The Apron Development Program, a SPRINT and a success
Hi, I’m Kaho, a designer from Cookpad and I’m currently working in the Yeah! Meshi team. This article is about a motivational program that the team and I designed for our homecooks.
A little bit about Yeah! Meshi
The Yeah! Meshi project was created to benefit homecooks and busy families in Jakarta. A team of homecooks sell their nutritious, pre-prepared meals to busy families, resulting in happier, healthier lives all round. We wanted to create a way for talented homecooks to generate supplemental income, but more importantly, give them opportunities to improve their expertise and keep learning.
We have an exceedingly talented team of homecooks, all with a varied range of skills and different reasons for working in the team. We wanted to come up with an idea to help keep them motivated and hungry to learn more.
We decided to develop a program to do just this, and it all came about from a design SPRINT we held in October 2019…
What is a SPRINT?
Essentially, a SPRINT is a short, intensely focused process where a small, diverse team work together to solve business problems over a maximum of 5 days. In a nutshell, a focus is chosen, ideas are sketched out by each team member, a prototype is built and tested by experts and often, a successful product is launched at the end! It’s super effective and it’s how our teams work to solve challenges at Cookpad.
The initial challenges…
Like every great project, we were presented with a few challenges at the start:
- The on-boarding process for homecooks was proving tricky because of different cooking skills.
- People had various motivations for becoming Yeah! Meshi homecooks.
- The process of searching for and finding cooks whose qualities were high enough to be Yeah! Meshi homecooks was extremely challenging.
We decided to hold a 3 day SPRINT to come up with a solution for solving these issues.
The Focus
How might we motivate homecooks to continue growing and learning new skills with Yeah! Meshi?
Over the 3 days, our focus shifted from on-boarding to supporting the continuous growth of homecooks. We decided that just changing the on-boarding process wouldn’t make a big enough impact on the homecooks, so we agreed to design something to encourage them over the long-term.
From the SPRINT, we developed the ‘Apron Development Program’.
The Apron Development Program was created to inspire every homecook to learn more and improve their business through making small, regular changes. The program supports their continuous learning and development, enabling them to become a “better cook than yesterday”, the Yeah! Meshi promise
So, what is the Apron Development Program?
The Apron Development Program is a motivational improvement path, delivered by Yeah! Meshi, dedicated to homecooks with a strong appetite for continuous learning and progression.
When homecooks are recruited by Yeah! Meshi, they are gifted an original apron with a catalogue of badges. Each badge is linked to a particular skill, learning and experience and can be collected as they reach their goals. By wearing the aprons, homecooks are reminded of their commitment to continuous improvement as selected members of the Yeah! Meshi team.
The design evolution of the Apron Development Program
When I started this project, I did some quick research around popular games and how they fired up their users. I wanted to make the reward program as enjoyable as possible so homecooks would be having fun and improving their skills at the same time.
The initial directions of the design were inspired by Pokemon and Dota 2.
The Pokemon-inspired idea was to give home cooks the freedom to develop their own skills. Pokemon gamers have huge freedom around which monsters they can collect in order to assemble their own team. Also, it brings them joy by collecting many different kinds of monsters. From that system, I came up with the idea around the collections of different badges; each category represents different key moments: Journey, Variety, Spike, Community and Achievements.
The second idea, inspired by Dota 2, was to give home cooks a clear path to becoming an ideal Yeah! Meshi homecook. With this idea, homecooks had specific assignments to complete before moving on to the next level. Homecooks started with yellow aprons and gained small badges to show their achievement level as they progressed (this system is also used in other organisations such as the army and scouting).
The final look of the Apron Development Program
We decided to go with the ‘Pokemon’ idea, allowing homecooks to have more freedom with their skill developments.
We wanted the homecooks to feel proud about wearing their aprons and being part of the Yeah! Meshi community every time they create a meal prep for customers. There is a small embroidery on every apron which reads ‘tambah harl, tambah mahir’ in Bahasa Indonesian(better cook than yesterday).
Launching the Apron Development Program
In January 2020, we had our very first homecook meetup in Jakarta. More than 20 homecooks came to the office and we were really excited to launch the Apron Development Program by handing them each an original apron, badges for their individual achievements and a catalogue to highlight what kind of badges would be collectable in the future.
We are hoping the Apron Development Program will evolve in the future to include even more exciting features to attract more homecooks to Yeah! Meshi and continue to motivate our current team.
I’ve really enjoyed being involved in the Apron Development Program; from the initial SPRINT and designing the badges, to the launch in Jakarta. Seeing what it meant to the homecooks to receive their aprons has really inspired me to develop new ideas for the program… watch this space!
