Master in Strategic Design for Innovation and Transformation

Designers shape a better and brighter future for all. But did you know that the role of designers in corporations has changed dramatically over the years, and is still evolving even today?

Nowadays, if you are a designer, you need to be multitalented. Of course you own the scope of the overall project, identifying novel opportunities and finding ways to achieve them, but you also need to lead innovation and strategic processes, manage agencies and resources, analyse data and generate valuable insights.

At the same time, companies are now looking for managers that have a design attitude. This lets you blend client and stakeholder perspectives with market opportunities, so you can imagine new strategies that leverage emerging behaviours, new trends and the opportunities found with digital technologies.

And it’s similar over in in big corporations and consultancies. They need to strategically blend market innovation and transformation processes, specifically redesigning themselves to think up new products and business models. To tackle such big challenges, these companies are intrigued by skillsets that combine both strategy and design.

To meet these growing needs, we at POLIMI GSoM have worked together with POLI.design to develop our International Master in Strategic Design for Innovation and Transformation (SDIT). This is a 1-year programme that we set up into four main content blocks.

We’ve targeted this Master to executives who want to boost their knowledge while still meeting all of their work commitments. We train professionals and executives in combining design attitudes and abilities with classical analytical-managerial skills. This means planning, coordinating, and implementing consistent design operations and processes to meet the design direction, the strategic framework, and performance targets.

Our SDIT Master counts on the experience and commitment of 9 Ambassadors, who are directly involved in innovation and transformation processes:

• Imagine meaningful innovations that can improve human wellbeing and impact society
• Inspire colleagues and stakeholders to pursue strategic transformation
  Lead design projects, with virtuous employee engagement and while breaking the silo culture among different business areas
• Exploit the opportunities provided by digital technologies by mixing artificial intelligence and human intuition as well as big and thick data
  Stimulate entrepreneurial mindsets to activate and promote agile projects
• Organise the creative process in favour of integration with operations

Our SDIT Master counts on the experience and commitment of 9 Ambassadors, who are directly involved in innovation and transformation processes:

1. Roberto Battaglia, Transformation Lead – IMI Corporate & Investment Banking @ Intesa Sanpaolo
2. Monica Dalla Riva, Vice President Design & CX @ Deutsche Telekom
3. Marco Giglio, Managing Director Design and Engineering @ BCG Platinion
4. Antonio Grillo, Executive Design Director @ Tangity – Part of the NTT Data Design Network
5. Camilla Mignani, Service Designer & UX/UI Chapter Lead @ Vodafone Business
6. Lorenzo Ruggieri, Expert Associate Partner, Innovation @ Bain & Company
7. Marzia Battaglia, Design Manager @ Assist Digital
8. Alessandra Fidanzi, Head of Digital Factory and Center of Excellence @ ENI
9. Marco Sammaria, Head of Digital Design & Intelligence @ Unipolsai Assicurazioni s.p.a.
    

Our top-notch Faculty is made up of Design and Management professors from POLI.design and POLIMI GSoM.

SDIT has a strong collaboration with professionals that have consolidated experience in the field of design. They are on hand to show you the lessons they learnt and the best/good practices coming from real-world projects and real-world application in companies.

This means you get a highly hands-on approach based on lessons with real cases, exercises, group work and project work supervised by our professors.

You are an ideal candidate if you are a professional, have graduated in any discipline, have work experience, and if you want to combine a design attitude and design abilities with classical analytical-managerial skills. 

This means you’ll be planning, coordinating, and implementing consistent design operations and processes to meet the design direction, the strategic framework, and performance targets.

Our International Master in Strategic Design for Innovation and Transformation (SDIT) is a 1-year programme. It is divided into 4 main blocks and ends with a final Project Work.

We use advanced training methods with a combination of different initiatives. Revel in face-to-face experiences such as company visits to meet innovation and design managers, a cultural tour to witness the Italian evolution of design, and a visit to professional Labs of modern design masters. And to top it off, you will get a chance to take part in two Bootcamps – these workshop sessions are promoted by leading design-driven companies to give you some intense insight.

Maximise your flexibility through our dynamic format. Starting from 2021, you can choose whether to join in with activities online (if possible – this depends on the activity) or in person (if it’s allowed) with no limits. This makes it easy for you study without worrying about your professional and personal schedules.

Your typical week would be structured like this:

• WEEK type A: We will give you Video Clips on the Digital Platform (max 16) + One Live session (2 hours)
• WEEK type B: Two live sessions (2 hours each)

Each course lasts for two weeks and can combine the two structures (A+B) or you can choose to do two live sessions for each week (B+B).

Our live sessions are held online on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 7.00 until 9.00 PM CET.

OUR COURSES

We’ve designed this Master in four major blocks:

INNOVATION AND DESIGN

Let’s start with the “Innovation and Design” block. We’ve designed this to interpret strategy making as a process that can be deeply affected by innovation and design in the organisation. Here, we give you an overview of strategy-making concepts related to a specific industrial setting, where creativity management and design are key assets. 

