Design Thinking Certification

Spring2 Innovation has developed a Design Thinking Certification Program intended to help leaders and employers determine who is truly qualified to be a Design Thinking Professional. This industry leading certification program serves as a way for professionals to showcase their design thinking knowledge and provides employers with the peace of mind that a certain level of design thinking knowledge and experience has been achieved.

The Spring2 Design Thinking Certification Program is an immersive 5-day course. Throughout the course you will learn the Five Stages of Design Thinking: Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, and Test. By the end of the course, you will know how to apply design thinking tools and methodologies to modernize programs, policies, and services, while increasing resilience and adapting to change – from a human-centered perspective.

Program Overview

The course will take place over an immersive 5 days, allowing you to apply Design Thinking methodology to your work and get feedback from seasoned professionals.

Following the successful completion of the course you will be required to showcase your work to prove you have applied all five of the Design Thinking phases within your work environment. To guide and track learning, a workbook will be used throughout the program. Once the workbook, all modules, and submission of the application of knowledge are complete, participants will be evaluated and then awarded the Spring2 Innovation Professional Design Thinker Certification.

Why Design Thinking?

In today’s fast paced world organizations, individuals and governments are becoming increasingly challenged with solving complex problems in a collaborative way, working with their end-users, clients and citizens. Whether you are tackling specific project related challenges, designing new policies, developing new products, or building a solution to encourage ongoing innovation within your organization, Design Thinking can guide you to the optimal outcome.

Design Thinking will awaken your design mindset and teach you how to solve problems from a solution focused and action oriented perspective, versus the traditional problem focused approach most people (and organizations) use. This critical skill set is applicable to all industries and all levels of government.

Through this certification program you will:

• LEARN how to solve complex problems using a collaborative and user-centric approach.
• APPLY the 5 phases of Design Thinking to real world problems.
• BUILD your Design Thinking Toolkit and awaken your capacity to innovate.
• EXPLORE the principles and methodologies of Design Thinking.
• GROW YOUR NETWORK and build new relationships with like-minded Design Thinkers with whom you share learning and progress throughout the course.

Throughout the course you will apply your Design Thinking training through interactive classroom activities and within your own workplace, under guidance of professional Design Thinkers. The course was designed to ensure the momentum and learning continues during the course and beyond!

Session Breakdown:

SESSION 1: Design Thinking 101

This session will set the stage for the certification program and will cover the basics of Design Thinking. You will learn tools for empathizing with the end-client, allowing you to understand stakeholders’ needs, mindsets, attitudes and challenges, which will in turn guide you to their unmet and unarticulated needs.

SESSION 2: Getting to the Root of the Problem

Session 2 is all about getting to the root of the problem. You will learn how to apply Journey Mapping (JM) to identify the real problem to be solved. JM uncovers the root issue by analyzing the clients’ end to end experience using the organization’s service or product.

SESSION 3: Define the Problem & Generate Solutions

By looking through a multi-stakeholder lens, Session 3 will teach you how to define the problem by leveraging facilitated brainstorming techniques to ideate possible solutions.

SESSION 4: Making it Real: Prototyping Real World Solutions

Contrary to popular belief, Session 4 isn’t solely about checking if the solution is right. It is about asking good questions to uncover biases/assumptions, create momentum for an action plan going forward and to prepare an you, or your organization, for how the solution will look, feel and work in practice.

SESSION 5: Test, Test, Test!

Session 5 is the testing phase and this is when you will engage end users to test the prototype and the assumptions made during Session 4, the Prototyping Phase. It is at this stage that ideas can be regenerated, or hybrid prototypes can be co-created if necessary, to address the real problem.

This course will be taking place virtually on September 23-25, 2025 and November 4-5, 2025 with with 2 sessions per day; one in the morning and one in the afternoon. We use a virtual platform that you are able to access from your home network. You do not need your corporate VPN to access the training.

Schedule:

• September 23rd: 9am-11am & 1pm-3pm EST
• September 24th: 9am-11am & 1pm-3pm EST
• September 25th: 9am-11am & 1pm-3pm EST
• November 4th: 9am-11am & 1pm-3pm EST
• November 5th: 9am-11am & 1pm-3pm EST

You will receive separate invitations to all sessions listed above.

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Explore 'Future Proofing By Design: Creating Better Services and Teams in the Public Sector Through Design Thinking' by Nilufer Erdebil—your go-to guide for a head start before the advanced course.

Get your copy now!
Available in 📖 Paperback &📱 E-book formats.

Check out Nilufer Erdebil's inspiring TEDxOttawa talk to dive into the world of innovative problem-solving. #DesignThinking #Innovation

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Host or Publisher Spring2 Innovation