Engineers are educated to solve well defined problems. A fundamental assumption for this
kind of solution finding is that problems are well defined. While there is a lot of problems
which meet these preconditions, there are a rising of number of problems which are
different: they are complex, wicked, with no obvious solution in sight.
Design Thinking is an approach to tackle this kind of problems. It is quite different from the
well-known engineering methods in many aspects. Teams are typically interdisciplinary,
solution cannot be find by following established engineering rules, the method is described
as a double diamond – the first exploring the problem, the second looking for a solution,
In this talk we present the status of the actual academic „mainstream“ education, the
requirements for future engineers, and the difficulties in changing the current mindset.
08/05/2019 13:00
Software Systems
Peter Kaiser is Professor at the University of Applied Sciences Mannheim. He sees his role more as a coach than a lecturer. He supervises and coaches student projects at different levels, eg. a ten-week project with bachelor students from computer science and communication design, or an international, interdisciplinary, innovative, user-centered project with master students within the global SUGAR network. Another area of interest Is software quality, especially for small and medium sized companies.
He has experiences from both the software industry (Siemens) as developer and team leader, as well as from applied research and consultancy as a project leader and department head at Fraunhofer IESE. He holds a diploma in computer science and a Ph.D. from the Technical University Munich.
