A technological, data-oriented design journey for teaching and learning business intelligence and analytics projects

Abstract

Design thinking and design-oriented information systems share commonalities in applying specific toolsets to develop product and system designs that address strategic, managerial, and operational problems. How can design thinking be embedded as an innovative and creative learning process to facilitate decision-making in business intelligence and analytics within a classroom environment, particularly during the proof-of-concept stage? This study aims to expand these implications both academically and practically by presenting a technological, data-oriented design process for integrating design thinking into business intelligence (BI) and business analytics (BA) curriculums. The proposed data-oriented design approach highlights five areas that serve as the building blocks of the BI and BA strategy: problem, data, analytics, technology, and user spaces. The case study of a retail supermarket provides guidelines on how alternative designs that emerge during the problem formulation stage of the design thinking approach are transformed into prototypes in the proof-of-concept stage and are subsequently tested and implemented to demonstrate their proof-of-value and proof-of-use in the retail industry. This study also outlines six key learning experiences—categorized as objectives, assessment, space, activities, artifacts, and culture—for teachers, students, IS scholars, CIOs, CDOs, and other top management to create a design-oriented organizational structure.