Visual Thinking

Challenge & Selection

Back when I was a sophomore in college @ La Salle College, every student had to participate in

a design thinking challenge that took place a week before the second semester. The task team I was  assigned with was working with an assisted living community, with the task being making the guests  stays more enjoyable. Seems like a simple task, but what do 6 college sophomores know about assisted  living? The answer is, very little. The resources we had where mentors (older peers) and design thinking  coaches tasked to oversee the teams. We had two scheduled visits to the community and a 5 days  deadline for our suggested improvements.

The Tool

With a more structured design thinking experiment, we incorporated a lot of the tools in our

approach to brainstorm new ideas to drive a more positive engagement within the community. Most  notably we focused on the Tool of Mind Mapping. During our first assisted living community visit, we  met with guests and listened to their stories and feedback, met with staff and employees on initiatives  and what worked and hasn’t worked, and continued asking why. This first visit was essential in the mind  mapping process to give us the “What Is?” understanding of the problem we needed to overcome. What  are the reasons guests aren’t happy? What is the current state?

From there we brought our observations, notes and questions from our business back to the

classroom to draw out what we had observed during our visit. From here we noticed everyone had  different ideas and observations from the visit that we noted on a shared whiteboard. When it came  down to brainstorming new ideas, we used a philosophy “Yes and…” to address all ideas, go or bad, to  let them materialize into something unexpected! This process of “Yes and…” led us down many paths  and addressed the What If in our ideation sessions.

Once we came up with a good group of Ideas, we addressed the last two areas of the mind

mapping tool: What wows and What works. We looked at What Wows but building a diagram of our  suggestions for the panelists to see our vision come to life. Since we couldn’t bring them to the facility  we created a current state and an altered future state with our suggested improvements. The What  works section came into play when we curated our pitch, worked through our ideas to form one  proposal and executed on the proposal.

Insight:

Learning from this course and from my previous experiences in Design thinking has reaffirmed my  enjoyment when practicing design thinking.

Approach:

From my example I would not go back and change anything from the process because it was my  first exposure to design thinking. After taking this course and learning more on the different  developmental methods to apply design thinking I am excited to execute more design thinking  approaches in my work.


Visual Thinking Challenge & Selection Back when I was a sophomore in college @ La Salle College , every student had to participate in a design thinking challenge that took place a week before the second semester . The task team I was assigned with was working with an assisted living community , with the task being making the guests stays more enjoyable . Seems like a simple task , but what do 6 college sophomores know about assisted living ? The answer is , very little . The resources we had where mentors ( older peers ) and design thinking coaches tasked to oversee the teams . We had two scheduled visits to the community and a 5 days deadline for our suggested improvements . The Tool With a more structured design thinking experiment , we incorporated a lot of the tools in our approach to brainstorm new ideas to drive a more positive engagement within the community . Most notably we focused on the Tool of Mind Mapping . During our first assisted living community visit , we met with guests and listened to their stories and feedback , met with staff and employees on initiatives and what worked and has n’t worked , and continued asking why . This first visit was essential in the mind mapping process to give us the “ What Is ? ” understanding of the problem we needed to overcome . What are the reasons guests are n’t happy ? What is the current state ? From there we brought our observations , notes and questions from our business back to the classroom to draw out what we had observed during our visit . From here we noticed everyone had different ideas and observations from the visit that we noted on a shared whiteboard . When it came down to brainstorming new ideas , we used a philosophy “ Yes and … ” to address all ideas , go or bad , to let them materialize into something unexpected ! This process of “ Yes and … ” led us down many paths and addressed the What If in our ideation sessions . Once we came up with a good group of Ideas , we addressed the last two areas of the mind mapping tool : What wows and What works . We looked at What Wows but building a diagram of our suggestions for the panelists to see our vision come to life . Since we could n’t bring them to the facility we created a current state and an altered future state with our suggested improvements . The What works section came into play when we curated our pitch , worked through our ideas to form one proposal and executed on the proposal . Insight : Learning from this course and from my previous experiences in Design thinking has reaffirmed my enjoyment when practicing design thinking . Approach : From my example I would not go back and change anything from the process because it was my first exposure to design thinking . After taking this course and learning more on the different developmental methods to apply design thinking I am excited to execute more design thinking approaches in my work .