IDEO. He founded the Toy Lab to explore kid-centered solutions to the challenge of boredom. Under his leadership, the Toy Lab has invented and licensed hundreds of toys and archetypes, including the best-selling app Elmo Calls with Sesame Street.
Brendan also consulted with companies about redesigning their organizational behavior to include space for play, wrote the course From Play to Innovation offered at Stanford’s d.School, and co-authored the award-winning encyclopedia of never-before-seen inventions, The Klutz Book of Inventions. Brendan holds an M.S. in the Joint Program for Design from Stanford University, as well as a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Michigan State University. A much requested speaker, Brendan is known for his interactive talks that stress the joy of innovation.
FAQs
We offer three types of courses: self-paced courses, cohort courses, and certificate programs. Cohort courses run on a set calendar, with fixed start and end dates. Course learning is self-paced within those dates and requires approximately 4-5 hours per week over 5 weeks. Courses consist of videos, activities, assignments, access to course teaching teams, and feedback from a global community of learners. There are also optional 1-hour video Community Conversations, held weekly by the teaching team.
All of our cohort courses are fully online, so you can take them from any time zone, anywhere in the world. With our cohort course experience, while you'll be learning alongside other learners, you'll still have the flexibility to work at the pace that fits your own schedule. There aren't mandatory live components, so you don't have to worry about having to log in at a specific time. At the same time, you'll have access to a teaching team who will answer your questions and give feedback on your assignments throughout the course.
Cohort courses run on a set calendar with fixed start and end dates. You will be learning alongside other learners, but still have the flexibility to work at a pace that fits your own schedule—there aren't mandatory live components. In cohort courses, you'll have access to a teaching team who will answer your questions and give feedback on your assignments throughout the course. Self-paced courses allow you to start, learn, and finish a course completely on your own schedule. Since courses are on-demand, there's no community experience of going through the material with other learners. In on-demand courses, there is no teaching team providing feedback on your submissions.
Upon completing a course, the certificate and digital badge for the course will automatically become available to you on your profile page within 24 hours. There, you can view your certificate, download it, and access your Credly badge. We've partnered with Credly, a leading digital credentialing platform, to provide learners with a digital badge that they can share on social media, email signatures, or add to their LinkedIn profiles or resumes.
IDEO U courses are not currently eligible for university credit.
You'll need a stable internet connection and a device (computer, tablet, or phone) with a modern web browser such as Chrome, Firefox, Safari, or Edge. Some course activities may work better on a computer than a mobile device. You'll also need to be able to view videos, which requires a browser that supports HTML5 video.
Once you enroll in a course, you can access it by logging into your IDEO U account at ideou.com and clicking on your profile icon in the upper right corner. Then click on "My Courses" to see all of your enrolled courses. Click on the course you want to access to go to the course page. Your courses are always available in your account, even after the course end date.
We offer a 10-day satisfaction guarantee for our cohort courses (starting from the course start date). If you're unhappy with the course for any reason, reach out to us within 10 days of the course start date and we'll give you a full refund. To process a refund, contact us.
Yes, we do! We offer group pricing when you purchase 5 or more seats for the same course. Contact us at learner-success@ideou.com to get a quote.
Collaborate with a Global Community
Work with Expert Coaches
Our teaching team has extensive applied industry knowledge. They'll help deepen your understanding and application of the course content by facilitating written discussions, live video moments, and assignment feedback.
Expand Your Network
Join virtual live discussion groups for deeper conversation, reflection, and connection led by teaching team members and available multiple times a week across time zones.
Receive Feedback
Gain tips, techniques, and a downloadable feedback guide; and share and receive feedback on assignments from peers.
Loved by Learners Across the Globe
From Ideas to Action
“In running my own business, I've become selective about what courses I choose. IDEO U has kinda blown me away. It's accessible and tangible, but also challenging. It's pushed me to do my future work differently, but also to *think about myself* in my work differently.”
From Ideas to Action
“IDEO U courses are very effective in teaching design thinking in a way that is digestible and practical. Learning to apply these methods to a real-world challenge really provides a sense of completion, and makes it easier for me to speak to what I've learned.”
From Ideas to Action
“The art of coming up with new ideas and being able to effectively communicate those ideas is incredibly important in my field. As a new product manager, I really struggled to find resources to help me learn effectively, and I was able to put what I learned here into practice right away.”
From Ideas to Action
“These are key skills and concepts that are important to every industry, job function and team structure. Being able to think outside the box, incorporate feedback and apply it in a meaningful way to solve a challenge is such a wonderful skill to have and build off of.”
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Enroll As a Team
The practice and application of design thinking, innovation, and creativity is highly collaborative and team based—which is why we believe that learning is better together. Take a course as a team and develop new skills and mindsets, have deeper discussion during course kickoff and debrief sessions, and build a shared understanding.
