Project thinking as the basis of professional competence of the designer

Abstract

Education of our time has shifted from the process of translating knowledge to the formation of the necessary skills and competencies in demand in a modern, everchanging and uncertain world. Increasingly, we are talking about the need to build teamwork skills, to develop emotional intelligence, to develop critical and creative thinking. The term "project thinking" has attracted attention during the last decade of many researchers. The main idea of project thinking is to solve the tasks set by companies, by researching, prototyping and testing the product. In this article, the authors consider the origins of “Project thinking" in the study of the design environment and its implementation in the teaching process by teachers. Transversal skills such as the ability to think creatively, critical thinking, explore and work in a team are necessary to guarantee a skilled workforce for adaptation in the face of technological progress. This article shows that it is possible to improve the skills of project-oriented thinking of university design students through carefully designed didactic models and tools, pass on the methodology and train the design-thinking process for application in real business projects, including the practice of empathy, in-depth user research, service design, prototyping new solutions and ideas, as well as their testing.