In 2026, after nearly 90 years, the Institute of Design was folded into Illinois Tech's School of Design & Society.
This website is an archive of the impactful and inspirational work produced by the ID community before that transition.

László Moholy-Nagy opened the New Bauhaus in Chicago in 1937, treating design as a discipline that was teachable, testable, and consequential. Nine decades on, its scope had widened from the things people use to the systems they depend on: hospitals, government agencies, classrooms, supply chains, digital platforms. Along the way, ID community members developed the published research, methods, and frameworks that designers rely on every day.

Chief among them is human-centered design: close attention to how people actually live, and advocacy for what that research reveals. It shaped designers who are comfortable with complexity and ambiguity: curious, rigorous, inclusive, and stubbornly optimistic about design's ability to change the systems that shape our lives.

To every one of them, who taught, studied, built, critiqued, and stayed late in the studio: thank you, and keep designing.

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Agile Culture

Agile Culture

Understanding key principles, values, culture/behaviors, and methods of Agile in design practice.

“
I feel like I understand agile at a high theoretical level, as well as know how to quickly learn a team’s agile practice and operate in their system, and even look for opportunities to improve it.
—Former Student

Objective & Outcomes

Design Thinking is about defining the right work, and Agile practices are about doing the work right. Agile culture is about clarity of purpose and that all work directly supports the overall value delivered to customers. This course will be a balance of understanding key principles, values, culture/behaviors, and practices of Agile and applying them through learning by doing with peers on an actual problem.

Upon completion of this course, students will be able to decompose a strategy statement into “who, what, wow“ statements, specific features and functions and a backlog of prioritized work that can trace back to the strategic statement in a virtuous cycle.

Typical Schedule

  • Session 1: Situational Awareness
  • Session 2: Project Statement, Hill Statements & Definitions
  • Session 3: Stories & Epics
  • Session 4: Presentation by Company Doing Design Thinking & Agile
  • Session 5: Acceptance Criteria
  • Session 6: Sizing & Prioritize the Backlog

See all MDes Courses