You’ll get the chance to interpret the idea of strategy making through the lens of design, where the concepts of “design-driven” innovation, the close link between planning and execution, and the human-centricity principles update the classical strategy-related ideas. 

But at the same time, this the block treats Corporate Entrepreneurship and Organisational Transformation as key components for continuous renewal and to align the organisation with its strategy. 

We put strong emphasis on Strategic Design to bring strategic thinking down to the product-service system level. You’ll experience how design-driven companies work with our innovation classes and design managers who are more than happy to share their experiences with you. 

Lastly, through group projects you’ll get a unique chance to work on real cases in close connection with design-driven companies.

LEADERSHIP AND ENGAGEMENT

Our second block is “Leadership and Engagement”. Here we give you an overview of theories and actional behaviours to illustrate leadership to create a culture of innovation, inspiring the team and stakeholders and activating a virtuous process of engagement across organisational silos.

As we all know, unexpected obstacles and inertia are common in innovation and design projects. But here we teach designers and innovation managers how to embrace complexity, identifying the key aspects and people needed to create their expected outcome. This part of our Master shows you the different nature of Leadership – developing skills to manage change and innovation in organisational contexts.

In this block we connect Decision-Making approaches with an in-depth review of Organisational Behaviour and Business Process Management. We take you through the overlapping area between Design culture and Organisational culture and show you how to nurture a culture of innovation in organisations by increasing employee engagement and their creative capacity. 

Designing spaces that inspire interaction and spark creativity, conceiving an intangible infrastructure that enables participation and inclusion, and developing a culture oriented to “learn by failure” are all part of this game. This second block alternates theoretical lectures with testimonials by design leaders that will show you how design culture bled into business culture, adding new meanings, novel values, and actionable principles.

DATA AND CREATIVITY

Thirdly we have our “Data and Creativity” block, which is hinged on the central theme of data.

Over the last twenty years, data has radically changed how companies create strategies, generate innovations, and interface with users. While Big Data provides immediate market feedback on consumer preferences and trends, creativity often works with other data. It analyses the dataset differently from the way that data mining systems do. 

Creativity feeds on ‘weak’ data, peripheral data that is not collected globally, but derived from specific contexts. Some people call it “weak”, but it actually sparks creativity.

After we go over the role of Big Data in innovation strategies and processes, this block will focus on how to conduct User research and gather qualitative data to generate valuable insights. We’ll show you how to transform services by leveraging multiple data sources and how data can be grasped, organised and framed to support and encourage creativity in the team.

With this block, you will explore the concept of data-driven design through specific applications and the voice of innovation managers who run consulting projects where data plays a key role.  

DESIGN OPS AND TRANSFORMATION

Last but not least we have our “Design Ops and Transformation” block. Here we aim to break down the myth of the chaotic designer that works outside the organisational rules and business procedures. 

In successful organisations, the design process is planned and framed as a flow of operations where actors, activities, tools, and enablers of creativity have to be connected between themselves and with other parts of the organisation. That means that creativity needs to govern the design process while still considering the organisation’s purpose, the talents inside the organisation, the knowledge sharing mechanism and the overall structure associated with the power flow. 

After we give you an overview of open innovation and collaborative mechanisms, this block focuses on modern creative project management methodologies. Here we’re talking about agile methodologies, design methods and the organisational rules underlying UX/UI projects.

The modules in this block go into advanced teaching methods where you will discuss case studies, develop group projects, and work with software related to the management of DesignOps.

PROJECT WORK
During the second half of your Master, you will carry out a Project Work, which will be discussed at the end of your course. For this Project Work, you will need to develop a consultancy project with the support of the POLIMI GSoM Faculty. 

You’ll work closely with Politecnico di Milano professors and researchers, and you’ll get the chance to apply the tools and methods your learnt during your SDIT Master. Get a taste of the real world as you tackle issues of interest to companies and build valuable relationships for your professional career.

APPLICATIONS FOR THE 2023 INTAKE ARE OPEN.

Please note that we process applications on a rolling basis, which means they may close even before this deadline. Our limited number of seats available in the class means the sooner you apply, the better.

STEP 1:  ACTIVATION OF APPLICATION

Activate your Online Application, uploading your updated CV/resume in English. You will also need to pay the application fee (EUR €100), which you can do online on the application platform itself via Flywire* or through a regular bank transfer. The rest of your documents can be uploaded later. The application fee is non-refundable.

*You can easily pay your tuition and fees online via Flywire, our preferred payment partner. Flywire is a secure international payment service that simplifies payments from your home country or other countries around the world. Payment options include bank transfers, credit cards, e-wallets and more, typically in the local currency.

STEP 2:  SCREENING

We will let you know if you have been selected for a Video Interview.

