How to Run a 90-Minute Design Thinking Workshop in an MBA Classroom

Ninety minutes is not enough for a full design sprint. It is enough to change how MBA students think about problems - if you stop trying to cover everything and focus on Problem space: Empathize and Define with one credible output.

This is the agenda I use for guest lectures and product management electives. It scales from 40 to 120 students (with table groups). It works in person or on Zoom. And it gives students something they can carry into live cases, summer internships, and placement interviews - not just a photo of sticky notes.

What students should leave with

One per team of 4-5:

• A learning goal for empathy work (not a solution hypothesis)
• 3-5 pain points from a structured interview or role-play
• One problem statement in user-need-because format
• A link to the free Academy for self-study after class

You are not trying to reach Ideate, prototype, or pitch deck in 90 minutes. You are proving that design thinking is evidence discipline, not brainstorming theater.

Before class (faculty prep - 30 min)

Pick one case context and stay with it all session. Good options:

• Campus food delivery wait times during peak hours
• Group project coordination in a hybrid MBA cohort
• Small business owner managing inventory without software
• Field service dispatch (operations angle - see operational excellence)

Avoid cases where students are also the users (e.g. "improve our MBA program") - politics overwhelms empathy.

Materials per table: sticky notes, markers, one worksheet with:

1. Learning goal template
2. Pain point capture table (who / observation / frequency)
3. Problem statement formula: [User] needs a way to [need] because [insight]

Share pre-read (optional): What is Design Thinking? and Growth Diamond Model overview - five minutes of reading reduces lecture time.

Minute-by-minute agenda

Time	Segment	What happens
0-10	Hook + framework	Why products fail upstream; Growth Diamond Model in one slide (PSM + EDIDI); promise of the session
10-20	Empathize primer	Learning goal vs hypothesis; 3 interview prompts; empathy interview basics
20-40	Empathize exercise	Pairs interview each other in assigned role (user) or use provided persona script
40-45	Synthesize pain	Table clusters notes; dot-vote top 2 pains
45-55	Define primer	Pain vs problem; problem statement format; pain points to problem statements
55-75	Define exercise	Draft one problem statement; add one success metric
75-85	Gallery walk	Two teams share; class challenges with "what evidence?"
85-90	Close	Academy link, college workshop formats, Q&A

Build in 5 minutes of buffer - MBA classes run long on discussion.

The Empathize exercise (20 minutes)

Setup (2 min): Assign roles. Interviewer asks; interviewee plays the user from the case (or reads a one-paragraph persona).

Prompts on slide:

• Walk me through the last time this problem showed up.
• What did you try before that did not work?
• What would have to be true for this to feel easy?

Rules: No solution ideas. Interviewer takes notes verbatim where possible.

Debrief (3 min): Ask one table - "What surprised you?" That question teaches listening better than any slide.

For a full Empathize-to-Define example in industry, see From Empathy Interview to Problem Statement.

The Define exercise (20 minutes)

Each table picks one pain point (not three). Draft:

[User] needs a way to [need] because [insight from empathy work].

Then add one success metric - time saved, error rate, adoption %, NPS movement. If students cannot name a metric, the problem statement is still too vague.

Faculty move: Challenge solution words. "We need an app" is not a need. "Track status without calling three people" is.

Three mistakes to avoid in MBA classrooms

1. Covering all five phases. Students remember depth in Empathize and Define. Mention Ideate, Develop, Implement - do not fake them in 10 minutes.
2. Letting teams pick any problem. Open-ended "find a problem on campus" produces chaos. Constrain the case.
3. Skipping the gallery walk. Peer critique teaches Define faster than instructor commentary.

Scaling and variants

Constraint	Adjustment
60 minutes	Drop gallery walk; one shared debrief
120 minutes	Add light Ideate - silent brainstorm 10 min, dot-vote, one-minute pitches
200+ students	Table captains only share; use Mentimeter for dot-votes
Online	Breakouts of 4-5; shared Google Doc instead of sticky notes

For a full-day version, see the sample agenda on college workshops.

How this connects to placement and cases

Students who can articulate a problem statement backed by user evidence stand out in consulting and product interviews. The workshop is not career training - but it produces a reusable artifact they can reference: "In our session we defined X for user Y because Z."

That is design thinking as structured thinking, which is what MBA programs intend.

Bottom line

A 90-minute MBA workshop should do less and prove more. One case, one interview cycle, one problem statement, one metric. Link students to the Academy for the full EDIDI path, and offer a longer bootcamp format if the department wants depth.

Inviting a guest session for your cohort? Book a 15-minute call to align on case, batch size, and syllabus fit.