Certificate in Design Thinking
Fill out the form to receive a program overview and sample pacing guide and connect with a concierge about starting your design thinking journey.
Darden's expert strategist and design thinking pioneer, Jeanne Liedtka, creates a learning environment in which managers apply the mindset and methods of designers to develop innovative products, processes and business models. This noncredit certificate program is online and self-paced — designed to help you engage a broader group of voices, achieve alignment and consensus, and find workable solutions that people will actually adopt.
Design thinking takes a practical approach for generating new ideas and driving innovation. Bring these skills back to your workplace to help elevate your career to new heights.
At $1,500, the Darden Certificate in Design Thinking is the best value for you to add value as an employee. With self-paced, online modules, earn your certificate on your schedule. Learners typically take four months to complete the program, but it is accessible for six months.
Great ideas may have been within your reach and you just haven't been able to see them. This program gives you a proven design thinking process that you implement immediately to find creative ways to lead your organization into the future.
Taught by Darden faculty members who are veteran practitioners of design thinking, the Certificate in Design Thinking includes three project-based programs that open sequentially as you finish each one.
Design Thinking Part I: Insights to Inspiration
Identify a human-centered challenge to solve, focus on the needs of your target audience and determine the insights and tools necessary to come up with an ideal solution.
Design Thinking Part II: Ideas to Action
Learn how to take the ideas you developed in Part I, test them for viability and bring them to market.
Discovery Tools
Learn to use tools from the field of human-centered design to discover how to connect with your customers on a human level, to get beyond what they say and observe what they do.
The next certificate program starts January 10th and is accessible for six months. Complete the form on this page to receive the Program Overview and Sample Pacing Guide.
Darden Professor and Internationally-Recognized Design Thinking Pioneer
Jeanne M. Liedtka is a faculty member at the University of Virginia Darden School of Business and architect of the Certificate in Design Thinking. Jeanne is a pioneering expert in the field of design thinking and her passion is exploring how organizations can engage employees at every level in thinking creatively about the design of powerful futures. Her current research focuses on design-led innovation in the government and social sector. In her new book, Experiencing Design: The Innovator's Journey, Jeanne and her co-authors explore how the practice of design thinking leads to both personal fulfillment and innovation activity. Read more of her work on Darden Ideas to Action.
Darden Executive Education & Lifelong Learning is provided by the University of Virginia Darden School Foundation.
