PETALING JAYA, April 20 ― Genovasi Malaysia Design Thinking School recently welcomed two innovative heads from Germany as part of an effort to diversify perspectives in creative design strategy.

Associate design thinking research coaches Axel Menning and Benedikt Ewald arrived from the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design Thinking school (HPI D-School) of Potsdam University as part of a coach exchange programme.

Despite coming from a different cultural background, Ewald said he was able to fit right in while coaching a class of Malaysian civil servants here who participated in the Design Thinking Innovation Ambassador (DTIA) programme.

"The benefits of design thinking, especially with the HPI D-School discipline, is that we are able to coach different backgrounds easily as the module used is not only the same but always focus on human-centred approach.

Benedikt Ewald said he was able to fit right in while coaching a class of Malaysian civil servants here who participated in the Design Thinking Innovation Ambassador (DTIA) programme.

"Rather than look at the differences, we prefer to focus on the similarities to find the genuine reasons on how people work together to solve a problem creatively. Of course, there will be varying perspectives but when we focus on the methodology and tools used to come up with solutions, you will get more efficient results,” he said.

Menning agreed with Ewald's assessment, stating that design thinking would be able to cross cultural divides in helping people from diverse backgrounds in problem-solving.

"Essentially what we also see is how our discipline of design thinking fares in multiple environments. Exchange programmes such as this are essential as we can collect more information on how to improve our discipline and make it more robust,” he said.

Both Menning and Ewald took part in coaching Malaysian civil servants for Genovasi's DTIA programme from April 16 to 20.

 

Mike Cannon speaks during the commencement of Genovasi's Coach Exchange Programme with HPI D-School (Germany) coaches at its headquarters in Kuala Lumpur April 20, 2018.

Earlier from March 22 to 28, Genovasi sent its DT lead coach and programmeme associate director Mike Cannon along with DT lead coach and marketing and communications manager Lee Jun Elle to Germany.

Lee said the exchange programme was part of the Global Design Thinking Week organised by partner universities and institutions from the D-School network which has enabled idea-sharing and the opportunity to work with a wide range of people.

"We too are able to coach people from different countries as it is essentially the same experience of coaching classes back in Genovasi. Despite differences in cultural contexts, we are able to work on the same model in achieving similar results.

''In the exchange programme I worked alongside people from India, Germany and the United States, among others.

"It provides insight on how to work with different ideas while adapting to each individual strengths,” she said.

Cannon lauded the coaches' exchange programme and said such initiatives should be done continuously to improve design thinking methodology and practices.

"In this way we are learning on how we can improve our design thinking delivery methods in our classrooms,” he said.

Lee Jun Elle speaks during the commencement of Genovasi's Coach Exchange Programme with HPI D-School (Germany) coaches at its headquarters in Kuala Lumpur April 20, 2018.