Design thinking training in MelbourneSolve the right problem before you build.
A hands-on design thinking workshop for Melbourne teams who need a checked problem, a rough prototype and a method they can run without us.
- Melbourne, in person or hybrid
Melbourne
Built for a Melbourne room, not a generic offsite
Collective Campus is based in Melbourne and has run corporate and government workshops from here since 2013. Teams in the CBD and on the metropolitan fringe use this session when a build is about to start on a guess nobody has checked with the people who will have to live with it.
We facilitate in person in Melbourne, or hybrid when part of the group sits in another Australian city. What changes here is the brief: your problem, your users and a room that can kill a weak idea before it becomes a project.
- Yarra Ranges Council, on Melbourne's eastern fringe, brought Collective Campus in to train staff in design thinking for day-to-day problem solving.
- In person at your Melbourne office or a room in the city, or hybrid for people elsewhere in Australia.
- Half a day, one day or two days, around a challenge you bring rather than a case we carry in.
- Same facilitator standard as the national workshop. The quotes and client marks below are the real ones, not a local rewrite.
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The problem
Sound familiar?
Solutions first
Teams jump to "build it" before anyone's confirmed it's a problem worth solving.
Assumed, not asked
Decisions get made on what the room thinks the customer wants, not what they actually do.
Expensive guesses
Months of build time sunk into features that quietly get no use.
What you'll walk away with
By the end of the day, your team will have
- A clearly defined problem worth solving, grounded in real user insight
- Firsthand customer empathy, not assumptions dressed up as facts
- A pile of tested ideas, and the confidence to kill the weak ones early
- At least one low-fidelity prototype in hand
- A repeatable method they can run again without us in the room
What we cover
The flow of the day
- 01
Frame the challenge
Align on the real problem and who we're solving it for.
- 02
Empathise
Get into the user's world, interviews, observation, empathy mapping.
- 03
Define
Turn messy insight into a sharp, solvable problem statement.
- 04
Ideate
Diverge wide, then converge, structured brainstorming that avoids groupthink.
- 05
Prototype & test
Build something rough, put it in front of real people, learn fast.
Who it's for
Who should be in the room
No prior experience needed, the workshop is built for cross-functional teams from scratch.
Product & innovation teams
Anyone responsible for building the right thing, not just building it right.
Cross-functional squads
Mixed teams who need a shared language for solving problems together.
Leaders
Executives who want customer-centricity to be a habit, not a poster.
Format & logistics
How it runs
Duration
½-day taster, 1-day intensive, or 2-day deep dive.
Delivery
In-person at your office, offsite, or fully remote.
Group size
8-30 is the sweet spot. Larger cohorts by arrangement.
Tailoring
Built around a live challenge you bring, not a generic case study.
Facilitators
Lead facilitator
Tessa Kowaliw
An incredibly personable design thinking facilitator with years of experience across the private and public sectors, and a passion for driving community outcomes.
Founder, facilitator
Steve Glaveski
Founder of Collective Campus, author of two Wiley books, host of the Future Squared podcast, and regular contributor to Harvard Business Review.
What changes afterwards
Proof
What changes afterwards
“They now question everything, see things through a different lens, and have started to spread that approach throughout the business.”
Melbourne
Questions about running this in Melbourne
Do you run design thinking in person in Melbourne?
Yes. Collective Campus is based in Melbourne. We facilitate at your office or a room in the city, and we run hybrid when part of the team is in another Australian city. Sessions sit on Australia East hours.
Who is the Melbourne session for?
Product, innovation and cross-functional teams in Melbourne companies and government agencies who are about to spend money on a problem they have not checked. No design background is required. Yarra Ranges Council used this training so staff could apply it in their daily work.
How do we book a Melbourne design thinking workshop?
Send the challenge, the team size and whether you want the room in Melbourne or a hybrid setup through the contact form. We scope length and tailoring from that. Half day, one day or two days.
Can the day use a live problem from our Melbourne customers or residents?
Yes. That is the version worth buying. Bring the people who feel the problem and the constraint you cannot ignore. We will not spend the day on a canned case.
Ready to solve the right problem?
Tell us the challenge, we'll shape a workshop around it.