1. Bern University of Applied Sciences
  2. Business School
  3. Continuing education
  4. CAS
  5. Innovation and Changemanager - with Design Thinking
See table of contents See table of contents

Innovation and Changemanager - with Design Thinking

Do you recognise the ability to innovate and change as essential business factors? Do you want to actively shape your company’s future?

Give yourself and your organisation a clear competitive advantage. Do you want to act in an agile and forward-looking manner? Then this CAS is the right place for you:

  • Qualify as a change agent for the design and moderation of innovation and change processes. 

  • Align yourself to people's needs and develop useable, feasible and viable solutions. 

  • Learn a variety of methods not only to know, but to apply them practically: design thinking, facilitation, lean change, value proposition, agile, scrum, kata coaching, holacracy, lean startup and many more. 

  • Realise the active practical transfer by applying the learned methods to current challenges from your job.

  • Understand the benefits of action learning as an effective form of organisational learning. 

  • Engage in lively exchange with curious and courageous people who want to change their environment. 

Factsheet

  • Degree/Certificate Certificate of Advanced Studies (CAS)
  • Duration 21 study days spread over 6 months
  • Schedule Thursday, Friday, Saturday
  • Application deadline 6 weeks before start, later registration also possible if places are available
  • ECTS credits 12 ECTS-credits
  • Costs CHF 8,500
  • Teaching language German
  • Location Bern, Schwarztorstrasse 48
  • School Business School
  • Next session Please visit the German website for more information

Contact

Downloads (in German)

To register, please visit the German website. 

Content + Structure

Portrait

Transformative and rewarding. This course gives you the tools and skills for driving and shaping change. All the methods you will meet in this programme represent the cutting edge of change and innovation management. Following this course, you will learn how to create useful, feasible and viable eco-systems. 

  • Usefulness ("doing the right thing"): What are the requirements from the stakeholders' point of view? How do they react to possible solutions? 

  • Feasibility ("doing it right"): What is possible and what are possible synergies with partners? How can a solution be optimally developed? 

  • Viability ("doing it sustainably"): What is the business model? Can the solution survive in its economic, social and ecological environment?  

Today, agile organisations are considered the optimal structure to shape change and to keep up with the pace of the markets. Unlike traditional line organisations with their often over detailed processes and stringent hierarchies, agile organisations adapt to new requirements more easily.  

Course objectives

Professional skills  

  • You can independently identify an open problem and propose an optimal procedural model following the three-step approach: Where are we? Where do we want to go? How do we get there? 

  • You can draw on knowledge from a range of disciplines to understand a situation. 

  • You can identify requirements in dialogue with a client and other stakeholders. 

  • You know the basics of creative solution development. 

  • You know the essential aspects of the design process and are able to independently facilitate such process. 

  • You can coordinate a creative group process successfully. 

Methodological skills  

  • You are familiar with various methods from the world of innovation and change management, agile solution development and entrepreneurial thinking. 

  • You are familiar with tools for designing products, services and business models. 

  • You use can the instruments you have learned appropriately and correctly. 

  • You can adapt the instruments you have learned to fit your organisation’s needs. 

Social skills  

  • You will improve your ability to give feedback in an appreciative, respectful and fair manner. We work on keeping feedback professional and considering the subjectivity of the viewpoints and perspectives (using I-messages, perception and effect). 

  • You are able to work towards achieving common goals and appreciate the meaning, value and context of individual and collective learning processes. 

  • You recognise the creative potential of groups and know how to use it in a way that it is appropriate for the task. 

  • You will discuss in groups to deal constructively with the suggestions of others and take joint responsibility for your collective actions allowing you to master difficult situations as a team. 

Self-competence  

  • You will develop confidence in your ability to understand and describe a situation in its complexity. 

  • You will take responsibility for the planning and implementation of analysis processes. 

  • You will critically assess the results of your analysis and learn from your mistakes. 

  • You will gain confidence in your ability to  develop a product or service. 

  • You are involved in a creative process in a constructive and goal-oriented manner. 

  • You can represent your own positions and develop them further in dialogue with your team members. 

