Autumn
Current cohort
- Dates
- Sept 22 – Dec 6, 2026
- Meets
- Tuesdays & Thursdays, 4:30–6:20pm, Stanford d.school
- Teaching team
- Kursat Ozenc, Shannon Mahon
Culture design now has to work toward both technological adoption and human flourishing. Student teams partner with two health organizations on the same challenge — onboarding — mapping how new people learn what is expected of them, AI agents included, and running live culture experiments against what they find.
Arc
- 01
Module 1: Fundamentals of Culture Design
Weeks 1–2
Intro to human-centered culture design, invisible drivers of behavior, ritual design and share-outs, meeting partner organizations.
- 02
Module 2: Culture Program Design with Partner Org
Weeks 3–10
Discovery through employee interviews and journey mapping, synthesis into insights, reframing the design challenge, and prototyping culture interventions with a partner org.
Partners
MDLIVE
A virtual care company in the Evernorth (Cigna) group. How do you onboard contracted physicians into the platform — its AI agents and its quality standards — so that they do good work, want to stay, and hold to the standard?
San Mateo Medical Center
San Mateo County Health's medical center. Onboarding — how new people arrive, learn what is expected of them, and decide to stay. The specific framing is being scoped with the class.
