Mastering Creative Thinking is an online course that will equip you with the creative insights, the ideation tools and the agile experimentation and iteration techniques to develop products, services and experiences that truly connect and resonate with your customers. The course leverages design thinking, creativity management, and agile development principles to encourage creative thinking and innovation. Delivered on demand, you determine the pace and tempo of your own progress as you master the insights and frameworks to generate innovative solutions paths, and refine your ideas iteratively.

The INSEAD-ArtCenter collaboration focuses on integrating design and business thinking for succesful innovation management. This collaboration is supported by the Heinrich and Esther Baumann-Steiner Fund for Creativity and Business and the Creativity-Business Learning Platform.

As part of our MBA program, every year ten design students from the Art Center College of Design (Pasadena, CA) come to INSEAD for four months to learn about structured managerial methods. Their participation in our program provides us with the opportunity to collaborate with people with strong training and background in industrial design. For MBA participants collaborating with designers provides an opportunity to learn the value of using structured methods for creativity generation and presenting ideas in a holistic way through graphical or physical objects. This is relevant in many areas of the firm in which having distinct problem solving capabilities provides special competitive advantage.

The following selected press articles provide further details about the collaboration between INSEAD and the Art Center College of Design:

• “Giving design the business: The ROI on Art Center’s longstanding partnership with INSEAD”, Dotted Line: Art Center’s official blog. March 2015
• “Picturing the art of business”, (INSEAD Knowledge, July 28, 2011; includes video)
• “Schools learn from the world of design”, Financial Times, September 13, 2010
• "MBA students have designs on innovation" (Financial Times, October 8, 2007)

A core course in the INSEAD/ArtCenter collaboration is the MBA course series entitled "Creative Thinking". 

In this course, taught in our MBA and Global Executive MBA (GEMBA) programs, participants learn how to use their creative potential to innovate in organizations in a world with increasingly AI-centered resources. This course teaches how to become a ‘catalyst of innovation’ in an organization. This requires mastering three fundamental creative skills. One needs to be able to uncover innovation opportunities by looking at problems and situations with a user-centric mindset; one needs to be able to think differently to search for novel alternatives to your existing solution paths; and one needs to be able to embrace an experimental attitude to iteratively discover what is truly useful, feasible, and viable. In this course we teach, in a highly experiential manner (without and with AI), strategies to develop those creative skills and how to use AI to foster such a skill set further. Creative thinking combines principles of design thinking, creativity management, and agile development into a single framework.

See here a couple of articles about our collaboration with Disney during fomer edition of this course.

• “Design, Business & Brand: How Creativity Becomes Innovation”, July 13, 2015.

• “A Matchmaker for Public-Private Partnerships”, April 2018

Creative Thinking (Fieldtrip)

This module is a "Reality check" that takes MBA and Design participants to Southern California, not only to visit the Art Center (and learn how Design is taught) but also to visit design studios of companies from various industries and learn how they manage the design/business interface.

