We spoke a lot about the process of performing research and collecting data. There are many many ways to do this and not all methods make sense for every situation. Even with all the creative ways to try to gain insights on customers, we also discussed how it is often very difficult to get meaningful data. It is also not always easy to come up with methods of research that will properly extract/surface the data/insights you are hoping to receive.
This is something we experienced during our project. First, we struggled to determine the best ways to perform research and collect data. We explored various methods, including surveys, interviews, photo journals, etc. We actually ended up trying most of these methods with the people we worked with.
We also found it was very difficult to get people to give you their time when you really don't have any incentive to offer them. Again, this is something we discussed in class and we certainly faced this struggle first hand. Even once we had people say they would help us out, we only ended up getting half the people to actually follow through.
Part 2: Brainstorming and Idea Creation
I have always been quite fascinated with product design and innovation process. My senior year in high school I had the opportunity to hear Kate (Burch) Canales speak about her (then) role at IDEO as a toy designer. She spoke about drawing insights from “play sessions” with children. Observing them in active play; taking note of their actions, frustrations, motivations, etc. Engaging with them at times and asking questions to better understand what they enjoyed and why they acted certain ways. She would then take her insights back to the drawing board and “chew on them”, usually with a team who had also been gathering information from similar scenarios. The next HIT product wasn’t typically something that jumped out at them from the start. But IDEO’s open and creative approach to brainstorming created an environment that fostered idea creation. By the end of a typical day, it wasn’t unheard of for the team to come up with ideas for multiple product transformations and innovations.
Two years later, in an engineering course at Vanderbilt, my professor (Joel Barnett) played a video covering the design process IDEO took to transform the typical grocery cart. Again, the IDEO team observed real situations and then came together to brainstorm. No idea was a bad idea. The environment was safe and energetic. As I watched the video, I couldn’t help but feel excited and even started to think of other cool concepts and approaches to the grocery cart transformation.
Throughout my life I have encounter environments where creativity is nonexistent, situations where creativity is “encouraged” but not really fostered, and situations where creativity is embraced and almost unavoidable. My ability to work productively and produce outcomes that I am happy with has always been greatly influenced by the type of creative environment I am in. Additionally, I have found it difficult to push boundaries and “think creatively” when working in teams who were very comfortable with status quo and didn’t desire to be creative/innovative.
Throughout this course, we were presented with many opportunities to brainstorm and innovate with our teams. At the beginning of the course, I found it very difficult and even frustrating. Each member on our team brought their own individual strengths, weaknesses, and work styles- which was awesome, but coming together to attempt to create something quickly was a challenge. As time went on, we got to know each other better and progress began to take place. Some days were better than others. As we tried different brainstorming techniques, we found that some worked better than others. In the end I believe we really determined a way to best work together as a team.
As we discussed in class, there are many different ways to brainstorm, create ideas, and prototype. Not every method will work for every project or team. But repetition helped us reach a point where we were experiencing success more than failure. Which was AWESOME and rewarding.
Part 3
Barely anytime was spent learning about the current product offerings at Samsung and we were never given a Galaxy Note to experiment with. The lack of this was not of value...in other words, I felt it restricted us and wasn't representative of what a consultant would necessarily experience while working with Samsung (or another company). I do understand that this limitation might not be something we could have changed, due to the arrangement with Samsung.
Our team worked around this as much as possible by doing research on Samsung's current products and watching videos on the Galaxy Note.
Part 4
As described above, it did take our team some time to learn to work well together. As with any team, this caused moments of frustration. However, as we began to "click" in our meetings and brainstorming session, those frustrations naturally lessened. I think this was a valuable experience to have because in work situations you do not typically choose the team you are working with and you have to learn to connect with each other over time.
This class felt like trying to run a marathon at a sprinter's pace. So much was required and so little time was available. While I think it would be very difficult to do this project without a team (and I believe having a team is important for discussing new ideas and brainstorming), it also was really hard to find time to get together to work on group assignments, and then still get our own individual assignments done. Additionally, due to time constraints, the turn around time from feedback to producing more work was often very short, which caused frustrations for our team.
I believe this course could still achieve it's current goal without having the final paper and blog posts. This would create a healthier workload balance and would give people a bit more time to focus on the project and still learn along the way. Countless hours were spent on the assignments and as seen with these blog posts, tradeoffs had to be made at times. (Late blog posts, not completing blog posts, etc)
No comments:
Post a Comment