In the past few weeks, Managing Director Jeroen Verbrugge and Creative Director Robin Hoenderdos taught 35 ambitious MBA students about Design Thinking. The elective course Design Thinking, developed for the MBA Program of the Rotterdam School of Management (RSM), Erasmus University, gives the students hands-on experience to use for successful innovation in their organizations.

In their everyday practice, Jeroen and Robin collaborate with a wide variety of companies to develop successful business solutions using a Design Thinking approach: human-centered, integrated, learning by doing.

Together with Dirk Deichmann of RSM, they guided a group of students from entirely different backgrounds (Marketing, Medical, Finance, Engineering, etcetera) through a rich variety of Design Thinking tools and techniques. In seven sessions they got familiar with: What is Design Thinking and when to use it? How to use design research to gather meaningful insights? How to use creativity techniques to generate innovative solutions? The students were treated to a mix of theory and practical exercises and coached on case studies from their own experience. Inspiring days with a great vibe!

Robin: “It was a joy to teach these talented people, all eager to learn new ways to innovate their industries. Some of the exercises were real eye-openers for them. We had stimulating discussions! It’s great to have this opportunity to pass on our experience to a group of future leaders. The case studies, in particular, made us realize once more that Design Thinking as an approach has so much potential – beyond just products – in any industry.”