Certified Design Thinking Specialist
For those who run group problem solving: framing the challenge, immersion and synthesis, ideation and co-creation, prototype and testing with the customer.
- Questions
- 50
- Duration
- 60 min
- Passing score
- 70%
- Investment
- $100
The pass mark is fixed: you pass with 70% correct answers, with no curve and no comparison with other candidates.
- Changed your mind? Ask for a full refund within 14 days of purchase, if the voucher has not been used.
- Your voucher never expires. Take the certification exam when you are ready.
- If you do not pass, your next attempt is half price for 90 days.
- The credential never expires and has no annual fee. You pay for the certification exam once.
Who this is for
You run it without a design background
Product, processes, innovation or experience. You were asked to facilitate and need a defensible criterion for deciding when to stop researching, what to prototype and when to close. This is where too much immersion and too little testing does the most damage.
You take part and need to recognise what is happening
Business, legal, operations or technology, called into a session. You need to know what is expected of you at each stage, why criticism is suspended during ideation and why the prototype is not the deliverable.
You sponsor it and answer for the result
You authorised the investment and need to judge whether the work is producing learning or merely activity. You need to know what is due at the end of each stage and which evidence tells a run process apart from a series of meetings.
What you take with you
A permanent verification code
Anyone confirms your credential at pmcert.org/verify, without having to ask you for anything.
Approval that does not expire
A credential you earned does not lapse, asks for no annual renewal and charges no subscription.
LinkedIn and a public profile
Add it to your licenses and certifications section, or share the link to your profile.
A certificate with your score by domain
In PDF, showing how you performed in each area assessed.
What you need to know
Seven domains, drawn at random from a bank written for this certification exam. Read each one and see where you stand.
Fundamentals and mindset
8 questions · 16% of the exam
What holds the approach up before any tool: centring on the user, failing early and cheaply, and the pair diverge and converge as the rhythm of the process. Also the conditions in which it is not the right instrument, and the problem better settled by deciding than by experimenting.
Framing the challenge
6 questions · 12% of the exam
Turning a vague request into a workable challenge: separating the problem from the solution that came embedded in the request, bounding the user, agreeing what is known and what is assumed, and stating from the start what would end the work.
Immersion and research
8 questions · 16% of the exam
Choosing the method by the question to answer, and not by cost or familiarity. Running an interview without leading the answer, telling what the user does apart from what they say they do, and recognising the moment when collecting more stopped adding anything.
Synthesis and definition
7 questions · 14% of the exam
The passage from raw data to a defined problem: turning a volume of notes into a few findings that narrow the solution, building a profile that settles a decision rather than describing demographics, and writing the definition without naming the solution.
Ideation and co-creation
7 questions · 14% of the exam
Deliberate generation of alternatives and disciplined convergence: a stated rule and criticism suspended during production, a selection criterion written before seeing the proposals, and recognising when the session produced apparent rather than real variety.
Prototyping
7 questions · 14% of the exam
The minimum representation that answers one doubt: choosing fidelity by the doubt to be resolved and not by the expectations of the audience, prototyping services and processes and not only interfaces, and stating beforehand what the prototype does not represent.
Testing, decision and implementation
7 questions · 14% of the exam
Writing the criterion for refutation before the test, including the range that means discarding. Running the session without defending the prototype, telling observed behaviour apart from stated preference, and deciding between iterating, implementing and closing.
Test your knowledge with the Open Assessment
The Open Assessment has twenty questions at the level of the certification exam, with the result on the spot and a score for each domain. It is the honest way to decide whether you are ready.
Test your knowledgeSee what the questions are like
Two questions from the free open assessment. The certification exam uses different ones in the same format: a work situation and a decision.
The team opened the idea generation session with the challenge already defined. In the first ten minutes, three participants began discussing the technical feasibility of each proposal presented. The facilitator has to step in. Which intervention preserves the purpose of the stage?
- AReminding them that the assessment of feasibility happens at the convergence and asking for the proposals to go on being recorded without judgement.
- BAsking the technical specialist to classify each idea as feasible or unfeasible before carrying on.
- CEnding the session and rescheduling it with a group without technical participation.
- DAccepting the discussion, because discarding the unfeasible early saves the time of the group.
