Week 4

How can innovation be organised in processes?

As part of my innovation lab class as the name suggests it revolves around innovation. Having had no prior knowledge or expierence with innovation I have come to realise that Innovation is a step by step process and can be organised into processes. Each week we move through these different processes in a logical and structured format as we work on our innovative solutions to the problems we have come across and our tutors guide and facilitate us as we work through these innovation processes.

Space was clearly an issue in classrooms

Lounge area for older students

Possibility to maximise wide corridor space

This week we worked on the first two process of innovation. The first process was the discovery/ empathy phase. This involved us going to Stengaardsskolen School for a field visit. This school visit had been organised by our tutors. Firstly, we got the chance to have a general tour of the school and meet some people like the principal, the janitor and a teacher. Afterwards we split into our separate groups (which we have been working in the previous weeks) to gain a unique and detailed insight into the school. Our group gained a good insight into the school through observations and interviewing the janitor, teachers, department leader and pupils. We took notes during our observations and interviews so as not to forget any important information. Having already organised an interview schedule in the previous week it proved very useful as we could use and extend the questions that we already had to suit the interviewees and the context. Our observations took us throughout the school, both indoor and outdoor as we wanted to observe the environment collectively. We also took plenty of photographs for evidence and was another good method of recording information easily. Overall the discovery phase of innovation was very useful as it helped us get a unique and vital insight into the school, its problems and allowed for opportunities to interview the very users we would be trying to innovatively solve the problem for.

My group's interpretation

When we arrived back at University we regrouped and moved into the second process of innovation the interpretation/ define phase. Here we discussed with each other stories of what we had gained from our first process. While we listened to everyone's stories in our group we were given post-it notes and encouraged to jot down words or phrases that came to our minds when we listened to the stories. We then moved on to grouping these post-it notes into common themes and were encouraged not to group these notes by stories which you can see from the picture.

The next step in the innovation process was to define these insights into a concise expression of what we had learned from our discovery phase. It was helpful to write this out in the form of a 'POV' (Point of view) statement which makes an insight specific to a user. Some of my group's insights included "students need a place to relax in order to help them perform better" and "students need to have an incentive to run their free time responsibly" etc.


Finally we moved on to making these insights actionable which took the form of a 'How might we...' statement. One of our 'How Might We' statements were "How might we create an incentive that would help students become responsible with their free time". This will then form the beginnings of coming up with creative solutions to some of these problems.


Although in class this week we only went through two processes it is clear to see that there are many processes in innovation. Altogether there are five processes and the other processes include the ideation phase, the experimentation/ prototype and test phase and the evolution/ iterate/ delivery and evaluate phase. I am looking forward to becoming involved in each of these phases as we go along and developing my knowledge, understanding and skills regarding innovation.

Week 3

This week in class we started off with a warm up game where there were a series of cards on the ground. We had to choose a card we thought showed creativity and then go round the room talking to others and deciding why their cards were creative to them personally. I thought this was a very good activity as it encouraged myself and others to  Reflect about our personal views on creativity as well as sharing these ideas with others. Likewise when going around and interacting with others we had to search for creativity in many different pictures. It developed our communication skills as well as our listening skills too!



A selection of cards available which represented creativity



 My card a picture of graffiti and I felt this was a good expression

      of creativity.

       Karin holding a card which she felt represented creativity.

Afterwards we had a chance to watch this video by Sir Ken Robinson. I found this video very interesting and was able to note a few points I found from the video. Some of these included ideas about how do we educate children to take their place in the economies of the 21st century?, Why do we educate children by age groups and not ability?, the debate with ADHD (this included interesting viewpoints on medication and how in America ADHD numbers increase as you go east across the country and in France the country as minimal ADHD children.) The video also looked at standardised testing (is this fair to test children of different abilities against the same bar?) and the difference between divergent thinking and creativity and how schools usually limit divergent thinking but allowing children to think there is only one right answer.

We then got into groups to start our design thinking process. I was in a group with Sally, Mathi and Elme and from the outset we worked very effectively, each person listened to each others ideas and contributed to the discussion. Coming from different professional backgrounds and cultures provided a very interesting discussion where we brought our thoughts and ideas as to how we could solve the issue of space within the classroom.

We started off by individually thinking about our dream schools and what we would like included in as well as things we would have liked to been better and then discussed this as a group. We were able to note some similarities between our ideas despite some differences and came up with a range of ideas such as creating a better playground outside, optimising space in the classroom and creating multi- purpose apparatus etc.

Next we created a project plan, where we set out our end goals, success criteria and established constraints. Some of our end goals included giving one thing inside the classroom multiple functions, creating something beneficial to both child and teacher and design something that would accommodate a shared space. Some of the success criterion we discussed was if we were able to give something more than one purpose, getting feedback from children using coloured post it notes and getting verbal feedback from teacher from talking to him/her. Our constraints included our lack of Danish, money and time etc.

Our next step was that we selected our research participants, we decided that we wanted both male and female pupils of different personality types and ages as well as the teacher and the principal as we wanted to get research from our primary users.

Following this we built a questionnaire guide where we came up with questions to ask our research participants like what do you feel is missing in your classroom? what would you like to change? what is the biggest challenge you face in your classroom? where is there a space issue for you? etc.

We also decided at this point it would be a good idea to use creative interview techniques when asking questions to the children so as to make them feel more at ease and also use an audio recording of their answers so we could retain all the information they told us instead of hurrying to write everything down.

