Design Thinking and Career Development: A Comparative Study

This study conceives career development as a design process and not as a planning activity. An uncertain and fast-changing professional environment requires adaptation and training in a proper mindset. Since there is no such thing as “expertise” in life, Design methodologies and principles may be helpful for students to develop self-awareness and guidance. This study presents a comparative approach based on Beckman and Barry’s (2007) learning framework of the two main career development methodologies for students based on Design Thinking: “Designing Your Life and BE(A)ST” (BE Aware STudent). Designing Your Life explores design thinking principles and techniques to help individuals create fulfilling and meaningful careers. BE(A)ST is an approach, process, and set of tools that assist students in designing their careers while still at university

Local Development Platforms (LDP): an operational framework for business development

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to present a conceptual model of business development that provides operational ways to increase the competitive presence of more micro and small ventures (both actual and new) in enlarged markets, including international ones. Design/methodology/approach - The paper develops a conceptual model starting from the identification of the most usual constraints limiting the SMEs and entrepreneurship development and success. After this stage, the model was built with the help of selected concepts, which represent a theoretical framework of support. Findings - Regarding the universe of SME and entrepreneurship, the authors usually find some weaknesses: markets mainly local/regional, absence of growth, cooperative networks and/or international operations, because of several usual constraints: limited competences and resources, absence of critical mass on buying/ selling and difficulty to cooperate. These shortcomings represent an economic waste when there are competitive offers and/or endogenous resources. Research limitations/implications - The model will be applied in a Portuguese county, in this way the authors expect to make an empirical research in the near future. Practical implications - The model surpasses the, usual, limited skills of people and organisations betting in their competitive specialisation, with the assumptions that few people can be successful entrepreneurs/ managers, but quite everyone can perform something competitively. The organisation/structure - Local Development Platform (LDP) - has the responsibility to assure the competitiveness of value chains built over networks of these agents. Additionally, the LDP should provide collective resources to lower the investments and operational needs of the agents involved, provide the added value services necessary for offers and agents' competitiveness, achieve critical mass on buying and selling and enlarge/open new markets. These resources are organised in up to five specialised platforms, to service a strategy structured along five axes of development. Social implications - With this model, it is possible to increase the levels of employment and welfare. Originality/value - A practical/operational integrated model able to be applied in different contexts will help private and public agents to define and implement strategies of development to enable the growth and success of SMEs and entrepreneurial initiatives in the international markets context

Business Model-I, Passionate IT Professional. Methodology of conducting classes using the Design Thinking, Visual Thinking, and Storytelling methods

The aim of this handbook is to provide guidance to those teachers who are willing to run the “Business Model – I, Passionate IT Professional” course in their University. Why? This is both a human-centered and interaction-based course. The human-centered course means that IT students, the course’s recipientes, are considered and understood in a more holistic way. In fact, the course relies on “design methods” that employ both divergent and convergent thinking concerned with how the students themselves attribute and reflect on meanings, values, and beliefs. Interaction-based means that the main aim of the facilitators is not about providing content (even though this role is not revoked from them! Facilitators are still expert professionals whose individual perspective is precious for students), it is instead about creating an the environment in which students can create a dialogue around the different topics that, every time, are brought in class. It is through the establishment of various sorts of interactions and approaches that contents are learned: peer-to-peer interaction, individual reflections and, last but not least, hands-on experience. Facilitating the conversation instead of helding one: It may sound like an easy task, but it is not. Encouraging the conversation between students, building a learning environment to reflect upon the future is not an easy task. This is the reason why this handbook is here for you, the facilitator, in order to share with you the experience gained through the different meetups of the “BE Aware Student - BEAST” project (funded by Erasmus+ Programme, Key Action 2: Strategic Partnerships for higher education) such as the “International Academy of Innovative Educational Methods and Techniques”, held in Modena in March 2019, and in three Summer Schools organized by the three partners of the ‘BEAST’ project, the University of Information Technology and Management in Rzeszow (PL), Polytechnic Institute of Portalegre (PT), and University of Modena and Reggio Emilia (IT), along with contribution from other experts. During this course, you’ll be asked to set up an environment that enables your students to engage in group presentation, collective discussion, individual reflection, 1 to 1 interaction, individual and group work. Every time you can rely on this guide, and benefit from the guidelines, the tips and the attention points collected from the previously gained experience by the BEAST community. The methodology will show how the methods of Design Thinking, Visual Thinking and Storytelling can be used during classes: in fact, all those methods can work with IT subjects, and they can increase the effectiveness of teaching in the context of promoting student’s creativity, entrepreneurial thinking and the ability to use innovative ideas in practice. Along with the general course structure, this handbook covers in detail each step of the course including objectives and methods, comments to the teaching materials (material characteristics, technical and organizational requirements, didactic potential, application options, problem questions for students, inspiration to work with course participants, etc.) as well as instruction on the use of these methods