2. Refugees and Asylum Seekers — What Design Thinking Can Do?
Applying the Design and Innovation Framework to the Syrian Refugee Crisis.
This post is a continuation from my last post here.
Re-framing
before I get into re-framing some important notes to remember that might be useful
- Grouping helps — when collecting data from research have information grouped under headings or themes.
- Create a stakeholder value map — aligning each of the key stakeholder identified into specific values they seek out of your solution. This is great for knowing who can influence a solution as opposed to who just needs a solution.
- Define the persona’s personal map in terms of benefits from your solution. What internal v external factors are at play? What can be influenced?
The DT Bootcamp provided us with tools to help us really crystallise these which in turn makes sense or at least starts to make some sense of the mess. As shown on the image below “you are here”
Team’s Emotional journey check: At this stage the group is a lot less confused than the prior 2 days. It seems like we can see a light at the end of the tunnel and feel like there is coherence. Agreeing on the persona and the dropping of the penny on the client’s requirements definitely helped me in understanding the challenge more.
Re-framing a problem or a challenge comes with its own well, challenges. It’s easy to pick the solution you want to design. It is very human to do so. But you must resist the temptation because you are not yet ready to build a concept. A clear reframed problem is yet to be defined. However at the same time it’s OK to reach a conclusion, a hunch on what it is that might be going on here. A solution though is a bit premature at this stage.
Client — The Refugee Company
Persona — name : Hamouda. Male. IT professional. 28 year old Syrian refugee. Arrived in The Netherlands in the last week. Has travelled through 3–4 camps before reaching The Netherlands and is currently awaiting a decision on his working permit.
Timeline — We expect he will receive his work permit in the next 5–6 months.
Emotional journey — Lots of turmoil leading up to the time Hamouda has reached The Netherlands. He has lost his family, a bleak future in his country and exposure to war has made him flee, he has been given a lot of (mis)information on his trip so far and is feeling a bit jaded. Over the last week while in The Netherlands he has been moved twice internally. The mood in the camp is unstable. Exposure to people outside of his normal social circle, although his fellow countrymen has led him to a state of confusion. There is limited networking and not enough clear information on how he might integrate into the Dutch society — his new home.
He is very unsure and anxious about his future, although now that he is in The Netherlands, his final destination, he is also cautiously excited for his future.
Here’s our reframed challenge:
“Given that Hamouda has been accepted to stay in The Netherlands how can we connect him to the most useful resources within 4 weeks that enable him to work from day 1 of getting his work permit”
Key take outs:
- Keep an eye on your persona’s emotional journey throughout this part to stay as close as possible to him/her
- It is essential you avoid jumping to solutions, conclusions however are ok
- What is the context of the environment? What are your persona’s goals, needs, values and concerns?
- Who / What are the key stakeholders — which departments are actively involved?
- Think up a story of his journey, you have the facts and you know what the persona is trying to do, ie his job.
- Quotes are powerful and nothing works like a real quote that embodies the persona’s challenges and his barriers.
Concept
Day 3 began with an introduction to the Concept stage by Ralf Beuker (Dean, Münster School of Design). Ralf took us through some of his recent projects and his journey into Design and Design Thinking while explaining some key tools and principles of the Concept stage. Ralf spent time discussing some basics of the What, How and Why are we using Design Thinking? How to really answer these questions and how designers apply POST.
Ralf noted how broadening the scope of a product or service is paramount to designing something that is nailing the brief. There is a well-known example about what people want — Marketing Myopia by Theodore Levitt.
People don‘t want to buy a quarter-inch drill, they want a quarter-inch hole
(Which immediately reminded me of this article on Medium “What People Really Want”)
In both these examples the product delivers an outcome but the product itself, is not what the customer is looking for, if that makes sense.
DESIGN is using as a set of TRANSFORMATION MEANS that support STRATEGIES based on OBJECTIVES all aiming at PEOPLE
The teams now started to open up the second diamond and diverge into ideation phase. One or two quick ideation exercises on “a stupid idea” were kicked off. Pitch something ridiculous, they said. I might have come up with the idea of employing location-sensitive, trained dogs from the pound who charge battery packs as they run around who can then be “hailed” by an app to come to you as a rescue when you’re out and your phone / laptop battery is running out. I thought it was great. So that task times x 30 ideas from everyone in the group meaning a lot of crazy ideas — really got the juices flowing. Although it sounds a bit like nothing this exercise really helps. In fact, I wonder if you applied this as a short kickoff before a brainstorm in your team — might work?
Anyway, this is the stage where the solution-driver in me wanted to now hear about solutions. All of us took turns explaining where we were in the journey and the understanding of the facts and potentially pitch new ideas for a solution to be prototyped.
It’s really important to let the group contribute. It’s important to let everyone speak — one at a time. Meanwhile each person takes notes listening the ideas of others. The process works really well and no idea gets missed. Then each person display his own ideas on the wall and everyone votes for their favourite bits. This is democratic, and at the same time a great way to open up to new ideas that can be generated by fusing one or more together.
Build on the shoulders of giants
I read somewhere the best creatives steal. Well, not quite but a good way is to always think of other industries and similar problems solved elsewhere and bring into the ideation. This really helps because you start off by building on something that exists and has a bit of a framework. It is also easy for your team to understand something that is based on a real product or service they have seen or know.
We quickly realised that one of the best things we could do for our persona, who is educated, newly arrived, young and motivated is to set him up with a match in his industry. I think I said “a Tinder style match making” one of us said something about “training programs” and another about “industry experts and TED Talks”. There was also a short discussion about renaming the client’s company because The Refugee Company didn’t generate a positive feeling and might be better to change the name(!). All ideas were thrown in the pot.
Our idea finally manifested itself as an in-house training department where new refugees like Hamouda, can come and get to talk to industry experts in their line of work. They will be matched using a system designed to pick the best match in skills (Hamouda) to the demand (hirers). Even though Hamouda couldn’t work we would have sped up the process of introducing and networking which was a key goal of Jay’s.
We included a section where there can be regular TedTalk style events hosted by the Refugee Company. We will invite the Red Cross to spread the message across camps and people would join in from camps everywhere. Industry experts will be invited using social media and volunteers. We will be able to connect 30–40 refugees at each event. We will also provide ongoing communication and support where needed using volunteers.
Here is what it looked like in Lego.
This ended the Ideation time and we took our prototypes to the street and the idea back to The Refugee Company.
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Next post — Feedback, Iteration, Stakeholder management and more.
About me:
Service Designer based in Sydney. With a background in Marketing Strategy and Digital. I love designing for Services and can help you work through the Design Thinking framework for your organisation. I like a challenge and love to hear from like-minded people.
Website — kartik-sharma.com
If you liked my posts, follow me here or find me on LinkedIn.
Co-Founder drømme — dromme.com.au
