Are you wondering what design has to do with solving #Startup problems?
And even more, what does an architect have to do with being part of an Entrepreneur Bootcamp facilitator?
Well, within my training and passion for design I have come across the Methodology Design Thinking and seeing design from a broader spectrum and the good results in case studies, I achieved the certification with the purpose of blowing the creativity head and thinking outside the box #outofthebox to professionals beyond the Architecture and Design career of Interiors.
When we talk about Design Thinking, we are talking about design in its broadest meaning to design products or servicios a nuestro cliente o usuarios. Tal como dice, Paul Rand: Todo es diseño ¡Todo!
Through this workshop we see how we can take advantage of the philosophy behind the methodology to really innovate and build value in organizations independently, whether it is a small, medium or large company, and design the experience that we are going to offer.
Actually Design Thinking is less about thinking and more (much more) about doing. Achieving true disruptive innovation by designing cult products or services.
It has an user centered approach to troubleshoot. Interested in learning about the context and its needs.
Based on the knowledge we have of the user, suffering and joys, what he likes, understanding him well as a person, we leverage on that to develop products that satisfy needs.
It is a methodology used to solve complex but from action. It seeks to deepen the user's understanding through iteration. Which helps find new perspectives strategically to solutions.
However, When can Design Thinking help to innovate and build value?
For when uncertainty is high…
Hay que tener cuidado con esto, pues la metodología no aplica para todo. Aplica para los que llamamos #wickedproblems los problemas perverso y malvados, es decir problemas que no están bien definido. Para ponerlo en contexto, si le pregunto a ustedes cual será la solución para resolver problemas el trafico del polígono central. Habra miles. Atacamos esos problemas perversos o malvados primero centrándolos en tratar de definir cual es el problema y enfocar la solución.
As indicated by the methodology, carried out in 5 fundamental actions:
- Empathize: We begin with an understanding of the current health situation in the Dominican Republic. Understand what is happening and how it is developing, through practices delivered online.
After this, we carry out a face-to-face workshop that through an activity assigned by times of 15 minutes in order to optimize the learning flow in a time period of 45 minutes, we carry out the following three (3) phases:
2. Define: We filter the information collected during the empathy phase and we keep what really adds value and leads us to reach new perspectives to propose the typology.
3. Ideas: Without limiting thought, that is to say that no idea is bad, on the contrary, quantity over quality we brainstorm, expansive thinking where anything can go and sometimes the rarest ideas are the ones that generate innovative solutions, we translate the definition into architectural language .
4. Prototype: We build possible models of typologies that will help us give shape to what until now was an idea or concept. From now on, there is already a possible project, something that we can visualize.
With this activity, the entire section divided into groups, we were already on the same page to be able to carry out the last phase.
5. Evaluate: Linked with the previous phase in which we had created possible typologies, now together we analyze the reality of something that was ethereal. Once obtaining the results of an evaluation matrix, we incorporate the conclusions to improve the resolution.
In this last step, we were able to identify which prototypes were similar or had common elements to be able to join or discard when giving the innovative solution.
As stated by David Kelley, creator of the methodology, founder of IDEO and professor at Stanford University, where the methodology was studied and applied. “We are not experts in a specific knowledge. We are experts in the process of how to innovate!”
17 Entrepreneurs were participants of which a group of 3 was formed, because regardless of the industry for which they serve, Design Thinking focuses on the client and their experience to provide innovative solutions to the high uncertainty of execution and market.
Allowing to unify undertakings with problems at the end, devise solutions, prototype and evaluate them.
Thank you Universidad Nacional Pedro Henríquez Ureña for being part of this Bootcamp as a facilitator and starting it.
Sarah Tió | Professor of Architecture and Design
