INTRODUCTION

I was very grateful to my institute to give me this opportunity to experience the

design thinking workshop in my college. The course was something a different
from the other courses I have experienced in my MBA course till now. It taught
me how I can look very differently from the current skills acquired during the
MBA. It gave the whole new direction to me to think in and new way that I firmly
believe would be very helpful in the actual decision making because all the
problems in the environment are not same as it looks.

DESCRIPTION
Design thinking workshop conducted in our institute can be described as a
journey that began with the introduction of what design thinking is and its
benefits to the organization. There were various video being shown to us which
made me realize that just by thinking differently we can approach the problem in
entirely new way and solve it effectively. I was so surprised and moved by the
initial three classes that now I believe that entirely all the problems can be
solved by the techniques which were taught to us in the class.
This informative session on design thinking was then followed by a group activity
in which the first task was to divide the entire class into multiple groups. The
division of the group according to the various abilities of the people was I think
very effective to have the best group who can look through all the dimensions of
the problem. The division of groups based on such a method ensured that finally
there were groups whose group members were diverse in their characteristics.
This is a very important factor for effective design thinking diversity of the
people involved in design thinking.
Post group formation we were asked to sit in groups and our day of group
activities began with selection of an issue within our institutes premises. This
included transportation issues, lack of sports facilities, lack of proper medical
facilities, hygiene issues, issues in food etc. Once we selected our issue which
was unavailability of the sports facility, 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. In this we were asked to clearly know 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 at each
stage. This was a very good experience owing to the fact that we had a user
amidst our own group who had faced a similar situation. The sports committee in
our college had organised one table tennis event in our college, so our group
went to get their first hand experience on what are the challenges they faced
during that event. Also we had other problems related to the unavailability of the
ground, match scheduling, sharing of facilities with the Silicon students etc.
The next stage involved interviewing more people from the campus who had
faced similar issues. The various people including our own students, PGP office,

Silicon students and the Silicon office were interviewed. There was some
surprising factor s that evolved from our interviews of which we were not aware
earlier. We initially thought that only way out would be to have a clear
demarcation from the various offices of the institute that we had access to which
sports facility and during what time period. But the fact that emerged was that it
takes time to get all such issues cleared from the offices and the students of the
Silicon were ready to cooperate with us for any sports facility issues. It was just
that we were not able to reach them directly due to non availability of the time
and they did not reach us due to being from the different institute. So the
friendly matches between the Silicon students and us seemed to be best plan to
start solving the problem. The number and content pleasantly surprised us as we
were unaware such creativity was hidden within us .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 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. From the skit presented by all the groups actually showed that
the design thinking strategies actually worked very effectively and did solved
most of the problems we faced in the institute effectively.
What I liked about the Workshop
The whole idea of the workshop that you can solve your problems even by some
different approach from the usually applied one is the best part of the workshop.
The workshop could leave a effect on my mind because mostly I felt there is set
way by which the problems have to be solved but workshop somehow opened
my mind in all new direction, a direction that stated that problems could also be
looked from the design thinking way, the way that tells you to understand the
customer perspective very clearly and a way that brings the moment of the
truth.