Reflection – Visualization

Challenge & Selection

The Department of Education has stepped up its efforts to decentralize education

management – a strategy that is expected to improve the Department’s operating  efficiency and upgrade education quality. Here, the tool I used was Visualization  because it is used in every stage of the design thinking management process where it  has the system approach, input, process and output. This process helps in  understanding complexity, visualizing outcomes to create new possibilities. The school-  based management provides school managers, teachers, students, parents knowledge  of their competence on how they will manage the school especially they have greater  control over the education process by giving them responsibility for decisions about the  budget, personnel, and the curriculum that is why there a need to strengthen our  capabilities to create pictures and images in order not only to understand the concepts  but also to encourage them to deep understand a certain idea. Collaboration and  consensus agreement for any decision-related matters should be likewise strengthened  in order to come-up with a good output. Thus, it can create more effective learning  environments for children. the school as key provider of education, will be equipped to  empower its key officials to make informed and localized decisions based on their unique  needs toward improving our educational system.

Application

In order to come up with a more specific, functional and strategic plan that would

directly solve the underlying problems of the school, it should have undergone several  processes. I started by picturing out the school five years after and letting them give  insights based on the organizational vision and mission. Everyone has cited their  personal views on the matter. They have conglomeration of ideas and brainstorming as  to what will be their own dreams for the school and the contributory factors that hinders  the delivery of educational offerings. From that, each one can draw the pressing needs  of the school, root cause analysis of the problem and what are the possible solutions  can be used to answer the problems.

In this, collaborative approach is valuable factor in generating ideas.

Brainstorming is a group technique where efforts are made to find as many solutions to  a problem, we do not look for the right idea instead is to generate the broadest range of  possibilities. Every member is encouraged to participate openly to give their ideas.   After selection of the best ideas generated during the brainstorming sessions, start  creating a prototype of the solution. You build to think and test to learn. In prototyping,  it helps in communication. Visualization have stronger impact, make it easier to  interpret the idea being conveyed.

For the activity, school and community- based meetings were also conducted for

orientation such as the guiding principles and mandate, the process which include the  brainstorming of the roles and responsibilities of each member, vision sharing that  helped in strengthening the working relationship among the members and also foster  camaraderie, everyone has given a chance to share their ideas and reflect on the vision,  mission and core values. Along with the meetings, the team has created a timetable  which serves as the guide on the school improvement process and development, likewise  in the proceeding meetings, the team assess the results of the survey made and identify  the contributors or factors that greatly affect the status of the school as a whole  especially the most pressing needs/ problems. The priority improvement areas (PIAs)  were also determined by the team using the guide rubrics.

From the identified PIAs, project team was also organized which was drawn from

the community, teachers, learners. The relevant data were turned to each project team  for them to analyze.  An orientation was also conducted to each team on how to go over  the assigned PIAs in order to come up with appropriate solutions for each problem. Each  project teams spearhead by the team leader brainstormed and listed possible factors  affecting their PIA. They worked on the PIAs assigned and related to them. After  identifying the different PIAs. The team, decided to set for a meeting for the different  stakeholders or learners who are really the main cause or the direct beneficiary of the  program. They listened to the Voice of the Learners and Stakeholders (VOLS). They made  sure that their insights are gathered through interviews and small group discussion.  From the concerns, needs and problems that were drawn from the discussion and  interviews, the PT listed down the problems arising in each activity which were  considered as the storm clouds, from the different storm clouds in each process. They  look into the specific critical school process to understand further why and where the  needs and problems exist. Thus, it identifies opportunities for improvements.

After selecting the area of focus, the team performed the root cause analysis to

uncover the real source of the problem using the fishbone and the why-why diagrams.  Several solutions were formulated as the outset of the brainstorming of the project team  and they presented it to the SPT with the different documents such as results of Focus  Group Discussions/ interviews with the learners and stakeholders, flow chart of  particular school process and the focus problem statement. Based from the data  gathered, each team for the assigned PIA formulated a certain possible solution from  the results of the brainstorming made.  The project team developed project work plan  and budget matrix for each solution.    After formulating the solutions, the project team tested it to test its effectivity of

the implementation. After the successful testing, the project was implemented and rolled  out to the concerned stakeholders. The SPT then made an Improvement plan based on  the projects made by each PT.    Insight & Approach

What I learned from using visualization as a design thinking tool in managing an

organization is that I am able to scrutinize the pressing needs of the school system  through giving input which is beyond using words or language alone that can be used  them to develop and assimilate new ideas, look connections and insights and thus, clear  and concise solutions can be obtained.

It is important for generating ideas towards realization of a certain goal, the

collaboration and brainstorming activity can be the essential factors in order to define  and deal complex problems in an organization. Through visualization it allows every  member to share their perspectives and walk through the diverse insights presented by  their colleagues. They can picture out the pros and cons of their responses to the  problem- the strength, weaknesses, opportunities and threats towards project planning.  They can also identify variables in the problem space – that is, it helps them to identify  what they don’t know, in what areas they need to obtain information or data to provide  the values for the variables.

At the outset, shared insights and learning from diverse views could come up

with comprehensive and positive results, next time I would use the visualization activity  as a starting point for a series of design thinking activities.