Practical project

Working on a real-life problem provides the common thread in this CAS and acts as a lubricant and bonding agent between the learning units.

Bootcamp

Introduction, overview and warm-up in a group challenge.

Future workshop

We first deal with the past (personal, company, world) in a moderated large group, before developing visions and measures for the future.

Complexity and uncertainty

Systemic thinking means that we understand problems as interconnected, dynamic wholes. We are particularly interested in the distinction between complicated and complex as well as the dealing with ignorance and uncertainty.

Sustainability

The design of sustainable solutions requires a practical examination of social responsibility and «circular design».

Facilitation

In the spirit of «action learning», we experience the possibilities of collective intelligence in our own actions, through the application of various forms of large group facilitation.

Change Management

Understanding the character of change projects and expanding the competence to structure complex change projects and to process them in a methodologically appropriate way - also with a view to the emotional-social dimension.

Entrepreneurship & Innovation

Understand the basics of entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship (entrepreneurial thinking and action of employees) in the context of innovation management.

Agile and Lean Management

Get to know values, approaches, methods (such as SCRUM, Kanban, Lean Startup) and experiment with them.

Team development

What conditions, elements and processes are needed for low-friction, goal-oriented cooperation to succeed?

Creativity techniques

Which methodological catalysts can be used to promote the creative-generative process? How do we design spaces of possibility beyond habit and routine?

Design Skills

The basis for success in innovation is interaction with people. A human-centred culture of innovation is needed for something new to emerge.

Lean Leadership

Locating Lean in the context of innovation and change, with the most important principles and concrete instruments for everyday practice.

Holacracy

Insight into a new world of self-organisation, and understanding why and how to live work and organisation differently.

Decision-making under uncertainty

Applied psychology for decision makers, dealing with fear and cognitive biases, rationality and intuition.

Lean Startup Thinking

Putting essential elements of the CAS into an overall context using a business game.

Adults learn differently. That is why the continuing education at the BFH Business school is committed to modern adult education. Our mission with «brain, heart and hand» is an important principle in the design of our offers. Questions in the lessons are based on the participants' professional and practical life experiences. Contact study and self-study phases are combined in a meaningful way, analogue learning environments are combined with digital tools. Microsoft Teams is available as a supplementary tool: you have access to documents, messages and information as well as a chat function within the class.

The didactic forms of teaching range from short presentations and teaching talks to practical exercises and discussions, case studies and group activities. However, the CAS is decisively shaped by two learning activities:

  • Practical project, in which students work in groups of 4 on a practical problem from everyday business life throughout the semester in the spirit of 'action learning' and apply the methods they have learned.
  • Learning portfolio, in which the students create references between the learning content from the lessons and their own everyday practice and deepen the content in a reflection process.

Class attendance

Regular attendance in class as well as the passing of the proof of competence are prerequisites for the successful completion of the degree programme. If you are absent for more than 2 days, you will have to make up for this (after consultation with the head of the degree programme).

Assessment in this CAS

  • Practical project: you will work on a project from the students' professional or private environment in groups of 3 or 4, you will document the process and present the results in a plenary session. 

  • Learning portfolio: You will write a report which demonstrates the links between the content of the course and your everyday experience. 

We offer short, free learning events for all students of our CAS programmes. With these offers we would like to support you in completing your CAS successfully.

Effective learning in continuing education at universities of applied sciences

You will learn about transfer-oriented learning models and techniques. You reflect on your own learning biography and are encouraged to try out new learning behaviour.

Workshop Transfer Report 

You will be supported in writing your report and benefit from active peer counselling. You will present your unfinished report and receive feedback from the audience as well as from an expert.

Methodology Transfer Report 

You will get to know and understand the exact tasks of a transfer report. We teach you the quality criteria to write a good report.

We highly recommend participation for your first CAS. You will receive further information and schedule before the start of the study.

Lecturers

Our lecturers are proven experts with extensive practical and theoretical knowledge in their subject areas. They have at least a university degree plus many years of experience in higher education. 

