Design Thinking
DON'Ts for corporate innovation
The anti-playbook: theatre to retire, rituals that waste a quarter, and the few moves that actually move a P&L.
The S-Curve·
// Skills
Digital skills training for people who have to run the work
The useful skills are the ones that change Tuesday. Everything else is a certificate.
Digital skills training for enterprises is not a Microsoft refresh and it is not a TED talk. It is teaching a team to change Tuesday: how they frame a problem, test an idea, treat a customer, run a heartbeat, get hours back or put a model on a hated job.
The useful catalogue is short. Design thinking. Customer experience. Lean startup and product sprints. Productivity and time management. AI training. Agile. AI design sprints. That is the set Collective Campus teaches. It is also the set this newsroom writes about. Everything else is usually a certificate.
I would not buy all of it at once. Buy the skill that matches the constraint. A bank staffing AI-for-teams does not need another agile rollout. A legal practice drowning in seams needs CX and product thinking, not a chatbot afternoon. A transformation office drowning in status needs permission and a 90-day window, not another framework.
How to know it worked
A process that no longer exists. A prototype that got a budget. Hours that came back. Feedback scores are how you grade the lunch. Smile sheets are not residue.
Training without a live problem is a lecture. Bring the work. Bring the owner. Leave with an artefact. That is the whole quality bar. I have seen expensive programmes fail it and cheap two-day rooms pass it.
L&D and a new CAIO or CDO will try to buy a platform that "scales learning." Platforms are fine after you know which skill you are scaling. Before that they are a second LMS. Start with a room and a constraint.
Who it is for
Corporate innovation and digital transformation leaders in AU, NZ, HK, SG, the US, the UK and Canada. The people who have to run the work, not the people who present it. Melbourne, Singapore, New York as studios. The seven markets as story geos. We name companies because you are trying to steal a pattern from a peer, not from a generic "enterprise."
Collective Campus runs AI training and nine other workshops. One link. This hub exists so you can read the argument and the stories before you book a room. We are a newsroom powered by that studio. We will not pretend the skills fell out of the sky.
Corporate innovation and digital transformation are the jobs. The pillars on this page are how those jobs get done without theatre.
What we publish here
The DON'Ts. AI training without the slideware. Design thinking that survives the board pack. The three field guides. Inkeros and Allens as proof that two days and an unglamorous seam beat a mural.
If you are building a curriculum this year, print the seven pillars, cross out the ones that do not match the constraint and train what is left. That is a digital skills strategy. The rest is a brochure.
L&D will be tempted to map every role to a competency framework. Frameworks are fine as a catalogue. They are a stall as a programme. Pick three roles that sit on the constraint. Train those. Ship the residue. Then pick the next three. Scaled learning that never ships is another LMS.
Tenders for digital skills training in government often ask for a menu. Give them a problem-led menu: design thinking for this class of brief, AI training for this class of workflow, agile for this class of delivery. A menu without a problem is how you get a training calendar that looks full and a service that still fails on Friday.
Managers need a different cut of the same skills. Not a longer lecture. A shorter one about how to inspect residue: what to look for in week two, what to kill, what to fund. If you only train practitioners, the managers will accidentally restore the old way. That is how digital skills training becomes a memory.
What we have written
AI Training
AI training without the slideware
A practical sequence for AI literacy that starts where the hours actually leak, not on a capability map.
The S-Curve·
Design Thinking
Design thinking that survives the board pack
How to keep problem framing honest once risk, procurement, and a steering committee enter the room.
The S-Curve·
AI Training
CelcomDigi is asking Huawei to co-design how its people learn
A three-year memorandum in Petaling Jaya. Pathways in AI, data, 5G and cloud, and certifications at associate, professional and expert level. Albern Murty says advantage follows learning faster than the pace of change. Azmi Ujang, the chief human resources officer, was in the room.
The S-Curve·
AI Design Sprints
Singapore is measuring its AI training by what officers change, not courses finished
The Institute of Digital Government wants 150,000 public officers equipped by 2028, and it will judge itself on application and lasting workflow change. More than 1,000 officers have already been through its AI Sprints.
The S-Curve··
Agile
Canva is reshaping a fifth of its roles to get back to small, empowered teams
Melanie Perkins calls it the hardest moment in the company's 13 years. The restructure affects 1,271 roles, makes Sydney the home of product and says AI is shaping the products, not doing the work of those who leave.
The S-Curve··
AI Training
Go1 is putting OpenAI Academy courses inside the corporate learning catalogue
The partnership puts OpenAI's own training in front of the 10,000 organisations already buying through Go1. Access gets easier. Deciding which work changes is still the organisation's job.
The S-Curve··
AI Training
Kier is judging its Oxford programme by what leaders take back
Fifty leaders. A three-day residential at Saïd Business School, then cross-business Growth Groups with Oxford. Stuart Togwell says humans stay at the helm, and the measure is how the learning is applied.
The S-Curve·
Field guides
Work in the room
2-day innovation sprint
Inkeros is a Canadian omnichannel sales and engagement company with 600+ employees across Canada and the United States.
The S-Curve · Jun 18
Service design inside a top-tier legal practice
Workshops with Allens / Linklaters on the unglamorous seams clients actually feel.
The S-Curve · Mar 9
Questions leaders actually ask
- What counts as digital skills training for enterprises?
- Training that changes how a team frames problems, ships experiments, treats customers, runs cadence or uses AI on real work. Design thinking, CX, lean startup, agile, productivity, AI training and AI design sprints. Not a Microsoft Office refresh.
- Should we buy one programme or several?
- Buy the skill that matches the constraint. A bank staffing AI for teams does not need another agile rollout. A legal practice drowning in seams needs CX and product thinking, not a chatbot workshop.
- How do we know the training worked?
- A process that no longer exists, a prototype that got a budget or hours that came back. Feedback scores are how you grade the lunch.
- Who is this for?
- Corporate innovation and digital transformation leaders in AU, NZ, HK, SG, the US, the UK and Canada. The people who have to run the work, not the people who present it.