Smith Global Leadership Scholars · Haslam College of Business
Human-Centered Design & Leadership
Courses that make students better leaders and real consultants by starting with people: listen first, find the real need, prototype fast, and lead teams to ideas that work. Together with BUAD 417 Executives in Residence, they lead to the Human Centered Consulting Certificate.
What you will learn
Lead
How to be a great leader
Inspire and mobilize people to tackle tough problems.
- Lead a team through ambiguity
- Build trust so people speak up
- Give and use honest feedback
- Lead before you have the title
Consult
Real consulting skills
Do client work the way consultants do it.
- Scope a client challenge
- Project management: plans, roles and deadlines
- Interview stakeholders and turn data into insights
- Brief the client and present recommendations
Design
Human-centered design
Start with people, not assumptions.
- Observe and interview real people
- Find the need behind the problem
- Brainstorm and prototype fast
- Test with the people who will use it
Grow
Mindsets you keep
Habits that last long after graduation.
- Empathy
- Creative confidence
- Collaboration
- Learning from failure
The courses
IB 407, BUAD 317 and BUAD 497 run in this order. BUAD 417 Executives in Residence, taught by Lane, is also part of the certificate and is taken alongside them. Each topic lives in the course where you first need it, and later courses link back to it.
Step 1 of 3 · IB 407
Human-Centered Design & Leadership
An intensive design sprint in London. You learn human-centered design by doing it: interview real people on the street, find the need, brainstorm, build rough prototypes, test them and tell the story, while learning to lead a team through work that has no clear answer yet.
10 topics · Taught in London
Step 2 of 3 · BUAD 317
Honors Human Centered Leadership Seminar: Advanced Preparation for Honors Projects
Back in Knoxville, design instincts become research skills. You learn action research, build a literature review, write and test interview questions, interview stakeholders ethically, and turn raw data into insights you can defend.
7 topics · Back in Knoxville
Step 3 of 3 · BUAD 497
Honors Human Centered Leadership Seminar: Converting Insights & Ideas into Innovations
A full-year consulting project with a real client. Your team moves from insight to prototype to implementation plan, briefs the client every week, and finishes with the HCD Technical Report (your senior thesis) and a public poster at EUReCA.
14 topics · Two-semester senior capstone
Also in the certificate · BUAD 417
Honors Human Centered Leadership Seminar: Executives in Residence
A senior leadership seminar built around Haslam’s Executives in Residence program. You meet founders and C-suite leaders, research them and their companies, host their visits, and learn how real executives lead people and make decisions.
Taught by Lane Morris, PhD · Not tied to the sequence
Who teaches it
Jules Morris, PhD
Partner, BOMBDIGGITY · Haslam faculty
Jules spent about thirty years in marketing, branding and design, including leading creative teams and serving as Director of Marketing and Community Relations at WBIR, Knoxville’s NBC station. Her PhD from the University of Tennessee focuses on creativity and leadership, and she holds human-centered design credentials from IDEO.
Lane Morris, PhD
Partner, BOMBDIGGITY · Fisher Professor of Innovative Learning · Associate Dean
Lane has taught and led at the Haslam College of Business for thirty-five years. His research covers leadership, organizational development, change and occupational stress. He holds a PhD from the University of Tennessee, human-centered design credentials from IDEO, and executive training in Adaptive Leadership from the Harvard Kennedy School.
Together they write the monthly Human Centered Leadership newsletter (opens LinkedIn in a new tab) on LinkedIn and run BOMBDIGGITY (opens in a new tab), a human-centered leadership and design consultancy. Smith GLS students come from every Haslam major, so the examples here come from finance teams, hospitals, city services, manufacturers and campus life, not just marketing.
Looking for marketing courses? See Digital Marketing (MARK 465) and Visual Marketing (MARK 475), or the full Teaching page.
Frequently asked questions
What is the Smith Global Leadership Scholars human-centered leadership sequence?
It is a three-course sequence at the University of Tennessee Haslam College of Business: IB 407 Human-Centered Design & Leadership in London, BUAD 317 Advanced Preparation for Honors Projects, and BUAD 497 Converting Insights & Ideas into Innovations, a two-semester capstone with a real client. Together with BUAD 417 Executives in Residence, they lead to the Human Centered Consulting Certificate.
What is human-centered design?
Human-centered design is a way of solving problems that starts with the people who live with them. You observe and interview people, define the real need, brainstorm many ideas, build quick prototypes and test them, then improve. The topics on this site walk through each step with tools and examples.
Do I need to be a marketing major to use these topics?
No. Smith GLS students come from every Haslam major, including finance, accounting, supply chain, management, HR, business analytics and economics. The examples come from operations, finance teams, hospitals, nonprofits, city services and campus life, and the topics are open to anyone learning human-centered design.
What do students produce in the BUAD 497 capstone?
Teams consult for a real client over two semesters. Along the way they write weekly consulting briefs and present prototypes, and they finish with an HCD Technical Report, which serves as the senior thesis, plus a poster and abstract for EUReCA, UT's undergraduate research exhibition.