Standing before a towering, 8-month long project can feel daunting, especially early on. Our team knows where we are currently positioned, and we know our goal is to create a brilliant, human-centered solution, but the winding path between us and our destination is as uncertain as next week’s weather (especially in Pittsburgh).
While walking into unknown waters can be unnerving, it is also necessary to make forward progress. To embody this statement of advancement, our team has set aside time each week to utilize a variety of synthesis methods to advance our project while checking assumptions along the way.
Leading up to last week’s Sunday meeting, our team had digested a plethora of secondary research, as well as TMP related material. We had also collaboratively distilled our project direction with our client into two problem spaces.
To move forward, our team needed to leverage the knowledge we had each individually gained from secondary research to further break down our research goals. Introducing, Question Mapping!
This exercise began with the following structure:
We split up into two groups, and spent fifteen minutes on each problem space before swapping. Under ‘What problems exist in this space?”, we noted any issues within that space that arose from our secondary research or from talking with our client. Next, under “What are our questions about this space?”, we wrote statements guided by a short set of rules:
- Don’t embed solutions into the statements
- Start statements with: “How might we…” or “Do we know…”
Finally, we connected issues and related statements with a line for additional context.
Filling up an entire wall is fun because it makes you feel like you’re doing something
After a quick half hour, both groups had a chance to fill in their prior knowledge and existing questions for each problem space. From there, we identified which questions could only be answered by interviewing or observing someone in person. Next, our team Visualized the Vote, where we each started with 10 stickers and placed them on the questions we thought were most important.
At the end of this entire process, we had synthesized all of our secondary research and prior knowledge into a set of the most intriguing 6–7 statements. This new set was then used to revise and update our primary research questions.
From this experience, our team has found that Question Mapping is an effective method to help synthesize prior knowledge and establish direction for future research.
