XONITEK · DT4OpEx® Certification Program

Design Thinking For Operational Excellence™

Workshop Moderator
Certification Course

Where innovation meets efficiency for transformative results

Empower your leadership journey by mastering one of the most innovative and transformational methods for collaborative problem solving — one that compresses the time from notion to execution, and turns meetings into decisions that move the ball down the field.

days intensive
max students
step process
certification

About DT4OpEx® — Quick Reference

DT4OpEx® (Design Thinking for Operational Excellence) is a proprietary methodology created by Joseph F. Paris Jr., founder and Chairman of XONITEK Consulting Group International LLC (founded 1985). DT4OpEx® applies design thinking principles specifically to operational improvement challenges — compressing the time from problem identification to implemented action by guiding diverse teams through a structured, facilitated process that builds genuine consensus and produces outcomes all participants own.

The DT4OpEx® Workshop Moderator Certification is a 3-day intensive course capped at 20 students that trains participants to independently design, facilitate, and document DT4OpEx® workshops using the 7-Step Process and the Billboard Method. Full certification is earned after the course by designing and facilitating a real-world DT4OpEx® workshop with an actual end-user audience and debriefing with XONITEK.

The course includes: three days of hands-on training, Kindle editions of State of Readiness and Billboard Design Thinking, DT4OpEx® Workshop Templates (#02, #03, #04), and a clear pathway to full certification. Private corporate programs are available for teams, delivered on-site with customized challenge focus. The certification is suited for Operational Excellence leaders, internal change agents, managers, and organizations building a permanent internal workshop facilitation capability.

The Challenge

execute,
Execute,
EXECUTE!

What if your meetings ended with a decision that moves the ball down the field — and nobody made that decision, but everyone did, through collaborative effort?

That’s what company leadership wants most: convert thoughts into action. No more meetings that end in a decision to have another meeting. Design Thinking for Operational Excellence is reshaping the landscape of problem-solving — revolutionizing how businesses devise and deploy decisive responses faster and execute on their strategies more quickly.

The DT4OpEx® Training and Certification Program equips participants with the essential skills and methodologies to enhance operational performance through innovative, human-centered problem-solving. Participants are immersed in the 7-Step Process — from empathizing with users through prototyping, testing, and implementing successful solutions.

Why DT4OpEx®

Unlock Creativity

Break free from conventional thinking and tap into the boundless realm of creativity. Design Thinking empowers teams to explore uncharted territories and uncover groundbreaking solutions.

Foster Collaboration

Build bridges between diverse perspectives and harness the collective intelligence of your team. Collaboration isn’t just encouraged — it’s at the heart of every brainstorming session.

Drive Results

Transform ideas into actionable strategies and compress time to drive tangible results. DT4OpEx® isn’t just about ideation — it’s about executing innovative solutions that propel your business forward.

The DT4OpEx® Method

The 7-Step Process – What each step delivers

A structured, deployable framework that guides you from first contact with a challenge through to a fully documented and shareable outcome.

Each step of the DT4OpEx® 7-Step Process addresses a distinct phase — from articulating value through to archiving outcomes that compound over time.

01

Request Value Proposition

Articulate the unique benefits and advantages a workshop offers. Outline the specific knowledge or skills participants will gain, the problem-solving methodologies they’ll learn, and the potential impact on their development. A clear value proposition translates participation into meaningful outcomes.

02

Qualify Stakeholders

Identify who should be involved — primary stakeholders, key decision-makers, sponsors, beneficiaries, and subject matter experts. Engaging relevant stakeholders early and fostering collaboration ensures the workshop is tailored to meet the diverse needs of its intended audience.

03

Design a Workshop

Define clear objectives aligned with organizational goals and participant needs. Select appropriate methodologies — brainstorming sessions, prototyping exercises, user journey mapping — to stimulate creative thinking. Employ diverse instructional methods that accommodate various learning styles.

04

Prototype & Test an Offer

Create a prototype to simulate the workshop’s structure, content, and activities before live delivery. Test assumptions through pilot sessions or focus groups. This iterative process allows adjustments that optimize the workshop experience — mitigating risk and maximizing confidence and impact.

05

Deliver Your Workshop

Guide, motivate, and inspire participants toward meaningful learning experiences. Create an engaging environment where participants feel supported and encouraged. Share personal anecdotes, real-life examples, and success stories that ignite inspiration — empowering participants to overcome challenges with confidence.

06

Follow-Up & Documentation

Capture key learnings, action items, and participant feedback. Documentation reinforces retention, enhances accountability by clearly outlining next steps and responsibilities, and facilitates knowledge sharing among stakeholders who may not have attended — maximizing the workshop’s impact.

