Design Thinking — Personal Reflection
I came into the Design Thinking course without much by way of expectations. It is the first course I have taken in quite some time, as I have simply not had the mental capacity to take on anything in addition to work and parenting throughout the pandemic. I had taken a systems thinking course in the past and thought perhaps it would be similar. I was distressed that my first impressions at the start of the class seemed to focus on designing items, particularly with a focus on aesthetic. My personal focus is on processes and systems and I am firmly a function over form type of person. I was relieved as we got further into the course and made our way through the stages and steps of Design Thinking. I discovered that I could apply Design Thinking to improve processes and that there are many similarities between the business analytics processes that I employ informally most days in my work.
In my personal project, I took a problem that my team has been struggling with for years and applied the Design Thinking methodology. Putting the problem and myself through the process of identifying the problem, making it human centred (empathizing), reframing the problem and then coming up with possible solutions, prototyping, testing and refining lead me to two great options for helping to address the problem.
For my project, I looked at creating an app to track and remind those accountable of upcoming deliverables. However, I also found when empathizing with our team’s fundraisers — who have a very specific set of goals, but also manage the coordinators who assist them — that a change in organization structure might also be beneficial. Rather than having coordinators report to fundraisers directly, why not have a pool of coordinators who can help different fundraisers as needed? I learned that the problem may not be so much how do we help fundraisers realize that they are responsible for these things, than it is, how do we free up fundraisers to focus on what they are best at and get things done more efficiently at the same time? I brought this idea to a member of our leadership team and learned that it is something that has been discussed previously and is being considered. I take it as a win that using this process, I was able to independently identify a potential solution to an ongoing issue that — while not as unique as I had hoped — is aligned with the thinking of the leadership of my group.
As a large part of my job is finding solutions to problems, I am always looking for, and adding, new ways of looking at problems, working with stakeholders and coming up with ideas to my toolbox. I’m glad to be able to count Design Thinking among the tools that I will use regularly.
