Business Question

The Big Idea

You have spent this entire semester learning how to innovate. You reframed problems. You conducted empathy research. You ideated, prototyped, tested, iterated, and built a business model around your solution. You did this with a team.

Now I want to know what happened to you.

This assignment is individual. It is about your journey, your growth, and your next move. It has three parts:

Look Back // Map your learning journey through this course

Look Through a Lens // Choose one article and use it to make sense of your experience and your future

Look Forward // Name the next thing you want to redesign

The goal is not to summarize the course. The goal is to show me that you think differently now and that you know what to do with it.

Part 1: Look Back

Your Learning Journey Map

This comes from Creative Acts for Curious People, Exercise #71: Learning Journey Maps. Action, then reflection. It is the peanut butter and jelly of creative work. One without the other just does not make sense.

Here is what you do:

Get a large piece of paper (physical or digital). Draw a vertical line on the left. That is your scale, from very negative at the bottom to very positive at the top. Draw a horizontal line across the middle. That is time: Week 1 on the left, Week 15 on the right.

Draw your first line in one color. This is your emotional journey. When did this course feel great? When did it feel frustrating, confusing, or hard? Chart the ups and downs.

Draw your second line in a different color. This is your learning journey. When were you learning a lot? When did you stall out? When did something click?

Label the inflection points. Name what happened at each high, each low, and each turning point. Be specific: “Week 7 reframe blew my mind” not just “things got better.”

Step back and look at where the lines overlap and where they diverge. Pay close attention to the moments where learning was high but the emotional experience was low. Those are your moments of productive struggle. You learn the most when it is hard, not easy.

Everyone produces a Learning Journey Map, whether you choose Option A or Option B for your final format. Hand-drawn or digital, either is fine. It must be legible, labeled, and show both lines. If you choose the Pecha Kucha, you will walk through it on screen. If you choose the Magazine Article, you will embed it as a figure.

Part 2: Look Through a Lens

Choose One Article. Apply It.

You will skim all three of the articles below. Then choose one as your lens. Your job is not to summarize the article. Your job is to use it. Apply it to your journey map. Apply it to your future as a leader and innovator. Show me how the ideas in the article help you make sense of what you experienced this semester and where you are headed next.

Your choices:

Article A: “Leaders, It’s Time to Build Your Tolerance for Uncertainty” By Simone Stolzoff | Harvard Business Review | January 2026

This article is about leading through the unknown. The author argues that tolerating uncertainty is now a core leadership skill and offers three strategies: find your anchors (clarify what stays constant when everything else is shifting), build to learn (prototype and experiment instead of over-planning), and row through the fog (treat uncertainty as an opportunity, not a threat). If you pick this article, think about where you experienced uncertainty in this course, how you responded to it, and what that tells you about how you will lead through ambiguity in the future.

Article B: “Use Design Thinking to Navigate Ambiguity” By Amy Bonsall and Alyson Meister | Harvard Business Review | October 2025

This article connects design thinking to how our bodies and brains respond to change. The authors present three biological realities and three design responses: turn problems into opportunities (reframe threats as challenges), create space for inspiration (seek analogous experiences before jumping to solutions), and experiment your way forward (take small steps to generate clarity). If you pick this article, think about how the design process you practiced all semester equipped you to navigate ambiguity, and how you plan to use these tools in your career.

Article C: “Empathy Is a Non-Negotiable Leadership Skill. Here’s How to Practice It.” By Palena Neale | Harvard Business Review | April 2025

This article argues that empathy is essential to effective leadership and provides six strategies for practicing it: develop an empathy protocol, be other-focused, balance individual and group needs, facilitate support instead of taking over, model boundary-setting, and update your language to connect. If you pick this article, think about how empathy showed up in your innovation project (interviews, teamwork, testing, feedback), where it was hard, and how you will practice empathetic leadership going forward.

A strong response does not just reference the article. It weaves the article’s ideas into your own story. You are making an argument: here is what I learned, here is a framework that helps me understand it, and here is how I will carry it forward.

