Example Reflection – Storytelling (Design Tool)

Low Percentage of Graduates Employment – Sanella

Submitted on: 17th April 2020  Submitted by:  Om Ahmed Teto

Challenge

I am a staff member in Strategy team at Sanella which is one of the leading federal higher  educational institutions in the United Arab Emirates.  Part of annual strategic performance measuring is to track certain number of KPIs (Key Performance  Indicators) and OPIs (Operational Performance Indicators) by extracting, calculating, validating and  verifying the results achieved along with comprehensive examination to the supporting docs and row data  submitted accordingly.   It is noticed that the KPI argued of %Graduates Employment in 12 months where Sanella keeps  scoring poorly and low (less than 30%) despite all the efforts/plans made is reflecting negatively on the  image of the federal institution and damages the reputation of its graduates at the local jobs market.   Hence; it has been decided to uncover the reasons and discover elements behind slow achievement and  low rates of graduates’ employment by considering some elements via conducting the tool of storytelling.     Selection

The design thinking tool chosen of DT box is “Storytelling” simply because it puts human experience front  and center knowing that we’re dealing with graduates in this example.  We lean heavily on this tool to  support exploring reasons of low rates of employment among the university’s graduates.  This selection is also meant to deeply utilize emotional connections and to know the audience further.    Application

Alumni from the same university was invited to conduct a storytelling session since the storyteller was  once in the same position as the graduates concerned which is anticipated to provide refined  understanding and deep analysis toward their issues, feelings, thoughts and career setback.  During storytelling the level frustration caused by un employment was well discussed to establish two side  communications linkage and to create bonding moments with audience.    A story about a graduate who spent years at home struggling to find a suitable job was told in an  interesting way to have the audience engaged. Additionally; some questions remained unanswered to  build a level of suspense.  The clear sequence of event was logical to navigate audience that eventually  the Alumni in the story found a job at the private sector although a career at government sector was  initially targeted.  The ultimate finding was discovering alternative areas for career success and  advancement. Moreover; the audience similarly interacted and presented their moments of tension and  pain.   The storytelling as a design thinking tool helped all to get the same awareness and understanding  of the problem discussed where all looks forward to solving it.

Insight

By applying the tool of storytelling and via involvement/engagement of audience the impact and outcome  was significant.  The audience came to find that many job contracts at private sectors and banking sectors were declined  since graduates believed working at the government sector comes first.   This was the main reason of low rate of employment among graduates of Sanella.  The pursue/seeking of jobs at only one sector didn’t improve previous results of graduates’ employment.  But the storytelling tool supported shedding light on different career paths to be pursued to minimize  unemployment rates.   Future wise; incorporating this design thinking tool to tackle the percentage of graduates’ contracts  offering will be tracked and closely observed to study how well utilized the tool is in a certain timeframe  (12 months).     Approach

The tool used here is found suitable to capture direct insight of audience and to provide answers to  relevant questions.  The design of the tool led to satisfactory solution of a traditional problem.  Also, the storytelling in this example made an excellent reflection by transforming the employment  strategy to become live, practical, characteristic and personalized.    If time allows it other alternative approaches would have been considered as well such as:

•  Ethnographic Interviews: because this tool would have given a reality sense, genuine feel of  graduates’ life, career hopes and unarticulated needs.  This tool would have also provided deep insights of the issue argued.

•  Brainstorming: this tool would have been conducted not on the traditional way.   It would contain structured techniques, triggered questions, collaborative ideas, multiple rounds  of silent writing ideas that is shared by all to tackle the problem of poor rates in relation to  graduates’ employment.

