Design thinking comes easily to Paul Cubbon. The marketing guru of the MBA core, Cubbon has always focused on consumer behavior.
“Often the more innovative research is trying to uncover useful things that you didn’t even think to ask about,” he said. Embedding design thinking into the core gives him and the other professors a common vocabulary to teach students just how powerful observations can be when searching for human, or consumer, centered solutions.
“A design studio gets people into toolkits and practical ‘how-tos,’ rather than a read the book then go do it,” he said.
This shift to design thinking is an extension of the core program, Cubbon said. It provides a focus and a how-to guide for students who often struggle with qualitative problems.
“This is a bit like a stain glass window,” Cubbon said. “You change the light a bit and things come into focus that maybe were a little out of focus before.”
The new focus on human-centered design will help Sauder’s students innovate and implement better solutions once they enter the workforce.
“Clients are individuals who have choices about where they get products or services from,” Cubbon said. “If I want them to choose me, I need to understand how to better serve them and to design certain processes.”
Design thinking allows students to solve these problems across disciplines and lets the faculty go “a step beyond” what they were teaching beforehand.
“It’s easy for students to deal with a spreadsheet. It’s a lot harder for them to deal with analysis in qualitative areas.”