Design Thinking for Innovation:  University of Virginia ­ Coursera,

Final Assignment

Federico Ragni  Italy, 07/29/2016

The Challenge to Be Tackled    My daily work as project manager within an innovation centre is developing and implementing

projects aiming at devising innovative solutions for a wide range of techno­economic,

organizational and institutional issues, which involve various stakeholders with different (often

divergent) interests. Usually, in order to raise the financial resources necessary to realize the

interventions, we apply for financings to European public funding programmes.  When I started to attend this course on Design Thinking, I was finalizing a project proposal

dedicated to build a transnational incubator that should help to launch social innovation

initiatives answering both local and transnational territorial challenges. After having submitted

the application form to the funding programme, my colleagues and I were called to present the

devised solution to some of the stakeholders that should be involved in the project

implementation in the case we are granted the financings. In particular, we had to present the

project to a group of mayors administering some territories on which the incubator should have

some branches. In doing so, the tricky issue to be tackled was to translate a complex

international project written according to the bureaucratic rules of the funding programme in

something understandable for people not directly involved in defining it and looking for concrete

solutions to very contingent local problems. For this reason, our coordinator asked us to prepare

a presentation using a simple, clear and concrete language.    The Selected Tool    On the basis of what was presented during the Module 2 of this course (see the ‘Storytelling

Tool’ video), I decided to propose my colleagues to use the ‘storytelling tool’ in order to draft our

presentation. I thought about such a tool as it puts stakeholders and their priorities at the centre

stage of a product/service/initiative, it makes abstract concepts and models concrete, and

involve the audience through entertaining and emotional techniques. I was therefore convinced

that storytelling could have helped us to simplify the explanation of the project’s intervention

logic avoiding too technical details, to tune the incubator’s activities and contributions to the

contingent and concrete needs of the mayors, and to gain their attention through a fresh and

smart communication approach.    The Application of the Tool

My colleagues approved my proposal and we started to think how to draft the project

presentation through storytelling. That meant, first of all, to decide on two key aspects of our

presentation: a) the narrative to be implemented ­ that is, the story to be told and its structure; b)

the technical means to be used to tell the story. On the one hand, we decided to put at the

centre stage of our story the challenges these mayors and their local stakeholders had

highlighted as territorial priorities in a recent programmatic document (e.g. sustainable urban

development, labour market, healthcare), highlighting that all these problems shared a common

element that could be activated to solve them (= the people) and presenting the incubator as the

instrument to be used to activate such a factor. On the other, we were convinced that we should

have avoided to use Power Point (too analytical and too static) and then we opted for Prezi,

which enables to draft powerful presentation based on a canvas graphically representing a topic

and which can be navigated through. In our case, we decided to cartoonized the towns and the

surrounding territories administered by the mayors with whom we had to talk and to use the

graphic visualizations of the territories as a means to explain the meaning of the challenges. We

worked hard for some days on the presentation, more than usually as finalizing the graphic part

was time­consuming.  And finally the D­Day came. We launched our Prezi presentation in a meeting with all the

mayors sit around the same table and we started to tell the story prepared. And we failed. Our

audience was firstly captured and amused by the graphics implemented and followed with

attention and agreement our evocative presentation of their territorial problems. But when we

passed to talk about our solution to help them, they started to be confused up to get completely

lost during the presentation of the transnational partnership (although the organizations involved

are main players in the field of social innovation at European level). The boss and all the work

team were really disappointed and disheartened.    The Learnt Insights and the Approach To Be Adopted Next Time     In the following days, we started to think about what went wrong. Did that remain the first and

last time in which we used storytelling to present a project? At all! In fact, it was immediately

clear to all of us that such a tool allows us to translate the technical language we use in devising

the innovation solutions and in submitting them to the institutional financiers into a discourse

more accessible to all the other stakeholders. After all, our presentation of the mayors’ territorial

problems was well understood and enjoyed, and enabled us to connect a project taking into

account the prerogatives of very different actors to the specific needs of a specific stakeholder.

Yet, it was also clear that the presentation’s section dedicated to the more abstract aspects of

our innovation solution was the real problem: in this case, we failed to make our language

concrete and to present an intangible innovation (a service) as a tangible instrument to use in

the day­to­day work. In this regard, the use of examples of concrete social initiatives that can be

launched through the incubator could have helped to clarify how the incubator actually works

and which benefits can provide.   Such considerations convinced us that the logic behind the storytelling tool ­ that is, the very

logic of design thinking which suggests to start from real needs expressed by real people to

arrive to devise simple and concrete solutions easily understandable and usable by them ­ is to

be implemented not only for presenting the innovations but also and foremost for developing

them. Consequently, my work team decided to deepen the design thinking approach and to try

to adopt it, updating our work tools and models.


