Read our list of books that have made us more curious, inspired and creative at IDEO U.

IDEO’s Lauren Collins and Harvard Business School Professor Frances Frei share actionable tips for how to lead by empowering others.

Wonderschool CEO and Co-founder Chris Bennett shares his human-centered process for building and scaling a business.

Strategy advisor Roger Martin shares common mistakes people make in the early stages of strategic planning and how to avoid them. 

Are you struggling with a challenge at work and wish you could get some words of wisdom from someone who’s been there? In our new Creative Confidence Podcast series, Mentor Moment, we call on IDEO professionals to help our IDEO U community.

Design thinking has inspired startups, nonprofits, and even large companies to take a human-centered approach when creating new products. Explore our favorite examples of products and services that came from design thinking, including a prescription home-delivery system and the first wearable breast pump.

IDEO Senior Portfolio Director Dwayne Edwards gives a framework for balancing intuition and data, shares strategies to surface an intuitive ability in yourself and in your team, and talks about the importance of building self-awareness to fuel your intuition.

Work can be a way to grow professional skills, a place to build close relationships, or an opportunity to make an impact in the world. Use design thinking to improve your work life—by finding the right career questions, getting inspiration from the real world, and prototyping ideas in the workplace.

Experience design is the crafting of distinct, memorable and transformative moments in time. Experience designers aren’t just designing what people might do, but also what people might feel. Well-designed experiences change your audience in some way—a shift in feelings, beliefs or actions.

Systems design challenges are the focus of Melanie Bell-Mayeda’s work at IDEO. As a partner and managing director, she has worked in systems design for 20+ years. In this conversation, she shares her approach to mapping complex systems, how to identify the layers of a system in order to spot opportunities for change, and ways to manage bias in systems design.

The most impactful lessons and skills we’ve gained from our podcast guests, learners, and IDEO U instructors in 2020.

Here are the books we’ve found helpful for deepening our understanding of design thinking.