In fall 2015 and Spring 2016 I've spend about four months in total at the business school of University of Victoria, BC Canada. Below are some of my observations.
Coming from a design school it is interesting to see how a business school looks at the now so popular idea of Design Thinking. Looking at mba-students it is interesting to see where they come from and see how they struggle with things that our design students do almost by default. One of the professors teaches some basic elements on user centered design. He makes use of a scheme of steps students in pairs need to follow and apply on each other’s needs as they were the future users. By this they experienced a very tiny bit of ethnography, inductive reasoning, designing and prototyping just to show what designer’s life is about. Based on this experience the students were asked to reflect and name some of the hardest elements related to design: iterations are difficult, what is the ‘correct’ answer, how to ask the ‘right’ questions, suspending judgment, framing the problem, etc.
On a different level, business schools seem to be interested in the subject of design. They know it is important since it moved into the C-suites of many organizations. But, how to accommodate and assimilate design (thinking) in present MBA-programs is a question they are struggling with. This is typically not accomplished by just a few courses on design, human centeredness, prototyping, creativity etc. I think that MBA’s need to do this in an elegant manner starting from the fundamental base of what design could be. However, do we as design researchers know enough about these fundamental layers of design? I don't think so … we have our blind spots like every scientist. Things that go by unnoticed in our design world might become visible seen from another perspective. And that is exactly why I spent my sabbatical at a business school, this provides contrast, and hopefully the right contrast! Keep you posted.