How I applied Design Thinking: An approach to problem solving in a human  centric way in my MBA competition.

Problem statement of the competition: How do we make water conservation efforts  sustainable over a long period of time?

The story is about the competition I participated in and applied the principles of design  thinking in order to find out a solution for water conservation which would be sustained  over a long time.  Here, I am trying to reflect on my experience of this competition on the  basis of the methodology and tools explained in this course.

Some of the references that I could relate with are as mentioned below:

• What is? (Primary research, Empathise and Define phase)  • What if? (Secondary Research, Ideate Phase)  • What Wows? ( Ideate and Prototype phase)  • What Works? (Prototype and Test phase)

A methodology to think in a human centric, possibility driven and iterative way

Well, have you ever heard of VUCA? (Volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous). That’s  how today’s world looks like, where the problems are neither known nor defined. Einstein  had said “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created  them.” The world has become increasingly interconnected and complex and in order to  grapple with the rapid changes happening in the environment and behaviour, design  thinking is one way to look at them in a human centric way. (Reference: Uncertain times,  wicked problems)

The problem at hand:

The challenge we had was about finding out a way to make water conservation efforts  sustained over a long period in both rural and urban parts of India where there were  drought like situations.  The organisation which held this competition, had a solution called  “Water ATMs” which was to provide affordable drinking water to all. These ATMs were  running on some water sources but over the time, they were not being sustained. There  were sources of water, there were mechanisms to preserve, reserve and conserve them but  these efforts were not sustaining for a long time. We were supposed to identify what is it  that is at the core which is making the efforts discontinuous? What are the users of the  water resources really in need of by following the design thinking approach and formulate a  solution to this issue.

Design thinking is applicable to above problem because:

• Understanding of the actual people of water resources who were supposed to

conservation efforts is required

• We need to explore and get agreement from all stakeholders like villagers, NGOs,

Government etc.

• Past data is unlikely to help us as it is for long time sustainability.

• Little existing data is available to analyse.

Selection of Tools:

As the competition was based on application of design thinking itself, as per my  understanding, we have applied almost all of the tools mentioned in this course while  working on this four round competition. I have described how these tools are applied in the  phases of my application of design thinking in the competition.

When I went to understand the actual situation of farmers and users of water ATM, I did  follow Journey mapping of entire water conservation and delivery cycle. Tried  understanding value chain and various stakeholders involved through my field visits.

The further phases also involved lot of research of the whole village ecosystem, people  dynamics and socio-economic conditions to unearth the unspoken needs of the users this  required brainstorming, mind mapping and so on…

Finally, we also applied ideation and prototyping phase to see what wows? And what  works?

These tools are:

Journey mapping, Value chain analysis, Mind mapping, Brain storming, concept  development, assumption testing, rapid prototyping, customer co-creation, Learning launch.

Application

The five magical principles of Design thinking:

The design thinking approach is built in five stages not necessarily in any sequence rather  they can go parallel. The ultimate goal is to arrive at the solution which is innovative,  creative and closest to meet the needs of the user.  This approach involves real people  connect, understanding them, feeling their life by being in their shoes, understanding the  values and beliefs which would help us derive insights, lot of brain storming, creativity and  innovation. These stages are as mentioned below:

1. Empathise (Primary research, Understanding users and the situation: What is? :

Journey mapping, Value chain analysis, ethnography, field visits, unstructured  interviews, focused group discussions)  The first step in design thinking approach is empathising. So, in order to understand the  situation on ground, I went to interact with farmers in Latur, India which is a water  scarce region. Empathising means you try to be in the shoes of users. Observe them,  listen to their thoughts, stories, experiences, feelings, emotions and figure out what are  the values and beliefs underneath them. I went into the farms, into their homes, had  casual conversations also tried understanding the dynamics of the village, met with the  dignitaries and tried understanding social ecosystem, power dynamics, and hierarchies.  Farmers were overwhelmed when they shared their experiences of facing drought,  managing debts, shortage of water etc. When I visited some of the water conservation  sites in the nearby farms, they proudly told me stories of how they took part in

constructing it, the situation before it and how it changed their life. We derived  emerging themes out of the data gathered. Empathising helped us in understanding  what the farmers were in need of, what they want, how they behave, feel and think,  why they demonstrate such behaviour.

2. Define (Secondary research, Understanding users and the situation: What is?:

Brainstorming, Mind Mapping Assumption testing, Triangulation)

Then came the defining phase, all of us as a team who participated, sat together to discuss  the emerging themes we derived. The values and beliefs of the farmers and we tried  narrowing down the challenge into nitty grit ties of what they want.  In order to substantiate  the on ground visits, we also did extensive secondary research about the geography, history,  social-political structures, government policies and schemes. We also visited some of the  NGOs operating in that region, who took part in community initiatives for constructing  water conservation sites. All these perspectives helped us in understanding the ecosystem  of farmers better and better. We were able to understand their needs.  What is it that is  coming across while sustaining the conservation bodies? This question was giving us broad  line areas to focus on. So based on the insights of qualitative and quantitative data, we  defined our problem statement under three sub categories.

3. Ideate (What wows?: Visualisation, Assumption testing, Brain storming, concept

development)

Here we go in the most exciting stage! Generating ideas of what can be done? We sat  together with sticky notes, sketch pens, card board and pins to set ourselves ready for  an Ideathon!  We picked up each theme of the problem statement and the timer was  made on for 10 mins. All of us started jotting down our ideas about what can be done in  order to fulfil the needs of the user. Here the focus was not on quality but quantity. We  were not supposed to think whether this is the best possible idea? Whether it will work  or not? Just jot it down! We did it. We conducted three rounds for the three themes of  problem statement and yeah the card board was full of colourful sticky notes and ideas.

4. Prototype (What wows? and what works? : Brainstorming, Learning launch, Rapid

prototyping)

Now this was the stage to make our hands dirty. Out of the ideas that we gathered we  did triangulation and could arrive at a solution which needed to be organic in nature.  The reason why water conservation bodies were not being sustained by the farmers for  longer period was because they were never part of it. They didn’t know how and why it  is going to be helpful for them and even if they knew there wasn’t a constant motivation  to sustain that benefit. Hence after iterative discussions with many stakeholders we  decided to finalise Co-operative model for water conservation bodies. This was a  complete community driven structure where in right from the planning till the daily  maintenance of the water conservation structures, everything was to be done by the  farmers in a complete democratic and organic way. The partnership was between  farmers and NGOs or the organisations looking forward to help them through any

means. We formulated the model. We listed rules and regulations governing its  functionalities and the ways in which this partnership can be mutually beneficial. We  ensured that there is a monetary income being derived and distributed across all the  stakeholders in a fair and transparent manner. This completes the prototyping.

5. Test (What wows and what works? : Customer co-creation, learning launch, Rapid

prototyping)  The last but not the least was the phase of testing our prototype. We had a little  challenge in testing as ours was a solution to the system and it needed lot of time to  actually implement, test whole of it with real people.  What we could do was to discuss  our plan with the stakeholders and understand their perspective of what they feel about  it. Now in design thinking way, the cycle goes on in iteration, we take feedback from the  users, see how the acceptance for the solution is and make the changes accordingly.

None the less, it was all fun and lot of learning all through, enriching in every sense.

Insights:

• I understood how design thinking approach is best suited to resolve the issues of

uncertain times (VUCA world)

• I understood how, every idea counts, and how we can positively leverage the

individual differences in the phase of ideation and co-creation.

• It helped me understand how small solutions and Learning launches help us fail

early, learn and improve quickly to meet the exact design we desired of.

