Matt Coleman
Associate, Boston Consulting Group
What were you up to before you came to the d.school?
I had just completed Stanford’s undergraduate program in product design engineering.
How did you hear about the d.school? Why did you come?
As an undergrad, I heard about the d.school through my graduate student colleagues. I came to the d.school to better link my undergraduate work in product design to my graduate degree in management science.
What did you experience when you got here? Why was it meaningful to you?
I took three courses at the d.school: Prototyping Organizational Change, Cross Cultural Design, and Launchpad. While the topics differed from course to course, they all helped me move from a product-oriented design thinker to a systems-oriented design thinker. They taught me that everything in business is a prototype; testing and learning is far better than waiting to implement the perfect plan. And, they taught me a certain scrappiness—that you can change the world with some well-bent pipe cleaners.
What are you doing now? How do you use what you learned at the d.school?
I am an associate at the Boston Consulting Group. There, I help businesses solve wicked problems – so far, mostly marketing-driven turnaround work. To solve those problems, I rely on the systems-oriented design thinking toolkit provided to me by the d.school.
