From Ideas to

Action

—
Syllabus

From ideas to action SYLLABUS

IDEO is a global design company that has
been honing the methods and mindsets of
design thinking for over 40 years.

In this course, you’ll learn to frame your

ideas as experiments, bring others in on
your vision of the future, and move from
incremental to radical innovation.

From ideas to action SYLLABUS 2

Table of Contents

P# intro

02
Overview

04
What’s Included

05
Course Calendar

06
Instructor

08
Testimonials

10 Learning Experience

P# lesson plans

11

Online Course 

From Ideas to Action

12
Course Outcomes

13 Lesson Plan

From ideas to action SYLLABUS 17

What’s Included

—
16 video lessons
Work with expert coaches

5 required assignments
Downloadable work-
book and toolkit with
activities, assignments,
10 discussion questions
and frameworks

3 activities
1-hour optional weekly
conversation with course
peers guided by our
Applied learning from Teaching Team
IDEO practitioners

From ideas to IN
action SYLLABUS 4
FOUNDATIONS DESIGN THINKING CERTIFICATE SYLLABUS
 From Ideas to Action

Course Calendar
week lesson description assignment

See how insights help spark

ideas, and get an introduction to
IntroDUCTION three approaches that will take Choose Your Challenge
4hrs / weeK Ov erview
you from ideas to action: ideation,
prototyping, and iteration.

Go beyond brainstorming—learn
Lesson 1 The Art of
techniques for coming up with an Ideate
4hrs / weeK Ideating abundance of innovative ideas.

Learn how to make your ideas

Lesson 2 Rapid
tangible so you can work through
Prototype
4hrs / weeK Prototyping the kinks, gather feedback, and
get to better solutions faster.

Practice improving your ideas

Lesson 3 Iterate Your
through multiple rounds of Iterate
4hrs / weeK Way Forward ideation and prototyping.

Hear advice from Brendan on

ConClusion pursuing your ideas, building Final Project
4hrs / weeK Looking Ahead your creative confidence, and
planning for the future.

From ideas to action SYLLABUS 5

Meet Your Instructor

Learn from IDEO practitioners and business

leaders who’ve led thousands of projects across

industries and around the globe in areas including

business, technology, education, and design.

From ideas to action

Instructor

Brendan Boyle

PARTNER AT IDEO & FOUNDER OF IDEO PLAY LAB

Brendan Boyle believes that play is the key to

innovation. This philosophy guides his work as a toy

inventor, consulting associate professor at Stanford

University’s d.School, and Partner at IDEO. He founded

the Toy Lab to explore kid-centered solutions to the

challenge of boredom. Under his leadership, the Toy Lab

has invented and licensed hundreds of toys and

archetypes, including the best-selling app Elmo Calls

with Sesame Street.

Brendan also consults with companies about

redesigning their organizational behavior to include

space for play, wrote the course From Play to Innovation

offered at Stanford’s d.School, and co-authored the

award-winning encyclopedia of never-before-seen

inventions, The Klutz Book of Inventions. Brendan

holds an M.S. in the Joint Program for Design from

Stanford University, as well as a B.S. in Mechanical

Engineering from Michigan State University. A much

requested speaker, Brendan is known for his interactive

talks that stress the joy of innovation.

From ideas to action SYLLABUS 6

Expert Facilitators
Course Community

— —

Receive coaching from a team 
 Learn alongside a cohort 


of design thinking practitioners of hundreds of like-minded
with teaching and facilitation innovation professionals from
expertise who will guide around the world. Build your
discussions, foster peer professional network by making
connection, and provide valuable connections in each
feedback on your assignments. course.

From ideas to action SYLLABUS 7

What Others Are Saying

“
In running my own business, I've
become selective about what courses I
“IDEO U courses are very effective in
teaching design thinking in a way
choose. IDEO U has kinda blown me that is digestible and practical.
away. It's accessible and tangible, but Learning to apply these methods to a
also challenging. It's pushed me to do real-world challenge really provides a
my future work differently, but also to sense of completion, and makes it
think about myself in my work easier for me to speak to what I've
differently.” learned.”

Taylor
ALEXANDRA

OWNER & CREATIVE BUSINESS ANALYST,

DIRECTOR,
TELUS COMMUNICATIONS
GUTS & GLORY CREATIVE
CONSULTING

FOUNDATIONS IN DESIGN THINKING CERTIFICATE SYLLABUS

What Others Are Saying

“
The art of coming up with new ideas
and being able to effectively
“These are key skills and concepts
that are important to every industry,
communicate those ideas is incredibly job function and team structure.
important in my field. As a new product Being able to think outside the box,
manager, I really struggled to find incorporate feedback and apply it in
resources to help me learn effectively, a meaningful way to solve a
and I was able to put what I learned challenge is such a wonderful skill to
here into practice right away.” have and build off of.”

