Design Thinking for Tech: Solving Problems and Realizing Value in 24 Hours (Sams Teach Yourself -- Hours)

In just 24 lessons of one hour or less, Design Thinking for Tech helps you inject techniques and exercises into your projects using the same systematic and creative process that designers have used for years.

Anderson walks you through a simple four-phase Design Thinking model, showing how to loop back, keep learning, and continuously refine your work. You start by understanding the essential “what, how, when, why, and who” of Design Thinking. Next, you use core Design Thinking techniques to understand the big picture, focus on your most critical problems, think more creatively about them, take the "next best steps" toward problem resolution and value creation, and along the way rapidly iterate for progress.

Every lesson builds on what you've already learned, with exercises crafted to deliver directly relevant experience. Regardless of your role in the world of technology, you'll learn how to supercharge success for any tech-related project, business initiative, or digital transformation.

Learn how to...

• Apply a simple four-phased Design Thinking model in team and individual settings
• Inject game-changing methods into the project lifecycle
• Gain crucial “big picture” insights into how a situation has evolved over time
• Build and maintain healthier, more resilient teams
• Reskill teams to deliver greater business, functional, and technical impact
• Set and manage realistic expectations through a 360° view of your stakeholders
• Connect, communicate, and empathize with the right people at the right time
• Liberate the ideas trapped in your head so you can explore them deeply with others
• Think divergently, expand creativity, and work through uncertainty
• Navigate problems to quickly arrive at potential solutions
• Deliver incremental yet real value to people who desperately need it
• Start small to deliver greater value at velocity
• Improve how you approach and manage change

Step-by-step instructions carefully walk you through the most common tasks.

Practical, hands-on examples show you how to apply what you learn.

Quizzes and exercises help you test your knowledge and stretch your skills.

Notes and tips point out shortcuts and solutions.

George Anderson is a program director for Microsoft and an adjunct professor and guest lecturer for several universities. George holds Stanford Innovation & Entrepreneurship as well as Innovation Leadership credentials, PMI’s Wicked Problem Solving and Prosci’s Change Practitioner certifications, an MBA with a focus in Human Resource Management, and a PhD in Applied Management and Decision Sciences.

As a program director, George assembles and leads global tech teams that help organizations transform themselves. George’s architects and consultants provide the technology and business skills necessary to design and develop business-enabling technology solutions, and George and his project managers provide the leadership, governance, and communications necessary to deliver those solutions.

In these ways, George’s teams solve problems that drive meaningful change and measurable value. George knows first-hand the power of thinking and executing differently to change our world and often shares those learnings and experiences. He has co-led worldwide design thinking communities within Microsoft and has incorporated design thinking techniques and exercises into several of Microsoft’s governance methods and project delivery methodologies.

Since 2002, George has also been assembling authoring teams to publish popular technology planning and implementation books, including Teach Yourself SAP in 24 Hours (2015) and SAP Implementation Unleashed (2009). More recently, he has shared how Design Thinking can be applied to our work and personal lives through Stuck Happens: 95 Simple Life Hacks for Thinking and Thriving (2021). And George and his team shared guidance and techniques organized around PMI’s Process Groups in Design Thinking for Program and Project Management (2019).

Design Thinking for Tech: Solving Problems and Realizing Value in 24 Hours marries George’s love of people, high-tech software development, platform-based business solutioning, and Design Thinking. It bridges the real-world intersection of technology and more than 130 Design Thinking techniques and exercises useful in learning, empathizing, and solving difficult problems while providing early and repeatable value along the way. Connect with George on LinkedIn or through email at George.Anderson@Microsoft.com.