Chapter 6

Mindsets Eat Methods: Human-Centred Design for organisational change in HE

Authors: Phillippa Rose and Sharon Jones 

Abstract

This chapter recounts the authors’ shared experience of introducing Human-Centred Design (HCD) interventions in two different higher education live organisational projects. In each institution the practice of Human-Centred Design was applied in response to real-world design challenges, to build HCD capability and drive wider change and transformation.
The authors contend that HCD offers more than a method for bringing about improved services for users. HCD disrupts thinking and builds capability to surface innovation in group settings through shared problem/solution finding that is relevant and meaningful to both participant-learners, users and wider stakeholders. 
HCD tools are reframed to lay the foundations for mindset disruption and design doing in Higher Education. The extent to which mindset disruption is a crucial occurrence in the application of Human-Centred Design (HCD) is discussed in each context-specific design challenge: preparing, doing and reflecting on individual and organisational learning and outcomes when working through the design challenge. 
Prototype Chapter

Authors

Phillippa Rose

Phillippa is a leading practitioner & educator in human centred design and innovation with 20 years’ experience working across government, the private sector, healthcare & education. She is a design coach with Design Thinkers Academy and an appointed design expert for the UK Design Council. Phillippa regularly speaks and writes about design and enjoys teaching service design at Hyper Island and the University of the Arts London.  

Sharon Jones

Sharon specialises in transformational change and strategic service design using a human-centred approach to reimagine existing services and creating new services for users that are worthy of their investment in time and money. Her professional background is in higher education leadership and management. She is currently working as a Higher Education Consultant helping universities to go transform education and services using design thinking methods.