PEARCE
KATELYN

PRODUCT MANAGER,
MARKETING OPERATIONS
THE WORKING GROUP ANALYST,

QUORUM SOFTWARE

FOUNDATIONS IN DESIGN THINKING CERTIFICATE SYLLABUS

Learning Experience

See

Each lesson has a series of 3-5 minute

See Try videos where instructors explain the why,
what, and how of a specific topic and bring
to life case studies from around the globe.



Try


Our courses provide assignments and final

Reflect Share projects to help you try out new behaviors
online and through real-world projects.



Share


Share and discuss what you’re learning with

the teaching team and a global peer network
to build greater understanding through
virtual video calls and written discussion.



Reflect 


We’ve designed a variety of reflective

activities into our experiences to help you
make the connections from our online
content to your specific work challenges.

From ideas to action SYLLABUS 10

COURSE

From Ideas to Action

Outcomes & Lesson Plan

5 wEEKS

4 hRS PER WEEK

View course

From ideas to action SYLLABUS 11

From Ideas to Action

After this course, you’ll be able to...

Turn your ideas into real

products and services through a

repeatable process of ideation,

prototyping, and iteration.

Consistently generate more and

better ideas by using IDEO’s

approach to brainstorming and

ideation.

Uncover insight into your

customers’ wants and needs by

using rough and rapid prototypes

to gather feedback.

Lower your risk by running small

experiments to learn from failure

in a controlled environment.

Create a culture of

experimentation on your team

and expand your capacity for

innovation.

12
From ideas to action SYLLABUS
INTRODUCTION

Overview
4 Hrs
4hrs

—
See how insights help spark ideas, and get an introduction
to three approaches that will take you from ideas to action:
ideation, prototyping, and iteration.

2 VIDEOS 1 DISCUSSION

1. From Ideas to Action

What do you want to take away from this
What prevents us from sharing our ideas with course?
the world? Or, bringing them to life in droves?
Is it fear of judgement or failure? Or not
knowing where to start? We want to explore
these questions with you in this course. To
begin, let’s look at three approaches that will
get you from ideas to action.

2. Design Thinking & Insights

You might have already taken our Insights for JOIN A COHORT GROUP
Innovation course. If so, this will be review
for you. If you haven’t yet, we’re going to give In-course cohort groups known as Learning
you our best recap in less than three minutes Circles are peer-led and provide an
to help better situate you in the design opportunity to discuss assignments, gain
thinking process. inspiration, and dive deeper into course
content.

1 ASSIGNMENT 2 PEER FEEDBACK MOMENTS

Choose Your Challenge—Choose the Provide feedback on the work of at least two
challenge that you will explore during this of your peers' assignments for each lesson.
course.

From ideas to action SYLLABUS Lesson Plan 13

Lesson 1

The Art of Ideating

4 Hrs
4hrs

—
Go beyond brainstorming—learn techniques for coming up with
an abundance of innovative ideas.

5 VIDEOS 1 ASSIGNMENT
1. What is Ideation?
Ideate—It’s time to ideate around the project
We’ll take a look at how divergent thinking challenge you selected in the Introduction.
invites you to play longer and stretch beyond Let’s get comfortable with quantity.

your early ideas.

2. Ideation Methods
2 RESOURCES
Our world needs more ideas. Outrageous ideas.
Brilliant ideas. Paradigm-shifting ideas. We’ll
introduce you to some effective ideation Creative Muscle Warm Up

methods that will help you generate tons of Here’s your chance to warm up your
ideas.

creative muscles.
Zoo Ideation Activity

3. Brainstorm Rules
Run your own ideation session to generate
What do you think of when you hear the word ideas for how to increase attendance at
brainstorm? In this video, you’ll hear what the local zoo. Share back with the
David Kelley, founder of IDEO, has to say about community. What were some of your
what makes for an effective brainstorm.

wildest ideas? Get visual if you can. Show

4. Observe Experts Brainstorming
us. What were some of the key takeaways?
Now that you’ve run your own zoo ideation
session, take a look at how we approached the
same challenge here at IDEO. What stands out
to you?

