This Advanced Design Studio is a hands-on experiential course that will provide students with a deep-rooted experience analyzing, developing, and expertly presenting a strategic direction using core strategy concepts, resulting in a palette of strategic solutions, initiatives, and tactics to successfully counter those challenges. This course is where the question “What exactly is Design Strategy and where does it provide value?” will come to life.This course introduces the concept of strategy — what it is and what it isn’t — and presents various tools and frameworks that can help you understand the forces shaping a company’s performance (Strategic Analysis and Synthesis); generate strategic options given the competitive environment and the company’s capabilities (Strategy Formulation); validate strategy empirically (Strategy Interpretation) and understand how “design” impacts all of these.Students will learn conceptual tools and practical methodologies for catalyzing organizational transformation and innovation based on a strategic, systemic, and sustainable embrace of change—and considers what role "design" as a discipline, approach, and method plays. Along with the course semester project, students will explore, through readings, discussion, guest lectures, and assignments, the processes and strategies for creating satisfying customer, user, or citizen experiences. Learning will take place through faculty lectures, regular reading assignments, interactive discussions, hands-on prototyping, and potentially games during class and online; student presentations; project critiques; a semester project; and review and reinforcement of critical knowledge and skills. Students will have individual assignments and work in teams on a group project throughout the semester.

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