Design Thinking: Developing the Solution Concept

Great ideas only matter if they’re transformed into compelling solutions that work. Design Thinking: Developing the Solution Concept gives you a structured, practice-based process to do exactly that. Guided by Wharton Professor Karl Ulrich, you’ll apply the triple diamond model — a rigorous, repeatable framework that takes you from clarifying customer jobs to be done, through generating insights, to creating and testing solution concepts.

Unlike design thinking workshops that stop at brainstorming, this course equips you with tools to frame problems correctly, generate high-quality solutions, and evaluate them systematically. By the end, you’ll know how to surface critical needs and opportunities, translate them into actionable ideas, and refine those ideas into tested, feasible solutions.

Whether you are developing products and services or driving process innovation inside your organization, this course provides the clarity, discipline, and creativity needed to deliver meaningful results.

Course Experience

Highlights and Key Outcomes

This course teaches a systematic, customer-centered methodology for creating breakthrough solutions.

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

• Apply the triple-diamond model to move from defining the job to be done, through customer insights, to compelling solution concepts
• Define focal customers and jobs to be done using personas, abstraction ladders, and “How might we…” framing
• Conduct customer research that uncovers authentic, non-obvious, and significant insights to guide innovation
• Generate and refine solution concepts using systematic ideation methods, hybrid individual–group approaches, and AI-enhanced creativity
• Evaluate and test concepts systematically with structured selection matrices and customer feedback to predict market acceptance
• Integrate design thinking into organizational processes to lead repeatable, user-centered innovation projects that deliver business impact

Delivered online, self-paced, and on-demand, the course features four in-depth modules (4–6 hours each). You’ll progress through video lectures and required hands-on activities that culminate in a digital completion badge. By practicing research, ideation, and evaluation in real-world contexts, you’ll leave not only with a process but also with the confidence to lead innovation efforts with impact.

This is the third course in the three-course Innovation Strategy and Design Thinking Certificate. This certificate is earned by completing all three courses in the series:

• Introduction to Innovation: Everyone Is an Innovator
• Innovation Tournaments and the Process View
• Design Thinking: Developing the Solution Concept

Each course may be taken individually, but together they form a comprehensive progression — from building foundational literacy in innovation, to mastering the mechanics of scaling ideas, to applying design thinking to create tested solution concepts.

Completing all three courses not only equips you with Wharton’s most powerful innovation tools, but also earns you the Innovation Strategy and Design Thinking Certificate — a credential that recognizes your ability to apply rigorous, practice-based methods to lead innovation across products, services, and organizational processes.

Tuition

The tuition for this course is $1,350. You can also enroll in the full three-course Innovation Strategy and Design Thinking Certificate for $3,850 — which brings the per-course cost down to $1,283. Choosing the certificate not only saves you money but also gives you access to the complete innovation system and the recognized Wharton credential.

Faculty

Christian Terwiesch, PhD
Professor of Operations, Information and Decisions; Co-Director, Mack Institute for Innovation Management, The Wharton School

Karl Ulrich, PhD
Professor of Operations, Information and Decisions; Vice Dean of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, The Wharton School

Who Should Attend

This course is designed for professionals across industries who want to drive meaningful impact through innovation. Ideal participants include:

• Individual contributors & managers who want to sharpen daily problem-solving skills
• Team leaders & high-potentials responsible for mobilizing groups around innovation challenges
• Executives seeking to align innovation practices with organizational strategy
• Entrepreneurs & intrapreneurs eager to test and scale new ideas with credibility