Design Thinking
Because innovation begins with empathy — not ideas.
At a glance
Why This Matters
In a world defined by change, organisations that thrive are the ones that innovate continuously — not just in products, but in processes, experiences, and mindsets. Yet, innovation often stalls because teams jump to solutions before truly understanding the problem.
This workshop introduces participants to the principles and mindset of Design Thinking — a structured yet flexible approach to solving complex challenges through empathy, ideation, prototyping, and experimentation. Through hands-on challenges and guided reflection, learners experience how to design with users, not for them — bringing creativity and customer-centricity into everyday problem solving.
Research by IBM shows that companies embedding Design Thinking practices achieve a high ROI, faster time-to-market, and improved team alignment on customer needs.
300%
ROI
27%
Lower turnover
12%
Boost in productivity
Business Impact You’ll See
“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood — teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.”
— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Designed for
Cross-Functional Teams
Product & Innovation Teams
Managers
Design & Strategy Leaders
Designed the FocusU Way
Behind every FocusU experience lies a design philosophy we call FACETS:
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F
Feedback
Learners get actionable insight into where they stand
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A
Application
Whatever is learnt is applied within the session itself
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C
Contextual
Examples are drawn from the client industry and organization
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E
Experiential
Learning by doing, not by listening
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T
Tailored
Personalised to the lived experiences of the individual learner
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S
Stimulating
Inspiring new thinking and imagination in the learner
Hover over the card
Walk-Through of Learner Experience
At FocusU, every learning experience follows a deliberate arc — moving participants
from awareness to application, and from insight to action.
| STAGE | WHAT HAPPENS |
|---|---|
| Discover | Participants experience engaging activities, challenges and scenarios that surface real attitudes, assumptions, and patterns of behaviour. |
| Reflect | Guided debriefs and discussions help them make sense of what they experienced - connecting it to their personal and workplace realities. |
| Reframe | Learners explore new mindsets, tools, and frameworks that offer fresh ways to approach everyday challenges. |
| Apply | Through practice, planning, and peer feedback, participants translate insights into actionable commitments they can take back to work. |
Every FocusU intervention is designed to move learners from knowing to doing — ensuring
learning doesn’t end in the workshop, but continues in how people think, collaborate, and lead.
Trusted by businesses big and small
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I had an amazing experience for all four days and am sure it was same experience of my colleagues who attended the session. The concepts of bringing new ideas on to the table, igniting critical thinking, understanding the team in a better way through activities and taking the whole group along the course was amazing. Overall it was a fabulous and well-structured, object oriented training.
Ganga Reddy
HCL Technologies Associate General Manager -
Thanks to the FocusU team for conducting a highly engaging, action-packed workshop. The workshop design was innovative; the activities were creatively planned and meticulously executed. Some of the competencies like strategic thinking, innovation, drive for results & team synergy were effectively elicited through play.
Tina Suneja
HomeShop18 Head-Learning & OD -
When I first saw your huge clientele that included companies like Adobe, Deustche Bank and E&Y, I wondered - do large companies keep coming back since you're the best at what you do, or have you turned out to be the best at what you do because large companies keep coming back? That list will grow bigger as FocusU has certainly exceeded all expectation at our recent team building event.
Amit Madan
Collage Group HR Manager -
Thank you FocusU and Smollan L&D team for designing such a wonderful continuous learning program. It acted like small and effective doses to look for what next. Case studies chosen were all relevant for my Global Development Team & I could not ask for more. Let’s plan for some monthly 1 hour on premise confluence sessions.
Vijay Varshney
SMOLLAN Head of Technology - MESA
Frequently asked questions
Don’t see an answer to your question?
Drop us an email and we will get back
The session involves application and feedback. It can also be customised to include video recordings of participants before and after the learning to help them see their progress.
The simulation addresses generic challenges encountered at the workplace. The customisation to the specific cohort as per their industry / company situation is done by the Facilitator running the session.
You can download a program overview from each of the topic pages. Do note that while this will give you a broad structure of the workshop, our learning designers will still need to talk with you to customize the workshop to your context.
For each workshop, we can help you with a set of 3 different teasers that you can customize and share periodically with participants to build excitement and get traction.
Ready to Help Your Teams
Think Like Designers?
Let’s co-create an experience that helps your people reframe problems,
unlock creativity, and design solutions that truly work.