Fall
- Dates
- Sept 21 – Dec 2, 2021
- Meets
- Tuesdays & Thursdays, 3:15–4:45pm PT, Stanford d.school · 3 units
- Teaching team
- Kursat Ozenc, Ida Benedetto, Anand Upender, Gabi Gavrila (TA)
“A culture undesigned is a culture at the whim of the individuals who move through it.”
Taught as DESINST 221 — the offering behind designorgculture.netlify.app. Framed around Ann Swidler's argument that people reach into culture as a toolkit during unsettled times: COVID, racial injustice, inequality. Three design projects built up from a team's own identity and ritual, through a culture repertoire of policy, habit, ritual and story provocations, to a culture program with a partner org. Ran an Outside-In Speaker Series across the quarter.
Arc
- 01
Module 1: Fundamentals of Culture Design
DP1 · Crafting your team culture
Human-centered culture design, then core values, purpose and symbols — students design their own team identity and ritual.
- 02
Module 2: Forms & Principles of Organizational Culture
DP2 · Designing a culture repertoire
Culture as a system, as behaviors, as practices, and as stories — each paired with a principle (performance, creativity, human flourishing, DEI) and a provocation to design: a policy, a habit, a ritual, a story.
- 03
Module 3: Participatory Culture Design
DP3 · Culture program for a partner org
Participatory design research, insight crafting and journey mapping, two rounds of experience prototyping with the partner, then a final critique.
Partners
Boba Guys
Carry founding values from headquarters down to frontline store teams while the retail footprint grew, against shift turnover and burnout.
Mesa
Establish an intentional asynchronous culture in a remote-first, distributed team — clarifying cross-functional norms without adding meetings.