Part 3: Look Forward

The Next Thing You Want to Redesign

Before you do this part, read this:

IDEO: “The Things We’d Love to Redesign” to an external site.

This is a list of 33 things that designers at IDEO want to redesign. LED headlights. Patient portals. The airport experience. Self-checkout. Streaming services. School communication. These are people who spend their lives designing products, experiences, and systems. Everything they interact with is an invitation to wonder: what if?

That is what innovators do. They look around and they see possibility. They notice friction, unmet needs, broken systems, and missed opportunities. They ask better questions. And then they do something about it.

You are now one of those people. So tell me: what is the next thing you want to redesign?

This is not from the IDEO list. This is yours. It can be a product, a system, or an experience in your organization, your industry, your career, or your community. Frame it the way you have learned to this semester:

Who is the user and what is their experience right now?

What assumptions need questioning?

What would a first prototype or experiment look like?

Why does this matter to you?

This is your launch pad. The course is ending. Your work as an innovator is not.

Choose Your Format

You will deliver your final exam in one of two formats. Both require all three parts. Both require a Learning Journey Map. Pick the one that plays to your strengths.

Option B: Magazine-Style Article

1,500 words. With imagery. Written like a practitioner piece, not a term paper.

Think about the HBR articles you read for Part 2. Those are written by practitioners reflecting on real experience, connecting it to frameworks, and pointing toward what comes next. That is what you are writing. First person. Your story. Your insights. Your next move.

Your Learning Journey Map should be embedded as a figure in your article with a brief caption. Include other images if they strengthen your piece: photos from your project, screenshots of prototypes, visuals that support your narrative. This is a magazine article, not an essay. Make it look like something you would want to read.

This format rewards clear, compelling writing. If you are someone who thinks best on paper and you want to practice the kind of thought leadership writing that leaders publish, this is your format.

Submit: Upload a PDF or Word document.

What Good Looks Like vs. What Does Not

Strong:

“In Week 7, my team’s problem reframe forced me to throw out every assumption I had about our user. I was frustrated. On my journey map, that is my lowest emotional point and one of my highest learning points. Stolzoff calls this ‘rowing through the fog,’ and looking back, it was the moment I stopped trying to plan my way to the answer and started building my way there. The next thing I want to redesign is how my company onboards new sales reps, because I now see the same pattern: we over-plan and under-test.”

Weak:

“I learned a lot in this class. The article about uncertainty was interesting. I want to redesign something at my job.”

The difference is specificity, integration, and transfer. Show me exactly what happened. Connect it to the article’s ideas. Then show me you can apply it somewhere new.

Required Readings

Skim all four. Choose one of the HBR articles (A, B, or C) as your lens for Part 2.

Creative Acts for Curious People, Exercise #71: Learning Journey Maps (for Part 1)

Stolzoff, S. (2026). “Leaders, It’s Time to Build Your Tolerance for Uncertainty.” HBR. (Article A)

Bonsall, A. & Meister, A. (2025). “Use Design Thinking to Navigate Ambiguity.” HBR. (Article B)

Neale, P. (2025). “Empathy Is a Non-Negotiable Leadership Skill.” HBR. (Article C)

IDEO. (2025). “The Things We’d Love to Redesign.” (inspiration for Part 3)

Rubric (100 points)

Component What I Am Looking For Points

Learning Journey Map Two distinct lines (emotional + learning). Inflection points labeled with specific, honest detail. Evidence of real reflection, not surface-level summary. Legible and complete. /25

Article Application Chosen article is clearly identified. Key ideas from the article are applied (not just summarized) to the student’s own experience and future direction. The article functions as a lens, not a book report. /25

Your Redesign Challenge A specific, personally meaningful thing the student wants to redesign. Framed using course tools: user identified, assumptions named, first prototype or experiment described. Shows the ability to transfer innovation thinking to a new context. /25

Craft & Format Pecha Kucha: slides are visual (not walls of text), pacing is disciplined, storytelling is clear. Magazine Article: writing is polished, imagery supports the narrative, reads like something worth publishing. Both: all three parts are present and cohesive. /25

Total/100

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