How designers create influence and change inside organisations
This course explores the personal and organisational skills needed to build cultures of innovation that are adaptable, resilient, and capable of driving meaningful change.
ABOUT THIS COURSE
Design is increasingly expected to contribute beyond the creation of products, services, and experiences. As organisations face growing complexity, designers are often asked to connect user needs with business priorities, align diverse stakeholders, and help drive change. Yet many promising ideas struggle to gain traction because organisational decisions are shaped by structures, incentives, competing priorities, and relationships as much as by the quality of the idea itself. Understanding how organisations work—and how influence is built within them—has become an essential capability for designers who want to create meaningful impact and contribute to innovation from within.
This workshop is for designers who want to understand how ideas actually move inside organisations. Led by Pierre-Yves Panis and Haz Roth, the programme explores how designers can build influence, work effectively with stakeholders, shape decisions, and contribute to innovation beyond execution.
Over five days, participants will examine how organisations make decisions, how change happens, and why some ideas gain momentum while others stall. Through practical exercises, case studies, and collaborative activities, they will learn how to navigate organisational complexity, communicate the value of design, build alignment across disciplines, and create the conditions for innovation to succeed.
Drawing on innovation management, behavioural science, organisational theory, service design, and contemporary design practice, the course equips participants with practical tools, frameworks, and mindsets to become more effective catalysts for innovation and change within their organisations.
INNOVATION IMPACT for industry participants
Participants gain a practical understanding of how ideas gain traction inside organisations. They leave with tools and approaches for building alignment, navigating complexity, and contributing more effectively to innovation and change.
KEY LEARNINGS
PRACTICAL METHODS & APPROACHES
TARGET AUDIENCE
This programme is designed for early- to mid-career professionals who want to expand their impact beyond execution and develop a deeper understanding of how organisations work. It is particularly relevant for designers, service designers, UX professionals, product practitioners, and others who regularly collaborate across teams and functions to bring new ideas into the world.
Ideal participants are curious about how organisations make decisions, how change happens, and how innovation can be enabled from within.
Whether you work in design, product, innovation, strategy, or a related field, the programme provides practical frameworks, tools, and approaches for engaging stakeholders, building alignment, and contributing to innovation from within organisations.
Senior students preparing to enter complex organisational environments are equally welcome. This course is about understanding how organisations actually work—and how to create meaningful impact within them.
PY is a designer with over 30 years of practice across non-profits, consulting, and global corporations.
He holds a degree from Les Ateliers (École Nationale Supérieure de Création Industrielle), Paris.
From 1991 to 2000, before taking on corporate responsibilities, PY ran Design Co Operation, an NGO he founded in Harare, Zimbabwe, co-developing products and services with small-scale informal entrepreneurs.
Since 2000, he has led design at Moen, Legrand, Orange, Philips Lighting, and Signify, and served as Global VP of Experience for Publicis Sapient France — consistently using design to look at the whole picture.
As he liked to tell non-designer colleagues: “don’t ask a designer for a bridge — ask them what’s the best way to cross the river.”
PY has served two terms on the Executive Board of the World Design Organization, advised the Design Management Institute, and chairs the Professional Advice Council of CY School of Design in France.
Haz Roth is an Experience Design leader based in Stockholm.
She helps organisations deliver exceptional customer experiences by bridging the gap between business strategy, customer insight and design excellence.
With a career spanning Volvo Cars, McKinsey & Company and Philips Design, she has global experience turning customer insight into measurable growth. Hugely collaborative, Haz enjoys working across siloes, bringing teams together to solve today’s pains or define visions for the future.
Haz is an alumnus of The Glasgow School of Art and CIID. Her career has focused on physical-digital innovation within cities - from healthcare to mobility.
