Dear Members of the Design Thinking Research Community,

My motivation behind initiating the HPI-Stanford Design Thinking Research Program (HPDTRP) was the desire to understand on a scientific basis why and how the Design Thinking method works. Design Thinking melds an end-user focus with multidisciplinary collaboration and iterative improvement to produce products, services, or experiences. Through the joint scientific research projects of the HPDTRP we want to find out which factors ultimately contribute to the success of this kind of engineered and creative development of innovation for all areas of life. We must strive to improve our understanding of innovation processes in order to bring better solutions to society more quickly. 

My main interest is to use the Design Thinking method in the field of IT/Engineering and to understand how design thinking inspires the creative multidisciplinary teamwork across academic disciplines, whether and how spatial and temporal boundaries can be overcome, and how the Design Thinking method can be meshed with traditional approaches in the field of Engineering. Further, it remains a mystery why the structure of successful design teams differs so substantially from traditional corporate structures.

I am delighted and proud to see this transatlantic research cooperation thrive and develop into a potent academic force in the field of innovation research, and I am confident that your excellent research projects will help answer some of the above questions.

Hasso Plattner