In the last 20 years, Design has been considered a strategic mean able to create innovation leaderships, unique positioning, competitive advantages of worldwide leading global companies. In this course, design is approached: i) with a strategic worth (not just technical), where it informs the organization strategic path and the value creation dynamics; ii) related to a product-service system (and not only tangible offering), where the integration between tangible and intangible offering contribute to create value and differentiation; iii) as a set of cognitive and visualization tools useful to conceive and visualize business model innovations. More specifically, the course aims at enabling student to:

• Understand the “soft side” of competition and organizations competitive advantages;
• Understand the semiotic soul of products and brands;
• Open the perspective to increase the range of innovation opportunities through design;
• Employ creativity tools to shape innovation trajectories and identify innovative scenarios;
• Understand how to (when and why) apply user analysis qualitative tools;
• Use storytelling and visualization techniques to champion the innovation within and without (with stakeholders) the organization boundaries.

The course is entirely based on developing an innovative project, with a brief provided by a company. Classes are based on team-based and individually-based interactions with the instructor and his assistants.