This design thinking training immerses you in a structured user-centered innovation method. Over two days, you experiment with the five phases of the process: empathy, definition, ideation, prototyping, testing. A useful approach for product, service, internal process and customer experience projects, popularized by IDEO and the Stanford d.school.
Innovating starts by listening to the user, not by piling up ideas
For profiles wanting to introduce design thinking in their projects in French speaking Switzerland, this course offers an accessible and immediately applicable framework. The course relies on a real case worked through over the two days, with prototyping in materials and rapid user tests. You walk away with a clear roadmap to apply the method in your projects.
Module 1: Introduction
Module 2: Innovation
Module 3: Design Thinking
Module 4: Inspiration / Immersion phase
Module 5: Ideation phase – From ideas to actions
Module 6: Prototyping phase
Each part includes practical group-oriented exercises:
Inspiration / Immersion phase
Ideation phase – From ideas to actions
Prototyping phase
Design thinking is no longer reserved for designers. Every industry, public and private, uses it to imagine new offers, internal services, customer paths. This course offers a structured approach for those who want to apply it without distorting it, with real keys to use it in a Swiss professional context.
The first principle of design thinking: starting from the real user, not from product ideas. The course details how to formulate research questions, observe behavior, identify unspoken needs. A discipline that radically changes the framing of innovation projects.
Empathy, definition, ideation, prototyping, testing: each phase has its tools and pitfalls. The course details them in concrete exercises, with templates ready to be reused. You learn to navigate between phases, going back and forth as the project requires.
The best idea on paper is sometimes a poor solution in reality. The course teaches the spirit of rapid prototyping: cardboard, paper, mock-up, scenario test. The goal: learn fast, fail cheap, iterate. A culture often new for technical or process profiles.
Bringing design thinking into a team requires soft skills: framing the problem with stakeholders, defending the approach, animating sessions, converting results. The course gives you concrete keys to position yourself as a facilitator and gain support.
At ITTA centers in Carouge and Le Flon, this course runs over two days in a small group with an innovation expert. Format with a real case worked through and physical prototyping with simple materials.
Project managers, designers, marketing, R&D, HR, transformation functions, founders and any team wanting to introduce or deepen a user centered approach. In Geneva and Lausanne, the course welcomes participants from life sciences, banking, international organizations, public sector and SMEs. No specific prerequisite.
You conduct a light qualitative user research, reformulate a problem from field data, animate an ideation phase then rapid prototyping, test a prototype with real users, and animate a complete workshop internally. You leave with a real worked case and an action plan over the following six weeks.
An HR team rethinking its candidate journey from field interviews. A product committee prototyping three variants in two weeks instead of debating for two months. An operations management simplifying an internal process through user approach. The course works these three cases from brought projects.
This training combines well with creativity (course 14763) for ideation techniques, Lego Serious Play (course 14840) for facilitation, and transversal leadership for transformation project piloting. Many facilitators enroll in one of these courses.
Design thinking has imposed itself as reference approach for user centered innovation, popularized by IDEO and Stanford d.school. Beyond fashion, it is a discipline with solid foundation that distinguishes rigorous use from improvised post-it workshops. This training relies on this foundation to propose a structured initiation applicable from return, without committing to a full certifying cursus.
In life sciences, you work on patient experience redesign. In finance, you work on client digital journey simplification. In public sector, you work on user service modernization. The course adapts exercises to your context with personalized trainer feedback on facilitator posture and tool choice per phase.
Design thinking is a discipline that anchors through practice over the months following the course. ITTA proposes a maintenance approach with internal workshop sessions and complementary courses to extend the practice in the duration.
Do I need a design background?
No. The course welcomes all profiles: project, marketing, HR, IT, operations. The diversity even enriches the workshops.
What is the difference with agile?
Design thinking explores what to build (problem, idea), agile explores how to build it (delivery). The two methods are complementary and often combined.
Is the method applicable to a non innovation project?
Yes. Many use cases concern internal process improvement, redesign of an existing service, simplification of a customer path. The method is universal.
What deliverable do I leave with?
You leave with the slide deck, ready to use templates (empathy map, journey, ideation grids) and a personalized action plan to deploy the approach in your context.
The Geneva and Lausanne professional context features many regulated industries (life sciences, banking, public services) where design thinking must articulate with compliance constraints. The course briefly addresses this articulation: how to maintain user-centered approach within strict regulatory frames, how to engage compliance and legal partners early, how to prototype safely. A practical perspective often missing from generic design thinking initiation.
How to handle stakeholder pushback against the method?
The course addresses this common situation with concrete framing techniques to legitimize the approach to skeptical sponsors and to demonstrate value through small wins before scaling.
Is generative AI addressed?
Yes, the critical use of generative AI in ideation and prototyping is integrated in a dedicated sequence, with attention to biases and limits.
Where do sessions take place?
ITTA has three centers in French speaking Switzerland: in Geneva (Carouge, Route des Jeunes 35), in Lausanne at the Flon (Rue des Cotes de Montbenon 16) and at Lausanne Mon-Repos (Avenue de Mon-repos 24). The training is also available in virtual classroom.
Monday to Friday
8:30 AM to 6:00 PM
Tel. 058 307 73 00
ITTA
Route des jeunes 35
1227 Carouge, Suisse
Monday to Friday, from 8:30 am to 06:00 pm.