3 DISCUSSIONS

5. Converging After Idea Generation

Keep a playful mindset and share your
Generating tons of ideas is great. But it’s thirty circles activity.
equally important to know when and how to What were some key takeaways from
focus in on the ideas with true potential. In leading a brainstorm? Get visual if you can
this video, we’ll help you get from what could
be to what should be. Reflect on your ideation session. What
challenges did you face and what strategies
did you use to overcome them?

From ideas to action SYLLABUS Lesson Plan 14

Lesson 2

Rapid Prototyping
4 Hrs
4hrs

—
Learn how to make your ideas tangible so you can work through
the kinks, gather feedback, and get to better solutions faster.

5 VIDEOS 3 DISCUSSIONS
1. Why Prototype?
When was a time you failed at something?
Let’s say you have a brilliant idea. How do you Allow yourself to be vulnerable—what did
invite others to experience something that you learn from your mistake
exists only in your brain? How do you start
making your idea tangible? We’ll explain how Share your tinfoil hat prototype and
prototypes help us solve for each of these comment on your fellow learner’s
prototypes with ideas to build on their
questions.

designs
2. Types of Prototypes
What about prototyping felt
What’s a prototype? Is it a model made out of uncomfortable? Which aspects of your
glue and scrap wood? Is it the first draft of a prototype were people drawn to?
story? Let’s find out in this next video.

3. Show Me Your Prototype

We’re about to take you on a virtual tour of

IDEO to check out some early ideas. Let’s play
a little game we call “Show me your
prototype.”

1 ASSIGNMENT
4. 3 Steps for Prototyping
Prototype—Now, it’s time to prototype your
Building a prototype is only part of the idea from Lesson 1. Don’t overthink it. Just
process. In this video, we’ll share a simple start building.

framework that will help you move your

prototype forward.

5. Tinfoil Hats in Action

Let’s see how a group of IDEOers approached

the Tin Foil Hat Activity. As you watch, pay
attention to the energy of the room. What
would it take for you to host your own tin foil
hat challenge?

From ideas to action SYLLABUS Lesson Plan 15

Lesson 3
Iterate Your Way Forward
4 Hrs
4hrs

—
Practice improving your ideas through multiple rounds of ideation
and prototyping.

4 VIDEOS 1 ASSIGNMENT
1. Why We Iterate
Iterate—Now it’s time to apply what you’ve
Thomas Edison said, “I haven’t failed. I’ve just learned to your challenge.

found ten thousand ways that do not work.”

Why is trial and error so important? In this
video, we’re going to explore the power of
repetition.

2. 4 Steps to Iterate
1 DISCUSSION
It’s easy to fall into the trap of racing ahead
the second your idea gains traction. But you How has your plan for future prototyping
should take your time. Iteration will save you shifted in surprising ways? What helped you
time in the end. Resist the urge to charge get there?
forward. Rinse. And then repeat. So, how do
you start iterating?

3. SFUSD School Lunch Project

Let’s take a look at the larger scope of the

SFUSD School Lunch Project. We hope you
enjoy hearing from some key players of this
collaboration.

4. Conversations with Brendan

We caught up with Brendan at the IDEO Toy

Lab to have him answer a few questions we
have been seeing in discussions and hearing
in Community Conversations.

From ideas to action SYLLABUS Lesson Plan 16

Conclusion

Looking Ahead
4 Hrs
4hrs

—
Hear advice from Brendan on pursuing your ideas, building your
creative confidence, and planning for the future.

1 VIDEO 2 DISCUSSIONS
1. Course Conclusion
What does creative confidence mean to
You’re almost there. Let’s turn it over to our you, and how might the skills and
professor of play to wrap up this course. perspective from this course get you that
much closer to bringing your ideas to life
What was your creative confidence before
and after the course? Really think about
how or why it changed. Did your creative
confidence change during the course?
How and why? What was the most
revealing moment for you?
1 ASSIGNMENT
Final Project—It’s time to bring together
everything that you’ve learned in the course.
You’ll be building upon your previous
assignments to create a pitch to senior
leadership.

From ideas to action SYLLABUS Lesson Plan 17

FOUNDATIONS IN DESIGN THINKING CERTIFICATE SYLLABUS

“Brilliant ideas often seem

ridiculous.”

BRENDAN BOYLE

From ideas to action

instructor & Partner,
IDEO & founder of IDEO’s
Play Lab

From ideas to action SYLLABUS 18

 Learn MORE

www.ideou.com/ideastoaction

For any questions, reach out to us at

hello@ideou.com.

© IDEO 2022