Navigating Innovation in Times of Transformation
Gain practical skills and a double-certificate from ESMT Berlin and HPI d-school
Do you want to drive continuous innovation for your organization while staying up to speed with constant change?
This interactive, hands-on workshop can show you the practical, tangible steps to making a lasting impact – while also granting you a double certificate from ESMT Berlin and HPI d-school.
A collaboration between ESMT Berlin and HPI d-school (Hasso Plattner Institute), Navigating Innovation in Times of Transformation teaches participants to employ change leadership strategies, while also equipping them with a core design thinking mindset that powers confident decision-making.
Participants explore practical ways to combine transformation, innovation, and leadership, helping them advance user-centered growth in fast-changing and uncertain environments.
- Learn to develop innovative, customer-centric solutions through real-world leadership challenges, team-based prototyping, and user interviews.
- Gain practical experience applying design thinking along the full value chain – from empathy and ideation to testing, refining, and pitching.
- Discover change leadership strategies that can help build alliances, overcome organizational resistance, and create internal momentum for new initiatives.
- Understand how to foster a culture of innovation and effectively communicate change stories to stakeholders.
- Make more confident decisions during times of upheaval by strengthening your entrepreneurial toolkit.
Participants benefit from the unique expertise of both institutions: the HPI d-school brings deep knowledge in design thinking and innovation culture, while ESMT Berlin provides actionable insights on change management and organizational transformation.
The program culminates in a double certificate from both ESMT Berlin and HPI d-school.
Please note, this program was formerly titled Design Thinking & Corporate Change.
Key facts
Your profile
- You are a manager, team lead, or executive working to advance customer-centric transformation in your organization.
- You are an innovation leader or changemaker looking for fresh approaches to organizational development.
- You aim to improve and support collaboration and innovation across departments.
Program highlights
- Explore the principles of design thinking and understand the major steps involved when applying it practically.
- Learn how to consider the needs of internal and external customers, gain empathy for them, conduct interviews, apply creativity methods, and prototype and test solutions.
- Enhance your ability to trigger user-centered innovation in the managerial practices of your organization.
- Receive practical, action-oriented advice on how to establish networks of like-minded people while refining your communication skills to convince your peers across hierarchies.
- Discover how to balance open-ended exploration with the structure needed to move ideas toward implementation.
- Learn change leadership and how to drive innovation by recognizing and managing organizational hurdles such as inertia, competing priorities, or resistance.
Topics
- The changing landscape of innovation: customer centricity as the driving factor.
- Applying design thinking methods to a real challenge from the business world.
- Conducting interviews with customers and stakeholders.
- Tools for implementing organizational change: discussion of potential hurdles and pitfalls.
- Communication techniques and best practices of stakeholder management.
- Communicating change stories and dealing with resistance.
- Gaining insights from users of products and services.
- Understanding how to foster an innovation culture and make impactful leadership decisions in uncertain environments.
Downloads
Navigating Innovation in Times of Transformation
Next dates
Program structure
ESMT Berlin
- Transition from innovation to adaptive leadership along a real-world case
- Tools and strategies for implementing new practices in complex organizations
- Stakeholder engagement
- Overcoming internal resistance
- Introduction to the design thinking mindset and methodology
- Working in interdisciplinary teams on a real-life corporate challenge
- Reflection on own cases
- Evening networking session with happy hour
HPI d-school, Potsdam
- Conducting interviews with users to explore their needs and perspectives
- Developing initial ideas
- Developing early-stage prototypes
- Making better and quicker decisions in uncertain environments
- Fostering innovation culture in established firms
- Evening networking session with happy hour
HPI d-school, Potsdam
- Refining and testing prototypes with users
- Overcoming inner barriers for change
- Embracing ambidexterity
- Action planning
Our partner: HPI d-school
The HPI d-school at the Hasso Plattner Institute in Potsdam is one of Europe’s leading innovation hubs. Inspired by Stanford's d.school, it is dedicated to advancing human-centered problem-solving through cutting-edge research, education, and training. Known for its interdisciplinary approach, the HPI d-school empowers professionals, students, and researchers to tackle complex challenges and shape the future at the intersection of human needs and technology.
Bianca Schmitz
Ulf Schäfer
Andrea Rhinow
What participants are saying about the workshop
I highly recommend this course to enhance your skills in design thinking and change management.
Attending the Design Thinking and Change Management course at ESMT was an incredibly inspiring experience. The practical approach, where we immediately applied the knowledge with a real company, made the learning process engaging and memorable. Ulf Schäfer's presentation on change management was a highlight, inspiring me to implement the practices in my job and even make a career change. I enrolled in the Executive MBA program at ESMT and relocated to Berlin, a life-changing decision.
The HPI Academy, together with ESMT, manages to set up a unique training concept through the combination of professionalism and close cooperation with the corporate world.
The smooth organization and innovative implementation of the workshops is noticeable and so is the involvement of important collaboration partners. In my opinion, this kind of involvement is essential as it gives workshop participants the opportunity to not only develop their skills within a “vacuum”, but to build them up and actually test them using practical use cases.
Earn Your Postgraduate Diploma
This program can be taken as part of the Postgraduate Diploma in Management curriculum.
Looking for more information, a consultation, or support with your application?
- Phone: +49 30 21231 1490
- Email: bd@esmt.org