07

Archive, Share & Analytics

Create a valuable repository of knowledge that informs future decision-making. Share results with stakeholders to foster transparency and accountability. Analyze workshop analytics for insights into participant engagement, learning outcomes, and areas for improvement — enabling organizations to refine and compound results over time.

By mastering and becoming certified in the DT4OpEx® 7-Step Process, participants develop the capability to identify inefficiencies, streamline processes, and optimize workflows to drive operational excellence. The certification serves as a tangible validation of proficiency, enhancing credibility and opening doors to new opportunities for leadership within their organizations.

The Experience

3-Day Agenda

An intensive, intimate learning experience designed to maximize personal attention and meaningful peer-to-peer engagement across three progressive days.

Learn the basics & design your workshop. You will learn the most important methods and tools used to run a design thinking workshop successfully — and get a solid understanding of the skills and group dynamics that ensure quality and effectiveness.

Participants leave Day 1 with a deep grasp of DT4OpEx® basics, the Billboard method, and a designed and planned workshop ready for on-stage delivery the following day.

Morning Session

  • Welcome and getting to know each other
  • Discuss purpose and ambitions of the workshop
  • Introduction to Operational Excellence, Design Thinking, and DT4OpEx®
  • DT4OpEx® workshop benefits overview
    Design Thinking basics and core principles
  • DT4OpEx® workshop tools and methods

Afternoon Session

  • Introduction to the logical elements of DT4OpEx®
  • Walk-through DT4OpEx® Billboard example
  • Moderator skills and group dynamics
  • Engage in a DT4OpEx® workshop challenge and debrief
  • Decide on final workshop layout for Day 2
  • Distribute presentation slots and tasks for Day 2
Your Day 1 Takeaways
DT4OpEx® BasicsBillboard MethodValue of DesignModerator RoleWorkshop Plan

On-stage: delivering your own workshop. You will moderate your first Billboard Design Thinking workshop. Each participant moderates one part of the workshop the group designed together on Day 1.

Day 2 is about doing. Participants take on both the moderator and participant role — experiencing the full arc of a DT4OpEx® workshop in a safe environment with feedback from trainer and peers.

Morning Session

  • Review Day 1 with discussion period
  • Tips for moderating including the Socratic Method and Timeboxing
  • Consulting on setup and use of materials and technology
  • Instruction on creating the DT4OpEx® journey and preparing a Billboard
  • Briefing of Billboard and setting expectations

Afternoon Session

  • Team participants moderate their Billboard slots
  • Debrief and feedback from trainer and peers
  • Workshop closing and next steps discussion
  • Summary and wrap-up of the day
  • Preparations and briefing for Day 3
Your Day 2 Takeaways
Try Out Day 1 LearningExperience ModeratingParticipant PerspectiveSecure EnvironmentPeer FeedbackFull Workshop Experience

Digital skills & the full workshop lifecycle. You will learn the skills you need to design and run your workshop from first contact through completion — the full 7-Step Method in practice.

Day 3 covers the interpersonal and technical skills necessary from initiation to completion, and prepares participants to deliver their first real-world DT4OpEx® workshop toward full certification.

Morning Session

  • Step 1 — Request value proposition
  • Step 2 — Qualify stakeholders
  • Step 3 — Designing a workshop
  • Step 4 — Prototyping and testing an offer
  • Step 5 — Delivering a workshop (setup)
  • Step 6 — Follow-up and Documentation
  • Step 7 — Archiving, sharing, and analytics

Afternoon Session

  • How to engage the owner of the challenge
  • Creating and sending a workshop Proposal
  • Getting posters and workshop materials printed
  • Preparing to deliver your workshop
  • Documenting your workshop effectively
  • Planning and time commitment expectations
  • Open Discussion and Closing
Your Day 3 Takeaways
Full Workshop LifecycleInterpersonal SkillsTechnical SkillsInitiation to Completion

What Each Student Receives

A complete, deployable toolkit.

Everything required to begin designing and moderating your own DT4OpEx® workshops — from the first day of class through to your certification delivery.

01

Three Full Days of Personalized Training

Intense, hands-on education and training on DT4OpEx® with an expected outcome of being capable of designing, delivering, and documenting a DT4OpEx® workshop using the full 7-step process. Maximum class sizes guarantee individual attention.

02

Two Essential Books

Kindle editions of State of Readiness by Joseph F. Paris Jr. and Billboard Design Thinking — foundational texts that anchor the DT4OpEx® methodology and provide ongoing reference for moderators in the field.