Ivo Bättig
Partner at Unic, speaker, consultant

Katja Bürki
Partner Creaholic SA, professional inventor, human centered design expert

Lars Diener-Kimmich
Entrepreneur, innovation and leadership coach

Pit Forster
Managing Partner at Forum Momentum

Dr. Michel Geelhaar
Managing Partner geelhaarconsulting GmbH

Prof. Dr. Andreas Ninck
Head of degree programm and lecturer, Bern University of Applied Science, coach, change agent

Daniel Osterwalder 
Facilitator, transformation companion

Christina Taylor
Entrepreneur, managing partner scenarioC, author

Prof. Dr. Kim Oliver Tokarski
Head of continuing education, head of degree programme EMBA, MAS, DAS & CAS, lecturer for entrepreneurship and corporate governance, Bern University of Applied Science

Dr. Philippe Vallat
Independent trainer, coach, facilitator

Admission + further study

Are you an experienced, curious person? Do you want to transform your company into an attractive and viable organisation? In this CAS you will benefit from your classmate’s diverse backgrounds and upgrade your ability to manage change and innovation.

Typical participants are:

  • Experienced, curious and courageous people who want to change their working environment and transform it into an attractive and sustainable organisation.
  • Practitioners who want to prepare for the challenges of a rapidly changing economy and society
  • Leaders who want to discover and develop new business areas in a focused, fast and flexible way and are willing to leave traditional contexts behind
  • Individuals with diverse industry expertise who are open to sharing and developing new ideas collectively
  • Aspiring change agents, innovators, game changers, future shapers ... who want to generate real benefits for the stakeholders in their environment

University degree

You will be admitted to the programme with a degree from a university, university of applied sciences, university of teacher education, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, or an equivalent foreign university and at least two years of professional experience.

Higher vocational training

If you have a qualification from a higher vocational education institution (Diploma Höhere Fachschule HF, Federal Diploma, Federal Certificate of Proficiency) and several years of professional experience, you will also be admitted to the programme. However, you will be required to attend our Introduction to Academic Study before starting the CAS. Completion of this module is a prerequisite for admission to the CAS.

Exceptions

In exceptional circumstances applicants may still  be admitted. The head of the degree programme will make a decision based upon your application and extenuating circumstances. Please contact us. If you are admitted, you will in any case attend the course «Introduction to Academic Writing» (in German) before the first CAS.

Certificate of Advanced Studies (CAS) of the Bern University of Applied Sciences "Innovation and Change Manager" (12 ECTS credits) 

This CAS can be counted towards: 

Organisation + Registration

The programme lasts 21 study days. Classes are held in blocks of 2 - 3 days according to the schedule. The lessons are partly held in creative labs at different companies. Maximum 24 participants.

To register, please visit the German website. 

Documents required for registration

You can register online via registration form. For registration we require following documents (in PDF format, max. 1 MB per document): 

  • Diplomas 

  • Curriculum Vitae 

  • Passport-sized photo (in JPG format) 

Please upload these documents even if you have already submitted them for another application. 

Organisational aspects of the CAS

The registration deadline for the programme is six weeks before it begins. If places are available, later registration is possible. Since the course is always well booked, early registration is recommended.

CHF 8,500 

All costs for compulsory literature, course materials and assessments are included in the price.

The continuing education regulations of the Bern University of Applied Sciences and the implementation regulations for the continuing education regulations apply. The right to make changes is reserved. In case of doubt, the wording of the legal provisions and regulations shall prevail.

Continuing Education Regulations of Bern University of Applied Sciences (WBR) (PDF, 81 KB)
Implementation Provisions for the Continuing Education Regulations WBR in the Business School (PDF, 81 KB)
Implementation Provisions for the Continuing Education Regulations (PDF, 77 KB)
Framework Study Regulations at Bern University of Applied Sciences (PDF, 127 KB)
Regulations on Scientific Integrity at Bern University of Applied Sciences (WissIR) (PDF, 140 KB)
Legal foundations

Advice and information events

Study Counselling

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us.

Head of the degree programme

Administration

Information events

In addition to the information events we offer you our personal advice. By telephone or directly online via MS Teams.

Please contact us!

E-mail: weiterbildung.wirtschaft@bfh.ch 
Phone: 031 848 34 02

Location + Facilities

Bern Schwarztorstrasse 48