Design Think­ing : A Mind­set and an Essen­tial Skillset in the Age of Dig­i­tal Transformation 

As com­pa­nies dig­i­tal­ly trans­form, design think­ing is being used as an inno­va­tion method­ol­o­gy across mar­kets, indus­tries, and regions. Core ten­ants of design think­ing, such as a prob­lem-find­ing approach, focus on the user and their expe­ri­ence, a fail-ear­ly and fail-fast mind­set, and a col­lab­o­ra­tive work­ing style are key aspects com­pa­nies are using to help dri­ve break­through and con­tin­u­ous innovation.

Com­pa­nies are look­ing for design-mind­ed intrapre­neurs in their com­pa­nies and for cre­ative com­pe­ten­cies across roles — from busi­ness to tech­nol­o­gy to prod­uct and ser­vice.  This ses­sion will pro­vide an overview of the mar­ket need for design thinkers, why it is rel­e­vant across roles in an orga­ni­za­tion, the dif­fer­ent skillsets and com­pe­ten­cies need­ed, and how to go about attain­ing them for your career.

Learn about addi­tion­al resources that you can tap into to fur­ther your knowl­edge on this topic.

Speak­er: Sam Yen, Chief Design Offi­cer & Man­ag­ing Direc­tor of Sil­i­con Val­ley Labs, SAP

Speak­er Bio: 

In addi­tion to lead­ing User Expe­ri­ence & Design (UxD) for SAP, Sam has tak­en over respon­si­bil­i­ties as the Man­ag­ing Direc­tor for SAP in Sil­i­con Val­ley in July 2015. Sam keeps his role as the Chief Design Offi­cer of SAP. He will con­tin­ue to dri­ve a renewed com­mit­ment to design and User Expe­ri­ence at SAP. Under his lead­er­ship, SAP fur­ther strength­ens its mis­sion of lis­ten­ing to cus­tomers’ needs lead­ing to tan­gi­ble results, includ­ing SAP Fiori®, SAP Screen Per­sonas, and SAP´s UX design services.

Pri­or to tak­ing on his cur­rent role as Chief Design Offi­cer, Sam was the Glob­al Head of Design and User Expe­ri­ence. Before that, he led the SAP AppHaus, an inno­va­tion team build­ing new solu­tions, estab­lish­ing new mar­kets, and reach­ing new users for SAP. 

Last year, Sam was a fel­low at d.school (Insti­tute of Design at Stan­ford), where he cre­at­ed the d.forum, a glob­al com­mu­ni­ty of senior lead­ers dri­ving design think­ing with­in their organizations.

Sam came to SAP ten years ago when Has­so Plat­tner formed the Design Ser­vices Team, a mul­ti-dis­ci­pli­nary group in the Office of the CEO, to accel­er­ate the adop­tion of design think­ing at SAP and improve SAP’s User Expe­ri­ence. This was the rea­son for Sam to join SAP and is still his passion. 

Before join­ing SAP, Sam was co-founder of Covi­gna, Inc., an enter­prise soft­ware com­pa­ny that deliv­ered project man­age­ment solu­tions. At Covi­gna, he led the design, engi­neer­ing, and strate­gic cus­tomer engage­ment. Sam is a native of San Fran­cis­co and has a Ph.D. in Design The­o­ry and Method­ol­o­gy from Stan­ford University.