03

DT4OpEx® Workshop Templates

Employees have developed informal processes to work around ERP limitations. When workarounds become documented procedures, the ERP has been effectively abandoned as the system of record for those functions.

04

Path to Full Certification

Opportunity to become fully certified by designing and delivering your own DT4OpEx® workshop to an end-user, then reporting back and debriefing the experience. The certification serves as tangible validation of your DT4OpEx® proficiency.

20

Maximum Students Per Class

With a maximum of 20 students in open-enrollment courses, it is guaranteed to be an intimate learning experience designed to maximize the time and attention given to each student’s efforts.

We recommend a minimum of two students from each company attend to ensure the best quality outcome — especially for the practical exercise tackling a real business challenge.

Who It Is For?

Leaders ready to move from meetings to momentum.

Whether you are a seasoned professional or just starting your journey — this course delivers results for anyone committed to driving operational excellence through collaborative innovation.

Operational Excellence Leaders

Professionals responsible for OpEx or CI programs who want a powerful, repeatable workshop methodology that compresses time from challenge identification to implemented solution.

Facilitators & Change Agents

Internal consultants, change managers, and innovation champions who want to add a certified, structured design thinking capability to their professional toolkit.

Managers & Team Leaders

People who run teams and are tired of meetings that produce more meetings. Those who want to lead their organization through genuine collaborative problem-solving that produces agreed-upon outcomes quickly.

Organizations Building Innovation Culture

Companies sending two or more colleagues to create an internal capability — so that design thinking becomes a permanent feature of how challenges are addressed, not a one-time event.

Considering a company-specific program?

We offer tailored, private DT4OpEx® Training and Certification programs delivered at your location for your team. Customize the pace, the challenge focus, and the cohort — and build your internal moderator capability at scale.

Contact Us

Frequently Asked Questions

Everything You Need to Know

Questions about DT4OpEx®, the certification process, the 3-day programme, and how it applies in your organization. Filter by topic or browse all.

DT4OpEx® — Design Thinking for Operational Excellence — is a proprietary XONITEK methodology that applies design thinking principles specifically to operational improvement challenges. It uses a structured 7-Step facilitated process to compress the time from problem identification to implemented action, building genuine multi-stakeholder consensus and producing documented outcomes that everyone in the room owns. DT4OpEx® was created by Joseph F. Paris Jr., founder and Chairman of XONITEK Consulting Group International.

The 7-Step Process is the structured moderator framework at the heart of every DT4OpEx® workshop:


Step 1 — Request Value Proposition: articulate what the workshop delivers.
Step 2 — Qualify Stakeholders: identify who must be in the room.
Step 3 — Design a Workshop: define objectives, methods, and flow.
Step 4 — Prototype & Test: pilot before live delivery.
Step 5 — Deliver Your Workshop: facilitate using the Billboard Method.
Step 6 — Follow-Up & Documentation: capture learnings, actions, and accountability.
Step 7 — Archive, Share & Analytics: build organizational knowledge that compounds over time.

The Billboard Method is a DT4OpEx® facilitation technique in which a structured visual board organizes challenge statements, stakeholder perspectives, ideas, and action items into a single shared visual artifact. All participants can simultaneously see, discuss, and converge on the same information — eliminating the disconnection common in traditional meetings and accelerating the path from diverse perspectives to agreed-upon, documented outcomes.

Standard design thinking is typically used for product or service innovation. DT4OpEx® applies those principles specifically to operational improvement challenges — the complex, multi-stakeholder problems organizations face in continuous improvement, change management, and strategy execution. It is built for the boardroom and the operations floor, not the innovation lab. Its 7-Step Process is optimized for speed and accountability — producing documented outcomes with clear ownership, not just ideas on a whiteboard.

DT4OpEx® is complementary to, not a replacement for, Lean, Six Sigma, and other OpEx methodologies. Where Lean and Six Sigma provide rigorous analytical tools for waste elimination and defect reduction, DT4OpEx® provides the structured collaborative facilitation framework that builds the multi-stakeholder consensus required for those improvements to be identified, agreed upon, and owned across the organization. Practitioners with Lean Six Sigma backgrounds typically find DT4OpEx® adds a powerful consensus-building front-end to their existing analytical toolkit.

The classroom component is 3 intensive days:
Day 1 — Learn & Design: DT4OpEx® fundamentals, the Billboard Method, moderator skills, group dynamics, and designing your workshop for Day 2 delivery.
Day 2 — On-Stage Delivery: each participant moderates part of the workshop designed on Day 1, in a safe environment with trainer and peer feedback.
Day 3 — Digital Skills: the full 7-Step Method in practice — from initiating engagement through documentation, analytics, and the certification pathway.