1. G. Roels, M. Sosa, and A. Carrick. 2026. ECOALF: Can Sustainable Fashion be Profitable? INSEAD case (Pre-release version; with teaching note)
2. M. Sosa, A. Carrick, A. and A. Johnson. 2026. Airbus and the Hydrogen Horizon: Innovation and Sustainability in Aviation. INSEAD Cases A&B (with teaching note)
3. M. Sosa, and A. Carrick. 2024. The Hotels Network: A New Category in Hotel Tech. INSEAD Case (pre-released; teaching note in preparation)
4. R. Mann and M. Sosa. 2023. ShopBack’s acquisition of Hoolah. INSEAD Case (pre-release; teaching note in preparation).
5. Sosa, M. 2022. A Virtual Reality (VR) visit to Tekka Market (Little India, Singapore). A VR immersive experience to teach user-centered innovation. INSEAD VR Immerse Experience (with teaching note).
6. Baehr, T. and M. Sosa. 2021. FLYDESK – Empowering the “Modern Working Lifestyle”(A)&(B) INSEAD Case 07/2021-6610 (with Teaching Note).
7. Atasu, A. and M. Sosa. 2021. Re-Designing a VHS Tape for Circularity. INSEAD case 05/2021-6670 (with Teaching Note).
8. Martínez-de-Albéniz, V. and M. Sosa. 2020. :)isfrutar. IESE-INSEAD case (in preparation).
9. Carrick, A., J. Mihm, and M. Sosa. 2018. McKinsey and LUNAR: Acquiring a design firm. INSEAD Case 10/2018-6374 (with Teaching Note). An animated video version of this case is available (for registered users only).
10. Carrick, A., M. Sosa. 2018. Eight Inc. and the Apple retail stores. INSEAD Case 12/2018-6303 (with Teaching Note). An animated video version of this case is available (for registered users only).
11. Vissa, R., M. Pich, and M. Sosa. 2017. Public Sector Service Design: Designing the Employment Pass Service Centre for the Ministry of Manpower, Singapore. INSEAD Case 08/2017-6145 (with Teaching Note). Video-case available here.
12. Grover, A. M. Sosa. 2018. The journey behind “My INSEAD Story”. INSEAD Case 06/2018-6116 (with Teaching Note)
13. Singh, A., M. Sosa. 2018. Joyful Frog Digital Incubator: Accelerating Start-ups. INSEAD Case 06/2018-6136 (with Teaching Note)
14. Carrick, A., M. Sosa. 2018. Unilin. INSEAD Case (revised pre-release).
15. Desawar, T., M. Sosa. 2016. Bringing Design to OCBC Bank. INSEAD Case (pre-release)
16. Desawar, T., M. Sosa. 2016. Designing a New Bank for GenY: FRANK by OCBC. INSEAD Case (pre-release)
17. Carrick, A., M. Sosa. 2015. Design at Belkin. INSEAD Case (pre-release)
18. Carrick, A., H. Greve, M. Sosa, and B. Strousse. 2014. Handpresso: From an innovative idea to an alliance portfolio. INSEAD Case 04/2016-5903
19. Carrick, A., M. Sosa, and H. Greve. 2014. Handpresso (C): Growing through alliances. INSEAD Case
20. Carrick, A., M. Sosa, B. Strousse. 2011. Handpresso (A&B). INSEAD Case 11/2011-5841. Also available in iBooks/iPad interactive version.
21. Carrick, A., M. Sosa. 2011. Bazile Telecom. INSEAD Case 05/2011-5755.
22. Carrick, A., M. Sosa. 2011. Mimijumi. INSEAD Case 03/2011-5778.
23. Loch, C., M. Sosa. 2008. Managing Development Complexity in the Design of Mini-Max. Class simulation under revision.
24. Bhavnani, R., M. Sosa. 2006. IDEO: Service Design (A&B). INSEAD Case 11/2006-5276. Winner of the 2008 ecch European Case Award in the category of production and operations management. Best-selling case 2007-2017, 2021 by The Case Centre (Production and Operations Management category). Included in the Classic Collection (Production and Operations Management Category) by The Case Centre in 2021. Also available in iBooks/iPad interactive version. Four short animated videos of this case are available (for registered users only).
25. Balmes, C., M. Sosa. 2005. R&D Management at Universal Luxury Group – Perfumes and Cosmetics Division (A&B). INSEAD Case 07/2006-5260. A revised 2023 abridged version of this case is available.
26. Sosa, M. 2002. Bottle Design at Green Beverage Corporation (GBC). INSEAD Case 06/2002-5046.

•    Design, direction, and teaching of programs focused on "Matering Creative Thinking with AI" (both on-line and on campus)
•    GEMBA: Key Management Challenge on "Creative Thinking (with AI)"
•    Topics include: Design and creative thinking; disruptive innovation management, product management, managing R&D organizations

• Empirical Methods in Technology and Operations Management (2005-present)
• Technology Management Seminar (2002)
• Technology Management Workshop (2003)

• INSEAD’s MBA Best Teacher of Elective Courses Award in Singapore campus July 2021 (for Creative Thinking course)
• Nominated for INSEAD best professor award for MBA elective course (Singapore 2012, 2013)
• INSEAD Dean’s Commendation for Excellence in MBA Teaching (2009, 2011–2016, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023). Did not teach at INSEAD’s MBA during 2017-18 nor 2024-25.
• INSEAD Award for Excellence in Teaching Executive Education (2021-2025)
• Winner of the 2008 ecch European Case Awards in the Production and Operations Management category with the case "IDEO: Service Design (A)". This has been the eccb Best Selling Case in Production and Operations Management for the period 2007-2015