Show answer and explanation
Answer: A
Suspending criticism during generation exists to separate quantity from quality into two moments. Assessing during production reduces the number of proposals and eliminates precisely those that would need reworking. The technical criterion is not discarded: it comes in at the convergence, which is the next stage.
With the field research finished, the team has one hundred and forty observation notes and twelve hours of interviews. The deadline allows one week before the ideation session. What work does that week have to produce?
- AA report describing what was observed, organised by participant.
- BA presentation with the most striking quotes from the interviews.
- CA small set of findings that narrows the space of solutions for the ideation.
- DA list of features suggested by the interviewees, ordered by frequency.
Show answer and explanation
Answer: C
Synthesis is not a summary. It exists to convert volume into constraint: by the end of it, some solutions are no longer in play. A report organised by participant preserves the volume and postpones the decision. A list of requested features skips the stage and hands over the solution of the user as if it were a finding.
Study from the source of the certification exam
Practise the topic with a free tool
No sign-up tools on subjects of this certification, to apply at work what the certification exam assesses.
- How might we generatorFrom the problem to the questions that open ideation, without jumping to the solution too early.Open
- Prototype test planDecide before the test what to learn, with whom, how to measure and what to do with each result.Open
- Empathy mapOrganise what the persona thinks, sees, hears, says, suffers and wants in a canvas ready for the team.Open
- Kano classifierEnter the questionnaire answers and see each feature classified, with its better and worse coefficients.Open
No course is required
The certification exam is the same for everyone, and how you prepare is your call: a course, a book, or the experience you already carry from the job.
- Changed your mind? Ask for a full refund within 14 days of purchase, if the voucher has not been used.
- Your voucher never expires. Take the certification exam when you are ready.
- If you do not pass, your next attempt is half price for 90 days.
- The credential never expires and has no annual fee. You pay for the certification exam once.
Your access to the certification exam arrives by email as soon as the payment clears, and it does not expire. Payment is handled by Stripe.
See who has already been certified
- Alã Marques
- Viviane Corrêa
- Alessandra Ferreira Rosinha
- Danilo Moises Rodrigues
- Fernanda Paulo Ramos
- Horácio Chilembo
Sample credential
Certified Design Thinking Specialist
- Holder
- Emily Katherine Thompson
CDTS-GNQN-5FPR
Frequently asked questions about the certification exam
›What is the certification exam like?
It is an online multiple-choice certification exam, taken in your own browser, with no scheduling and no exam centre. Questions describe work situations and ask for a decision, rather than testing memorised definitions. Some ask for more than one option, and the screen says how many to select. The number of questions, the duration and the passing score for each exam are on the certification page.
›What is the passing score?
The passing score varies by certification and is published on each certification exam page, alongside the number of questions and the duration. There is no curve and no comparison with other candidates: your result depends only on your answers. There is no partial credit on multiple-response questions either, where the whole set has to be right.
›Can I retake the certification exam? Do I have to wait?
You can retake it, and there is no waiting period and no limit on attempts. What each new attempt requires is a new voucher, because each voucher is worth one attempt. Questions are drawn afresh each time you open a certification exam, so a retake is not a repeat of the previous paper. If you do not pass, you receive a coupon to buy the new attempt at the same certification for half the price, valid for 90 days.
›Does the voucher expire?
A voucher bought on the site does not expire. Vouchers issued to an institution in bulk may carry a deadline set at issuance, and in that case the date is shown with the code. If you lost the email, the code is also in your account, under Certification exams, once your address is confirmed.
›Can I cancel my purchase and get a refund?
Yes, within 14 days of purchase, as long as the voucher has not been used. Write to [email protected] from the same email used in the purchase, saying you want the refund. We return the amount through the same payment method and cancel the voucher in the same act, so the code stops working. A voucher already used is not refundable, even within the 14 days, because the attempt is consumed when the certification exam is opened.
›Does the certification expire? Is there renewal or an annual fee?
No and no. A PMCert credential does not expire: there is no expiry date, no periodic retesting, no renewal fee and no annual dues to keep what has already been earned. You pay for the certification exam once. The only way a credential stops being valid is revocation, which is an administrative act with a recorded reason, not an automatic expiry.
Questions about the certification exam →All frequently asked questions →