STEP 3:  SUBMISSION OF OTHER DOCUMENTS

You need to upload these documents on our platform to complete your application:

• University Degree and your transcripts
• Motivational letter
• 1 or 2 letters of reference (these are optional)
• Copy of your Passport
• A digital passport sized photograph

STEP 4: OUR FINAL DECISION

We have a careful selection process when choosing participants for our SDIT programme, and we limit it to a fixed number of students. This makes sure we can give you the best environment for personal development as well as for group learning. We thoroughly study everything you put in the online application, so remember to fill it out carefully and give us any extra material you think might help your candidature.

We will evaluate you based on your professional and academic background with a video interview, and let you know the results via email. Our final decision will depend on the scores given for each of the different parts of your application.

The tuition fee comes to €15,500 for individuals and €18,500 for those of you that are sponsored by a company. These costs cover the two face-to-face experiences, but they do not include living expenses (such as travel, accommodation, lunch and dinner).

FINANCIAL AID
You might find our SDIT programme more accessible with help from our Financial Aid Programme.

These contributions are mostly based on merit and academic excellence, as well as personal and professional achievement. Our criteria for each contribution are diverse, with some open to all applicants, while others are based on individual circumstances.

If you’d like financial aid, you need to request it when you submit your application form – please note that late requests for financial aid won’t be considered.

If you are sponsored by your company, we kindly request that you write to infoexecutivemasters@gsom.polimi.it for more details.

HOW DOES YOUR FINANCIAL AID PROGRAM WORK?

Submit your application online and tick the box showing that you are interested in POLIMI GSoM financial aid.
Fill out the Financial Aid Request Form – we will send this to you in an e-mail, just fill it out and upload it on the online platform.

COUNTRY BASED CONTRIBUTIONS

International diversity is invaluable to us here at POLIMI GSoM. If you are a talented individual coming from an underrepresented country, we would like to help out with partial waivers up to 30% so we can boost international diversity within the class.

To be eligible for this contribution, you need to meet the admission requirements and send us a small passage (no more than 500 words) at the application stage. You should write about the following topic:

“How do you think your cultural background can add value to the SDIT class?”

POLIMI4WOMEN

At POLIMI GSoM we actively promote gender equality, which is why we made this contribution to allow women greater accessibility to the programme, and in doing so to increase class diversity.

if you have shown outstanding merit and achievement in an academic or professional sense, you might be eligible for these contributions of up to €4,000 each.

If you’d like to try out for this competition, you need to meet the admission requirements and send us a small passage (no more than 500 words) at the application stage. Write about the following topic:

“When the whole world is silent, even one voice becomes powerful.”
Malala Yousafzai – 2014 Nobel Peace Prize Winner

Tell us about the biggest challenge you have lived in your professional or private life as a woman.

CLASS TUTOR CONTRIBUTION

Are you willing to act as a Class Representative or Tutor? If so, you could receive a contribution of up to 35%. We are offering this to two of our International Master in Strategic Design for Innovation and Transformation candidates.

Find out more.

For more information, please write to us at infoexecutivemasters@gsom.polimi.it

POLIMI GSoM ALUMNI WAIVER

Are you one of our past graduates? You can get a fee reduction if you have graduated from various programmes at POLIMI GSoM.

• You can get 25% off if you have completed a Master programme, an MBA or an Executive MBA
• You can get 10% off if you have completed an Executive Path (Management Academy) 

Please note that if you are partially sponsored by a company, the Alumni Waiver will be proportional to your individual fee. If you are fully sponsored, you are not eligible for the Alumni Waiver.

For more information, please write to us at infoexecutivemasters@gsom.polimi.it

POLIMI ALUMNI WAIVER

You can also get a fee reduction if you have graduated from the Politecnico di Milano. You need to have shown a strong commitment to your studies and a desire to further your professional development through continued education. If that sounds like you, you could be entitled to a €2,000 POLIMI GSoM contribution.

For more information, please write to us at infoexecutivemasters@gsom.polimi.it

LOANS

If you are an international candidate or Italian candidate, you can access student loans to cover your tuition fee and other expenses.
Please write to us at infoexecutivemasters@mip.polimi.it for more details.

DEUTSCHE BILDUNG.
THE ALTERNATIVE TO A STUDENT LOAN.

Access a completely flexible loan with Deutsche Bildung, which finances almost all programmes and subjects in Germany and abroad. They’ve been providing monthly as well as single and returning payments to motivated students since 2007. You also have access to the extra-curricular-program WissenPlus, which focuses on the improvement of important social and professional skills. The repayments are income-linked, meaning that you pay back a fixed percentage over a certain time once you’ve started your first job.

You can do the online application anytime throughout the year at www.deutsche-bildung.de.

EVENTS

Meet our representatives, join our online presentations or even visit our campus:

Check out our events

INFO SESSION

Our recruitment team is available for a 30-minute one-to-one info session to guide you through the contents, contributions available and the selection process of our programme.

To book your info-session please click on the link here below and fill out the booking form. One of our representatives will get in contact with you to set up the meeting.