Challenge & Selection

Alongside my case competition team of 4, we were tasked with helping our client, a global non-profit  organization that aims to combat poverty and world hunger, with developing a solution to increase  overall quality of life for female farmers in different developing parts of the world. The problem was  intended to be vague and broad to test our ability to work together to get to the real root of the issue.  We were given thick packets of information and statistics on these different areas and current initiatives  that the client had prototyped in the past regarding similar issues.

With limited time to come up with a solution, I almost felt pressure to jump right into the statistics of  the current initiatives and just find a way to adopt current successful models into this specific scenario.  There were so many different directions we could possibly take and so many different resources to  cover – it was difficult to narrow down an avenue to pursue, especially because the problem statement  we were given was so vague. To help us gain a grasp on what we should be focusing on, we decided to  utilize the tool of visualization to help us find a consensus on what a good solution might look like. All  four of us came from very different backgrounds with differing views of what “quality of life” may even  be interpreted as, so we thought it would be imperative to demonstrate our different methods of  thinking before diving into creating specific solutions. With such a broad challenge, we also knew that  visualizing different ideas can help create a storyboard that is easy to understand and would inspire  creativity.

Application

We each spent ten minutes jotting down success criteria and overall ideas of what may make a good  solution on sticky notes, based on the limited information we had about the scenario and personal  experience with either working with non-profits or with classes/previous literature, before diving into  the reading materials. Then, after the ten minutes were up, we each shared our sticky notes and placed  them on the wall in front of us, grouping them by theme, application, or general similarities. After a few  sticky notes would be placed, we often would question the different groupings, rearranging them in new  ways as more and more ideas were placed on the wall. Once all grouped, we had found seven different  criteria for success that we all agreed would be helpful in our search for insight among the reading  materials.

With these criteria in mind, we individually pored over the informational materials, looking for ideas or  insights related to our visualized themes. As we learned more context about our client and their  initiatives, we continued adding sticky notes underneath our established groupings. We drew arrows  connecting sticky notes and groups as we began to see potential synergies and cycles between  initiatives/resources and the client’s biggest issues. We drew boxes and operators to emphasize  potential combinations of ideas as well. By the end of the 45 min brainstorming session, we had a  masterpiece on the wall before us (it also didn’t hurt that the room we were in was composed of dry  erase board walls).

With our sticky note collage displaying our varying ideas reflecting cohesive themes and relationships,  we began to pick out patterns and stronger ideas. We started questioning the sticky notes that had the  most similarities, berating each other with inquiries on how this could potentially solve the problem at

hand and whether or not there was a better way. Piece by piece, we removed sticky notes that didn’t fit  the criteria we had created as much as we originally thought. As we continued to rearrange the  remaining sticky notes, a cohesive solution began to emerge – a solution that was clear to every  member of the team, thanks to our visualization.

Insight

One main insight I gained from this experience with the visualization tool is that it was very useful in  garnering diverse ideas. Often, I’ve found that certain voices in teams tend to speak louder and carry  more weight. Thus, these loud voices will be the first ones to speak, and most people, for fear of  disagreeing and coming across as not being a “team player”, will take the path of least resistance and  advocate for that initial loud idea. Taking the time to visualize multiple ideas allows the ideas to speak  for themselves, regardless of who was the original proponent. Everyone who adds to the visualization is  considered a “team player”, because through adding/editing a visualization, you are able to physically  see the connections and insights that your fellow teammates are trying to get across. It inspires debate –  does that sticky note really belong in that group? Does it make sense to pair x and y, when z so clearly is  more compatible with both? We were able to pick apart aspects of current initiatives and combine them  in unique ways. We never would’ve come up with the solution we did had we not taken the time to  depict what we each were thinking individually. Creating something out of nothing can be very difficult  to comprehend, especially when team members come from different backgrounds. Together, through  the power of visualization, we were able to create a much more cohesive solution that every member  felt a sense of ownership toward.

Approach

One thing that I would do differently in the future (and if I had the resources to do so) would be to  incorporate ethnographic research into the ideation process. While we had access to written personal  accounts of members of the societies we were tasked with helping, it would’ve been monumentally  helpful to actually interact with the users of our solution beforehand and really get to know their pain  points – especially the pain points that hadn’t come out in a documented interview. While the solution  we came up with was creative and responded to success criteria we developed given our resources and  the circumstances of the case competition, when applying it to a real-world solution, I would like to pair  up the visualization process with gathering deep insights through ethnographic research. I think our  criteria for success would have been even sharper and more specific, leading to an even more thought- out solution.

