Applying Design Thinking to Process & Product Innovation During Times of Market Disruption: A Utilities Case Study

Disruptive pressure is the norm in today’s business environment. In this session, join Wyeth Atchison, MBA, Manager of Experience Design and Carissa J. Schmidt, Ph.D., Principal Experience Design Researcher at Consumers Energy, as they share insights on how companies can implement a design thinking approach to accelerate process and product innovation while embracing disruptions in the market. Using a timely and engaging case study, attendees will learn practical tools and strategies for leveraging customer-centricity, cross-functional collaboration and DesignOps support, and prototyping to drive innovation during times of market disruption.

By the end of the session, the audience will understand:

• The importance of using design thinking to accelerate process and product innovation during market disruptions.

• Practical tools and strategies for leveraging customer-centricity, cross-functional collaboration and DesignOps support, and prototyping to drive innovation during market disruptions.

Speaker: Wyeth Atchison, MBA

Manager of Experience Design - Consumers Energy

Wyeth Atchison is an experience design and energy solutions leader, specializing in service design in the clean energy transition. He currently leads experience design for Consumers Energy’s business retail products. Formerly, he was the President of PlanIT Impact, a high-performance building design SaaS startup and an energy efficiency consultant with CLEAResult. Wyeth has a passion for sustainability which stems from his summers playing in creeks and exploring the Flint Hills while growing up in rural Kansas.

Wyeth earned a BGS in General Studies at the University of Kansas, a MBA at the University of Missouri – Kansas City, and is currently in the first cohort of the MS-CXM program at Michigan State University.

Presentation

Speaker: Carissa J. Schmidt, Ph.D.

Principal Experience Design Researcher - Consumers Energy

Carissa J. Schmidt is an experience design researcher with more than 10 years of experience studying and understanding the complex interplay of social and emotional drivers of human behavior. In her role at Consumers Energy as Principal Experience Design Researcher, Carissa works closely with cross-functional teams to design and execute research that uncovers the always-changing needs, motivations, and behaviors of customers to drive innovation and product design across the enterprise.

Carissa is also an adjunct professor at Brown University where she teaches Program Development at the Local, National, and Global Scale in the Master of Public Health (MPH) online program. She received her MPH and Ph.D. in Health and Human Behavior from the University of Michigan.