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Managing the unknown – Design theory and methods for innovation

picto digital innovation Digital & Innovation

Programme court

Domaines de compétences visés

WHAT IS IT ABOUT ?

This 30-hour face-to-face course, held during PSL Week in November 2026 (23.11 to 27.11), is an in-depth introduction to managing the unknown with the support of design theory. Contemporary issues of managing transitions (climate, energy, mobility, digital…) and managing crisis (pandemia, inflation, energy prices, war…) call for a capacity to organize collective action in the unknown – this capacity is expected from all kinds of managers, and in particular scientists, engineers, and designers. The capacity is today more easily acquired thanks to the advances in design theory: the theory of design (C-K theory) unifies theories of creativity and theories of knowledge and allows the development of methods and organizations adapted to the collective and constructive exploration of the unknown. Design theory brings solid foundation for designing transition and designing resilient solutions to face contemporary crises. These approaches are essential today for those who wish to train in the management of innovation, scientific entrepreneurship, and the management of contemporary transitions.

The course alternates between theoretical lessons in the morning and practical workshops in the afternoon. Practicing designers will also be invited to speak about their experience of design in various areas (business, science, art).

The course begins with a presentation of the challenges posed by reasoning in the unknown and design theory. From this theoretical basis, we will discuss changes in the organization of design, particularly in companies (history of R&D, recent development of « innovation » functions, etc.). We will deepen the question of expertise and knowledge structures adapted to generativity (in engineering, science, design). We will then deal with cognitive aspects (fixations, defixations) and the resulting leadership issues. We will then study the questions of evaluation and economic management and the forms of risk management in the unknown. Finally, we will address the issues of governance and management at the level of innovation ecosystems (« entreprise à mission », architects and colleges of the unknown).

This course is given in english.

LEARNING GOALS

In the end of the course, participants should have acquired the following capacities:

On design reasoning: capacity to build a simple C-K; capacity to evaluate a C-K (based on the acquisition of the notions: C-space, K-space, operators, double expansion
On knowledge for generativity: capacity to learn and develop knowledge for generativity (based on the acquisition of the notions: independent knowledge, splitting knowledge)
On leadership for defixation: capacity to give relevant input to help team members to overcome their own fixation, ie capacity to act as a defixating leader (based on the acquisition of the notions: fixations, defixation)
On economic evaluation in design: capacity to rely on economics criteria for improved exploration (based on the acquisition of the notions of design of decision, design in front of sacrificial dilemmas, design for genericity, the value of knowledge in design activity)
On organization of collective design: capacity to rely on and make relevant use of R&D capacities in companies, capacity to organize innovative design processes (based on the acquisition of the notions: organization principles of rule-based and innovative design, dominant design, value management / design space, KCP processes)
On design and ecosystems: introduction to “double impact” research and “mission-driven” companies.