Originally written for Carey Business School web portal in July 2021 Peggy Brennan (MBA, Johns Hopkins Carey Business School/MA in Design Leadership, Maryland Institute College of Art, ‘18) had her career in architecture mapped out. When she secured a job at an architecture firm after college, her plan became a reality. But it wasn’t soon after that she realized a traditional architecture path wasn’t her passion. She wanted to use her design skills to solve her clients’ business problems before they broke ground.
Peggy Brennan
“Design thinking gives you a process and series of tools and capabilities that can solve business problems. It’s really well suited for business problems because business problems are very complicated and sticky. They tend to involve a combination of people, processes, technologies, and policy,” Brennan said. “Applying a design approach can help you better understand the problems at hand and what kind of outcome you are solving for.” To Brennan, using design thinking for business needs is “common sense.” “A lot of people get a little shy with design thinking at first. But, apply common sense. You need to talk to the people and understand the context of the problem first to be able to solve and provide a good business solution,” Brennan said. Today, Brennan manages a team that develops products to advance clients’ missions. Her day-to-day includes conducting research to inform strategies for new or existing products. Read the full story on the Carey Business School portal.
