Clarify/Empathy
Original Challenge Question
How Might College Students better prepare themselves for the virtual work world?
What ideation tools did you use?
backwards brainstorming and brain mapping
How did you prototype your solution?
We did research and viewed other creative software's that companies and universities already use. We thought about what employees would want if they were working virtually and we then tried to create a solution based on this.
What is your final solution?
We created a one stop shop creative software that would help create an engaging/motivating virtual workforce.
What did you learn from the empathy/clarification stage?
We learned the most significant challenges employees face due to a virtual work environment (no motivation, limited relationship opportunities, lack of creativity), there really are deeper meanings beyond a lot of problems
Head Research
Learned Creative software, students have a lack of motivation when working virtually and there is lack of classroom/company culture virtually.
What were your convergence questions?
We tried to think about what ideas have never been applied to this problem before and which ideas are most relevant to our specific problem
Which prototype did you present to others to get feedback?
A general creative software that companies could implement in their workday so they could keep employees engaged virtually. It would help everyone stay motivated and help create creativity. All the tasks for the day would be in one area and it would stimulate communication and problem solving with employees.
What does your solution do?
This software would have a daily check in(morning coffee) between employees to create company culture. It would have the schedule and all the tasks that employees would need to complete throughout the day, this would help establish routine. This software would even have team challenges as a means of team bonding. Essentially this software would be “work media” which would help stimulate an in person workplace environment.
What did you learn from the ideation stage?
No ideas are bad ideas. We learned new ideation tools that allowed us to come up with a wide range of ideas. We also learned how to narrow down our ideas to come up with a solution.
Heart/Empathy Research
People lack routine, motivation, and social benefits, people who need certain accommodations like ADHD find it extremely difficult to work virtually.
How did you go about voting for the best idea?
We narrowed it down to a few ideas. We then went back to what we really wanted to accomplish with this solution, which was to create an engaging and motivating virtual workforce. Our final solution combined a number of ideas into one solution that truly accomplished what we wanted.
How and from whom did you get feedback? What did they say?
We received feedback during shark tank from Dr. Holinger and the UA’s. We also created surveys consisting of a few questions to ask students about how they felt about implementing a creative software. In general students seemed excited about a job that used creative software. Overall, we thought that this part of the creative process was the most helpful.
What does the solution look like?
An all-inclusive software that provides scheduling reminders, creative team workspaces, and an employee "work-media" space.
What did you learn from the development stage?
It's okay to reevaluate an idea and revise aspects of your solution. We also learned how to take completely separate ideas that could solve the solution and form them into one complete idea for a more complex solution.
Insights
Routine - Employees that work virtually feel that they have no structure to their workday
Creativity - Virtual work limits outside the box thinking
Communication - Daily workplace norms and communication are nonexistent online
What was your final solution?
Produce a creative software for virtual teams that provides detailed schedules, team workspaces (chats), daily check ins and creativity focused collaborative documents (mix of jamboard and miro.io)
How did your solution change and evolve?
At first our solution was created more for college students. We decided to change our challenge question to be directed more towards the general workforce. When we thought of our first solution, we decided on a general creative software to implement into the workplace, but after getting feedback from Dr. Holinger, the UA’s and other students, we created a more specific one stop-shop creative software that would allow for flexibility and creativity in the workplace.
How will this impact the workforce?
We think by implementing this software it would make virtual work an overall better experience. If this creative software achieves the goal we had in mind we believe there would be an increase in companies/employees that would go virtual because they could be just as productive as an in-person work environment.
What did you learn from the implementation stage?
We can always improve our solution and getting feedback from others is vital to getting a different perspective. Once we got feedback from other people, even more ideas were introduced for how we could add to our solution