Design Thinking for Innovation : University of Virginia ­ Coursera , Final Assignment Federico Ragni Italy , 07/29/2016 The Challenge to Be Tackled My daily work as project manager within an innovation centre is developing and implementing projects aiming at devising innovative solutions for a wide range of techno­economic , organizational and institutional issues , which involve various stakeholders with different ( often divergent ) interests . Usually , in order to raise the financial resources necessary to realize the interventions , we apply for financings to European public funding programmes . When I started to attend this course on Design Thinking , I was finalizing a project proposal dedicated to build a transnational incubator that should help to launch social innovation initiatives answering both local and transnational territorial challenges . After having submitted the application form to the funding programme , my colleagues and I were called to present the devised solution to some of the stakeholders that should be involved in the project implementation in the case we are granted the financings . In particular , we had to present the project to a group of mayors administering some territories on which the incubator should have some branches . In doing so , the tricky issue to be tackled was to translate a complex international project written according to the bureaucratic rules of the funding programme in something understandable for people not directly involved in defining it and looking for concrete solutions to very contingent local problems . For this reason , our coordinator asked us to prepare a presentation using a simple , clear and concrete language . The Selected Tool On the basis of what was presented during the Module 2 of this course ( see the ‘ Storytelling Tool ’ video ) , I decided to propose my colleagues to use the ‘ storytelling tool ’ in order to draft our presentation . I thought about such a tool as it puts stakeholders and their priorities at the centre stage of a product / service / initiative , it makes abstract concepts and models concrete , and involve the audience through entertaining and emotional techniques . I was therefore convinced that storytelling could have helped us to simplify the explanation of the project ’s intervention logic avoiding too technical details , to tune the incubator ’s activities and contributions to the contingent and concrete needs of the mayors , and to gain their attention through a fresh and smart communication approach . The Application of the Tool My colleagues approved my proposal and we started to think how to draft the project presentation through storytelling . That meant , first of all , to decide on two key aspects of our presentation : a ) the narrative to be implemented ­ that is , the story to be told and its structure; b ) the technical means to be used to tell the story . On the one hand , we decided to put at the centre stage of our story the challenges these mayors and their local stakeholders had highlighted as territorial priorities in a recent programmatic document ( e.g. sustainable urban development , labour market , healthcare ) , highlighting that all these problems shared a common element that could be activated to solve them (= the people ) and presenting the incubator as the instrument to be used to activate such a factor . On the other , we were convinced that we should have avoided to use Power Point ( too analytical and too static ) and then we opted for Prezi , which enables to draft powerful presentation based on a canvas graphically representing a topic and which can be navigated through . In our case , we decided to cartoonized the towns and the surrounding territories administered by the mayors with whom we had to talk and to use the graphic visualizations of the territories as a means to explain the meaning of the challenges . We worked hard for some days on the presentation , more than usually as finalizing the graphic part was time­consuming . And finally the D­Day came . We launched our Prezi presentation in a meeting with all the mayors sit around the same table and we started to tell the story prepared . And we failed . Our audience was firstly captured and amused by the graphics implemented and followed with attention and agreement our evocative presentation of their territorial problems . But when we passed to talk about our solution to help them , they started to be confused up to get completely lost during the presentation of the transnational partnership ( although the organizations involved are main players in the field of social innovation at European level ) . The boss and all the work team were really disappointed and disheartened . The Learnt Insights and the Approach To Be Adopted Next Time In the following days , we started to think about what went wrong . Did that remain the first and last time in which we used storytelling to present a project ? At all ! In fact , it was immediately clear to all of us that such a tool allows us to translate the technical language we use in devising the innovation solutions and in submitting them to the institutional financiers into a discourse more accessible to all the other stakeholders . After all , our presentation of the mayors ’ territorial problems was well understood and enjoyed , and enabled us to connect a project taking into account the prerogatives of very different actors to the specific needs of a specific stakeholder . Yet , it was also clear that the presentation ’s section dedicated to the more abstract aspects of our innovation solution was the real problem : in this case , we failed to make our language concrete and to present an intangible innovation ( a service ) as a tangible instrument to use in the day­to­day work . In this regard , the use of examples of concrete social initiatives that can be launched through the incubator could have helped to clarify how the incubator actually works and which benefits can provide . Such considerations convinced us that the logic behind the storytelling tool ­ that is , the very logic of design thinking which suggests to start from real needs expressed by real people to arrive to devise simple and concrete solutions easily understandable and usable by them ­ is to be implemented not only for presenting the innovations but also and foremost for developing them . Consequently , my work team decided to deepen the design thinking approach and to try to adopt it , updating our work tools and models .