Concept Development for Impact
— what I learned in Kathmandu
” We’re very much looking forward to welcoming you all to yet another BUCSBIN event — ‘Concept Development for Impact’ from June 13 to June 17, 2018!” said the welcome letter from Bucsbin. Bucsbin, by the way, stands for “Building University Capacity to Support Business Incubation in Nepal”.
I was looking forward to it as well. I was just a few days away from flying to Helsinki, then Doha, and finally Kathmandu.
“What’s it about”, my friends and colleagues asked. “Design thinking” I replied. “Teamwork”. “Development”. “Solving some problems”. Truth was, I didn’t know for sure. I just knew that it was going to be something I hadn’t done before. As a pre-task, all of us shared an article of something that we wanted to change in the world. Subjects were everything from earth and above, and as interesting they were then, they were even nicer to read after we got to know each other.
On Wednesday morning we gathered on one of the halls of Hotel View Bhikruti. Filling name tags, trying to learn names where consonants and vowels were in totally different places than what we’re used to — I’m sure it was the case for both Nepali and Finns!
After some introductions we started our first task. It was design thinking for a problem we didn’t even know we had. Schedule was announced in minutes and Janne Karjalainen, our facilitator with The Horn, made sure that the schedule was met. After this quick introduction, we were divided in teams with given tasks.
Although we were pressed with the schedule, in the next few days we realized that it made sure that we didn’t get too caught on perfect solutions: fast ideas, fast solutions, and quickly out and about with prototypes. I have to say that I was definitely out of my comfort zone: a civil engineer trying to come up with ideas on how to prevent child abuse! But subject was interesting and diverse teams are really something that design thinking and development is about.
Our teams were also interdisciplinary. We had our facilitators in the same room, ready to help us whenever we needed. But if we didn’t have any questions, they would just observe and gave feedback when tasks were due. Our daily goals were discussed with our personal supporting teacher, and that one-to-one discussion really made me think about my goals and how to improve them.
There’s one more thing that can be seen as a trademark to design thinking, and that is post-its. Those little, colourful sticky-notes are so distinctive to this type of concept that some people even make fun of it. But I think there’s some good reasons to use them. First of all, it’s just a sticky-note. No fear of blank paper, you can fill the whole note with one word. It makes sure that even the smallest ideas get written down quickly. It also makes gathering up ideas easier. No re-writing, no copy-paste. Everyone’s ideas get a place on the board. And when you need to get rid of them (and you do!) it’s easy and quick: you don’t get too attached.
Our teams met two elimination rounds, and you were able to get a new assignment even if your team didn’t get eliminated. That sure made pitch talks more interesting: we weren’t just trying to impress the teachers or judges, but also other students.
I was lucky, and I got to work with two amazing teams. There were few things that made our teams very pleasant to work with. We were quick to notice what skills people had, and we made sure people knew it. We also had a lot of humour in our team, and that made it easy to throw around even the craziest ideas. Pressure to meet the schedule made it sure that we had to come up with ideas and work with them, quickly.
I learned a lot about team work, and lot about trying to listen to what people are saying, even though we don’t share the same language. Working with limited time and different language brought its own excitement in to the situation. But it also helped to be creative and not to take yourself too seriously.
Working with Bucsbin and all the lovely people from Nepal and Finland was certainly an experience I will remember. Thanks to everyone for making it so special!
