Design@Business Community: One Decade of Design and Innovation Work — and a Challenging 2020
Learn how the SAP AppHaus team, within SAP T&I Customer Innovation, supported the Design@Business (D@B)community to discover their full potential through virtual collaboration and how they managed to end 2020 stronger than ever, with a fresh approach for the future. And don’t forget: clap your hands for D@B’s 10th birthday!
Founded in 2010 by Nestlé, Philips, and SAP, the Design@Business community is a network of like-minded people who share the passion for driving innovation through human-centered design. They started as a small group of people in the USA and Europe, which has grown considerably since then. Today, there are five large communities up and running all over the world: Europe, North America, Brazil, Israel and India. Usually, each community schedules in-person meetings throughout the year to discuss design, innovation and collaboration topics, and learn from one another. This is also what the D@B community in North America had planned at the beginning of 2020. However, everything turned out completely different.
Transitioning from In-Person to Virtual Gatherings
In March 2020, the D@B community had to rethink their existing plans for the following months because of the outbreak of Covid-19. Within a short timeframe, the members planned two virtual feedback sessions supported by the SAP AppHaus Palo Alto. Over the course of two hours, twenty participants discussed the community’s mission, its core tenants and the value of the community to members.
The two meetings took place virtually with the goal to explore the following central question:
How might we connect better and create more value for our community of design-minded people who embrace and drive a human-centered approach to design and innovation in our organization?
As it had been over a year since the last in-person event, the recent community engagement was rather low. In response to COVID-19 and with the desire to break this pattern, the D@B members decided to stay connected remotely and explore the benefits of tools that enable this kind of virtual exchange.
Enablement for Efficient Remote Collaboration in Times of Social Distancing
While discussing the possibilities of remote work, the participants showed high interest in learning about and gaining experience with virtual collaboration tools. Danielle Barisic and Sally Lawler Kennedy, both from the SAP AppHaus Palo Alto within SAP T&I Customer Innovation, and members of the D@B community, came up with the idea for an enablement workshop to facilitate their future remote work. Both are experienced coaches in conducting remote collaborative workshops and applying methods to drive innovation through design in an organizational context.
Workshop Best Practices for Future Collaboration
In this workshop, the group came up with suggestions for future collaboration within the D@B community. Afterwards, participants felt motivated to further engage in the community. Over the course of the year, the communities organized several more meetups and workshops, including a global meetup with a panel discussion about the future of innovation.
Additionally, Sally and Danielle set up a skill-up session in October to share their SAP AppHaus experience and expertise with about thirty interested participants. They also introduced the members to the Innovation Toolkit for Virtual Collaboration, developed and offered for free by the SAP AppHaus. This toolkit is a collection of tools and methods that facilitate applying the Human-Centered Approach to Innovation remotely.
The process of storyboarding was facilitated by the tool Scenes and the SAP AppHaus Mural Templates that are featured and freely available in the Mural Playmaker repository. The sessions generated valuable results and enabled the participants to apply virtual collaboration methods themselves.
Bright Future for the Design@Business Community
Looking back, the virtual sessions strengthened the Design@Business community and its members. It made them build up skills for facilitating remote sessions and providing a forum to connect and collaborate. Single members learned and gained experience to lead their own remote collaboration workshops within the D@B community and beyond.
It even enhanced the collaboration between the local communities which, until then, had been limited to the respective regions. To give an example: a planned knowledge transfer session hosted by the Brazilian community included a presentation of a US-American speaker. That is why the session quickly got extended to an Americas session by inviting members from both American continents.
“After having to switch to a virtual setting for all meetings, we realized that this actually opens up great opportunities for all five D@B communities to connect and support one another to continue innovating.”
- Sally Lawler Kennedy, Senior Director Innovation & Customer Experience, SAP AppHaus Palo Alto
The experiences collected this year can serve as an example for all communities who want to increase engagement remotely and make collaboration more effective. As Danielle Barisic, Senior User Experience Design Specialist at SAP AppHaus Palo Alto, puts it:
“In these hard times of social distancing and economic restrictions, it is wonderful to see and share unexpected beneficial developments”.
The example of the D@B community shows: Challenging circumstances can also result in good take-aways. By overcoming the social distancing barriers, the community developed a renewed sense of belonging and a stronger desire to get engaged.
Interested in becoming a part of the Design@Business community?
Get information here.
By Svenja Müller and Julia Jakob
