Recasting the door: An applied design thinking skill building exercise

Skills in creativity are needed to meet the needs of today’s organizations, and design thinking is a process that one can learn to become more creative. Yet the diminishing exposure to and pursuit of humanities courses, which have traditionally developed these skills, has put pressure on business schools to fill the gap. This experiential learning exercise, Recasting the Door, is directed toward undergraduate students and presents an opportunity for students to develop and practice design thinking and creative problem solving, especially when situated in a course on creativity or innovation. In this exercise, students work in teams to develop a creative art installation that physically transforms the instructor’s office door symbolically or metaphorically to serve a new purpose. Using an open-ended design brief, students use idea generation, idea evaluation, prototyping, and collaboration to develop a human-centered solution. Then they critique their own and other teams’ installations.