An awesome experience

Design thinking workshop is one of the best workshop conducted ever at IIM Sambalpur. This
workshop introduced us to think about the problem from different perspective and find out the root
case. It also introduced us how one can be implemented at both individual as well as organizational
level. It was a pleasant experience to know how IDEO came up with an unique design for kids
toothbrush. With the help of Design Thinking they understood the root cause for low toothbrush sale.
A simple hand-pump converted to rocking horse is another good example where Design Thinking has
helped school children to wash their hands. The best part is that the children enjoy using hand-pump
and this makes sure that their hands are clean before they consume their meal. Owing to the hand
wash before eating food has drastically reduced the occurrence of major diseases like diarrhea,
cholera and dysentery.

Group formation
After this informative session on Design Thinking a group activity was conducted. The first task was
to divide the class into multiple groups depending upon their characteristics, strength, likes and
dislikes. This method was unique and enjoyable. We were also divided on the basis of how practical
we are in nature or whether we work based on hunches. We were segregated into groups and then
members from different group were pooled into one group. This made sure that each new group
formed had a good mix of people. The members in the new group were diverse in their characteristics.
For a good result diversity of people is must.

Project
Once the group was formed, one member from each group selected an issue within our institute
premises. Each group started to work on the respected issue. The issues included mess,
transportation, lack of sports facility, unavailability of medical facility, hygiene issues etc. Once we
selected our issue which was mess food, we were given clear guidelines on how to approach this
issue. The first thing that we were asked to make was a customer journey map. Customer Journey
Map, it helped us understand the minute details of our consumers. Mapping their day-to-day usage of
a product/service with the various touch points and emotions experienced helps us develop further
insights which could be leveraged to solve the issues and empathise with them to get the personalized
touch in problem solving. In this we were asked to clearly chalk out how a user who had experienced
the above mentioned problem in the campus premises felt during each stage of his issue. At each stage
we were also asked to note the users feelings and the touch points at each stage. This was a very good
experience owing to the fact that we had a user amidst our own group who didnt like mess food.
We were required to pinpoint the problem.
The next stage involved interviewing more people from the campus who had faced similar
issues. We came to know about different kinds of issues that were interlinked with the main issues
that we were tackling. We also received numerous solutions on how to tackle this issue. Noting down
all these, we went back to class to give our insights. Once this was done we were given a simple plain
sheet to note down how to tackle the core issue of our problem and who needs to tackle it. Post
selecting this, we were given numerous unexpected and interesting tasks to find out solutions to the
problem. After this we were asked to create an empathy map and also depict our problem and solution
with the help of colours and chart papers. The Empathy map helps in obtaining a deep understanding
of our customer. The 4 steps of Say, Do, Think and Feel covers both observable and inferable actions
and words which helps us to identify needs and insights of the consumer. The teams creativity again
converged in this activity as some wonderful depictions of our issue and the solution came out in the
form of art. Once all these activities were done, we were asked to present our issue and the solution
that we found out either in the form of drawings or flow charts or a simple skit. We chose the skit as it
was the most interesting way and also the best way to instil the gravity of the issue and the solution
that we proposed in peoples minds. An active participation from all the members ensured that we
enjoyed the activity completely. All the other groups performed either a skit or made a simple
presentation with the help of charts or combination of both. There was a good participation from the
audience as all the presenters were bombarded with questions.

What I liked about the Workshop the most?

Its was the most application oriented workshop ever conducted at our institute. Soon to be managers,
we need to know how to solve some real life simple problems that surround us. This workshop
immensely helped us in understanding the need of Design Thinking and how we use it. Another
best part was that we enjoyed ourselves in identifying the issues and coming up with unique solutions
that we never thought of. Also the problems that we were given to us were real life problems
surrounding us and we could actually use the solution to solve it.
To conclude, I never knew solving a problem could be this interesting and I intend to use some
aspects of design thinking in all my future endeavours.