Design Thinking micro-credential

What you will learn

Gain contemporary skills and knowledge for your job now.

Design thinking is an approach to problem-solving that has benefits far beyond design, creative and innovation disciplines.

This micro-credential demonstrates how to harness design process to approach 'wicked' problems across any industry.

It's ideal for professionals from a wide range of sectors seeking enhanced creative-thinking skills to tackle problems in new and innovative ways.

Explore design process in a studio-style practice

Adopting a studio-style approach, you'll explore key steps of the design process - research, ideate, curate, prototype, make, reflect, and reiterate - and consider how this can apply to problems within your own professional context.

Experiment with new ways to generate ideas

Gain new perspectives and build confidence in your ability to ideate and develop concepts and ideas. Be guided to freely experiment, collaborate document and present your exploration process in a reflective journal.

Use design thinking to enhance your collaborative skills

Explore how you can use design-thinking methods to collaborate across a range of disciplines and with peers within your own industry.

Approach complex problems in your industry in new ways

Applying your knowledge, you'll define a complex or 'wicked' problem - related to an object, space or system - within your own industry or organisation. Using design-thinking methods to create an artefact that responds to the problem, and be guided to present it in a visually compelling way.

This micro-credential is ideal for professionals from a wide range of sectors, including health, education, aged care, sustainability, and diversity & inclusion.

It's valuable for anyone seeking to exercise and enhance creative thinking skills, to be able to approach complex problems in fresh ways.

There are no eligibility requirements.

The methods taught in this course are applicable across a wide range of industries and professions. Whether you work in health, education, sustainability or elsewhere, you'll gain the practical skills needed to approach complex industry problems and reimagine objects, tools, protocols or systems.

By the end of this course, you'll have a deep understanding of design thinking. You'll be able to:

• Use design-thinking methods to collaborate across a range of disciplines to explore problems and create object, spatial or system transformations, embracing unpredictability and change
• Critically reflect on application of design-thinking processes that create tangible solutions
• Present compelling arguments and solutions using appropriate design nomenclature and visual communications.

This course runs for six weeks.

Your total time commitment is approximately 42 hours, which includes:

• 11 hours guided learning
• 11 self-directed learning
• 20 hours assessment tasks.

Assessment:

• Design presentation (70%)
• e-portfolio and reflective practice (30%).

Once you've completed this course, you will be awarded your Design Thinking Melbourne MicroCert. This digital certificate will warrant the achievement of knowledge, skills and capabilities outlined in the learning outcomes. It may also include artefacts (such as videos and written material) related to both experiential and work-integrated learning, including translatable assessment that is practical to your professional life. You can also share your Melbourne MicroCert digitally and via social media by adding it to your platforms, such as LinkedIn. See example certificate.

This micro-credential is delivered fully online, but designed to emulate a studio-style practice.

You'll be guided to take part in making or 'builds' in your own space - which could be a small office or fully-equipped studio - to put your theoretical understanding of design thinking into practice.

You'll take part in self-directed learning activities including asynchronous webinars, readings, and weekly design tasks. You'll also engage with your peers on digital discussion boards, and receive expert guidance and feedback from our course facilitators and industry experts.

There is no set expiry date.