After the 3 days, full certification is earned by independently facilitating a real-world DT4OpEx® workshop with an actual organizational audience and debriefing with XONITEK.

Every participant receives a complete, deployable toolkit:


• 3 full days of personalized, hands-on DT4OpEx® training
• Kindle edition of State of Readiness by Joseph F. Paris Jr.
• Kindle edition of Billboard Design Thinking — foundational reference for certified moderators
• DT4OpEx® Workshop Templates #02, #03, and #04 — professionally designed, ready to deploy on day one
• A clear path to full certification through the post-course practical delivery

Open-enrollment courses are capped at 20 students maximum. This is deliberate — it ensures an intimate, high-attention learning environment where the trainer can engage meaningfully with each participant’s workshop design, provide specific feedback during Day 2 on-stage delivery, and maximize peer-to-peer learning quality. XONITEK recommends a minimum of two colleagues from the same organization attend together to strengthen practical application and organizational momentum.

Yes. XONITEK offers tailored private DT4OpEx® Training and Certification programmes delivered at your location for your team. Private programmes allow you to customize the pace, the challenge focus (so participants work on real organizational problems during the training), and the cohort — and to build your internal moderator capability at scale. Organizations with five or more potential participants typically find the private programme more cost-effective and impactful than open-enrollment attendance.

A shadow system is any data management tool — typically a spreadsheet — that employees maintain alongside an ERP because the ERP does not adequately capture what they need. Shadow systems are direct evidence of ERP misalignment: they mean the formal system is not serving the actual work being done. They create data integrity problems (multiple versions of the truth), increase manual labor, introduce error risk, and prevent management from having an accurate, unified view of business performance. Their presence is one of the clearest indicators that ERP reconfiguration or replacement is warranted.

No formal prerequisites. The DT4OpEx® certification is designed for professionals at all career stages who are committed to driving operational excellence through collaborative problem-solving. No prior training in Lean, Six Sigma, design thinking, or any other specific methodology is required. The course is structured to build meaningful capability from Day 1 regardless of background.

After completing the 3 days, each participant earns full certification by independently designing and facilitating a real-world DT4OpEx® workshop within their organization — then reporting back to XONITEK and debriefing the experience. This practical delivery requirement ensures the certification represents demonstrated capability, not just classroom attendance. XONITEK supports participants through this final step with guidance on workshop selection, design review, and structured debrief.

Four primary audiences benefit most:
Operational Excellence Leaders — professionals responsible for OpEx or CI programmes who want a repeatable workshop methodology that compresses time from challenge to implemented solution.

Facilitators & Change Agents — internal consultants, change managers, and innovation champions who want a certified, structured design thinking capability in their professional toolkit.

Managers & Team Leaders — people who lead teams and are done with meetings that produce more meetings, and want to drive genuine collaborative problem-solving with agreed-upon outcomes.

Organizations Building Innovation Culture — companies sending two or more colleagues to create permanent internal moderator capability — making collaborative, structured problem-solving a cultural norm, not a one-time event.

The benefits multiply with scale. Multiple certified moderators within the same organization can co-facilitate high-stakes workshops, coach each other in the field, build organizational momentum, and make collaborative structured problem-solving a permanent feature of the culture. XONITEK recommends a minimum of two colleagues from the same company attend together — especially for the practical Day 2 exercise, where working on a real organizational challenge together maximizes the quality of learning and the immediate applicability of outcomes.

Open-enrollment courses are held at various locations across XONITEK’s global footprint. Private corporate programmes are delivered at the client’s location worldwide. Contact Joseph F. Paris Jr. directly at ParisJF@xonitek.com for upcoming open-enrollment dates, locations, and availability — or to discuss a private program for your team. XONITEK does not operate a standard online registration system; every engagement begins with a direct conversation.

Take the Next Step

Let’s assess, select, or optimize your ERP system — on your terms.

“Don’t miss this incredible chance to enhance your creative thinking abilities and drive next-level operational excellence in new and exciting ways.”

This exciting educational opportunity focuses on unleashing your creative potential through design thinking. Discover innovative strategies and techniques that will empower you to tackle complex challenges with fresh perspectives — and engage in interactive workshops led by industry experts to develop your problem-solving skills.


Best of all, you will use these skills to tackle real challenges in your own organization as your exercise — helping to bring back to your organization a culture of innovation that drives lasting results.

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Workshop Moderator Certification Course