1. Challenge: Describe your challenge, including all relevant information.

This activity and experience goes back to 2012 when I was a member of the relocation  committee to move La Colina from Amman/Jordan back to Iraq. The mission of the  committee was to put in place the relocation plan and big part of that was to find the means  and process to protect and transfer the office institutional documentation, projects data and  reports. The challenges were: 1) big size documentation, 2) means of transfer and protection, 3)  focal points to manage these data 4) capacity and training. The committee conducted several  meetings to brain storming options and solutions. The committee also met with a number of  shipping companies and other organisations who were in process to move back to Iraq to share  their issues of relocation; the difficulty to move servers, expensive cost of shipping, and the  impracticality of copy/scan way of doing this business. All these points were taken into  consideration. After two months of these meetings and discussions with senior management, no  solutions reached nor any suggestions made.

2. Selection: In your own words, briefly describe the tool you selected (e.g., what it is and

why you selected it for your challenge -- including any appropriate video lecture  references).

The committee wrote down all the notes and observations taken out from these meetings. The  members including myself revised feedback from staff working inside Iraq, as well as in Amman,  and tried to make an analysis to apply different scenarios. We decided that we should study all  cases presented and do an experiment to each case through sessions conducted with all units  engaged, programme and operations staff.

3. Application: Describe how you applied the tool you selected to your challenge (e.g.,

what you did and how the tool was applied effectively or ineffectively).

For our first learning launch, we studied each relocation movement scenario separately: how to  move docs, who will monitor and check on the process, how many staff we need, who should be  involved, what type of docs would be used, QA and QC. We also assigned focal points from all  office units to work with us on these tasks, in order to be able to collect their observations and  insights. We allocated one month time to conclude with the cases anslysis.

At that time, we realized that many private companies specially working on e-education and e- learning business use their internal shared folders to save and protect their corporate products  and documentation. This customized sharepoint tool allows organizations and companies to  tailor the platform to their needs. In addition to that any customization has to take into  consideration security, performance, and maintenance measures. We decided to adapt this  sharepoint tool and do an experiment taking as a first stage one unit’s docs, which at that time  was the HR unit. The sharepoint site was like a website which provided us with web parts like  documents library, Calendar, Tasks List, etc. This shared web tool could provide us with more  pages to display content to our users. It was like a collection of sharepoint sites.

We began to work with the HR staff to compile the key documents, templates used, and reports.  We did some sort of classification to arrange these docs. Then, we managed to do the structure  we would follow to upload all these documents. Same time, we realized that we will need  trained and dedicated staff to test and to quality check the sharepoint tool.

4. Insight: Describe the insight you gained from applying the tool you selected to your

challenge (e.g., how an insight affected your thinking about the challenge and about  design thinking more broadly).

Going through the briefing sessions, brain storming of ideas, staff come to live the difficult  situation, work conditions, mitigation and plans B and C. By applying the learning launch tool,  our committee managed to identify more assumptions and anticipated results. During this  stage, we came with below assumptions:

-  How often we need to test the use /update of these docs and template

-  How long it takes to train all staff to use the sharepoint

-  Possibility of virtual /physical training for inside country and new staff

-  How many staff could access the sharepoint

-  What if staff encountered difficult situation and working conditions like no electricity,

work from home due to security, what plans to apply and would this tool still be active and  useful

-  Means to develop the sharepoint tool and maintain its validity and use  -  Timely assessments and surveys

5. Approach: Describe what you might do differently next time -- applying the same tool

you selected or a different one -- and the reason(s) why.

Participating with our relocation committee members and working with them mid of 2012 on  this assignment, I realized that we used more than one tool to apply this design thinking  approach. We had the success story of the private sector as a model for us; we adapted  visualization to make all the assumptions I listed above; we also come to learn more about  virtual staff and learning methods.

After we finished with the first test of the HR unit; we applied the tool to all units with a  development and QA plans for the sharepoint, assigned staff to work on, conducting the  necessary training for all staff from both programme and operations.