The next thing we did was build an observation guide where we listed things we wanted to see for example a classroom, an actual lesson, outside the school, corridors, shared spaces as well as things we wanted to do like take photographs, attend a class, record interviews etc.

Finally we came up with a brief this included: We want to find out how they use the classrooms and common shared spaces. We want to optimise the space they have so that it becomes multi- functional. We want talk to talk to a teacher, principal and pupils as they are our primary users.

Next week we will be going into the school to collect research and interview our participants. I am excited to get involved and gain a unique insight into our consumers and ways we can innovatively and creatively solve problems we come across!

    

Week 2

Today, we began by watching a video on YouTube called IDEO Shopping Cart Challenge. This was a very interesting video as it showed how professional innovators work on a challenge. There were many positive and intruging aspects of the video which I found such as the fact that they are a mixed group with very different backgrounds, they do careful research to understand their challenge even under time constraints, they focus on their topic and add to a growing common pool of knowledge, build prototypes to show their ideas and always see the good points of everyones work, they never criticise. Often this can be challenging to see the good points in people's work as it requires a shift of mindframe.

My Group's ideas on Innovation & Welfare

After Lilian's lecture we were divided into groups of 4 and we had to make a concept map about "Innovation and social welfare". I think making a concept map is a good idea as it helps you visually explore and record yours and your own ideas. From this it helped me answer two of the questions;

What is innovation in a welfare perspective?
Innovation can be used in a welfare perspective to improve the quality of life of others in many developing countries, deal with social and economic issues, solve problems and can bring about cultural change. This can be done through developing or improving healthcare, agriculture, education, business, technology, water, affordable housing and food supply, for example creating a water pump in a village in Uganda to provide clean drinking water for the community.

The western society must realise they have a social responsibility to help others but must be aware of the difference between helping people in relation to their wants and needs. People's needs should override their wants, however the media can easily blur the lines between these giving people a false impression of what they really need.

My group collecting ideas

With regard to design thinkers they should not be afraid to take risks as innovation in relation to social welfare can reap large profits, although the risk can be very great if you do not fully understand the people and context you are working on. Therefore it is important to gain information directly the consumers to understand the problems they face and how you can best help them but also be empathic to the people they are trying to help.



Indeed, there is a triad of things design thinkers need to take into account when using innovation within a welfare perspective, these include; desirability (with regard to a human perspective), viability (with regard to a business perspective) and feasibility (with regard to a technical perspective).

Overall, innovation within a welfare perspective can be very profitable which is why many design thinkers are switching to work in these contexts. Before this class, I thought that innovation would only be within the contexts of business or education but I realise that it can also be used within the welfare context to make meaningful and real differences to peoples lives and that is something which I find very inspiring and encouraing!

Week 1

The lesson began with an introduction of the course Innovation lab. Lilian presented the aims of the course, the layout, program and the assessments. We then we a few minutes to write our own goals. Overall, personally within this course I want to become more creative and innovative, developing my own creative confidence and discover more creative methods which I can use, apply and adapt back in my home country! I hope when I look back on my experience of this course I will be able to say that!

After this we were asked to meet a stranger and present your story of innovation. My 'stranger' was Bjarke from Denmark. I told him about an outdoor mathematics trail that I created for my pupils during mathematics week in my home country. Where children go around following clues to lot of places where they have to solve mathematical problems. Although I didn't realise this was innovative as I started to gain an understanding of what innovation was I started to become more aware of innovative methods I had used unaware to myself within my teaching and within my own life.

After this we got int groups of four. This was a good excerise as we were able to hear more peoples ideas and understandings of innovation than we had previously and for me who had no understanding or knowledge of the concept before it was very useful to hear others ideas so I could form a better understanding for myself. The next exercise was that we have to tell our story in a bigger group, choose one of the stories to tell to the rest of the class and find a definition about what innovation actually is. This was defintely more challenging when every person in the room was talking but it was a good way of sharing information and hearing others opinions. Following each of us telling our own stories we decided to share Carlos' idea of innovation with the rest of the class as we liked it the best and was something we had never heard of before. It was an innovative approach to conflict resolution where if two children were fighting they had to stand in either the mouth or ear corner. When you were in the mouth you were allowed to talk and when you were in the ear you had to listen, Which I think is an innovative way of facilitating and managing conflicts and arguments between two people and was a child friendly approach and something I defintely want to use myself in my classroom back home!

Alongside sharing our stories and hearing everyone elses in the class I came up with an understanding and definition of what innovation is. It is clear already that I am developing and learning from this process already!

What is your definition of innovation?
Innovation is a term which can have many different meanings and when listening to my classmates views on innovation it was clear that we all saw it as different things. Some saw it as teaching through or with technology or finding new or different purposes for something. However, in my opinion innovation is about using approaches to problem solving using a new or better approach that has previously been used. These approaches involve creativity and thinking outside the box as well as having a good understanding of what you are trying to solve.

How does your expierence with design thinking fit your ideas about innovation?
My expierence with the design thinking exercise really helped develop my understanding and awareness of innovation. I believe that my ideas matched what I had previously thought as through the exercise we had to creatively come up with ways to solve the problem that our partner had. However, we also had to have a sound understanding of what their problem was so we could do this effectively. We used a 5 step approach based on the model by Stanford University to creatively solve their problems in a logical and structured progression.

Next we participated in the gift giving experience. I was immediately intrigued by what this was as it was clear it was going to be an interactive and  hands on lesson, something which I am not very used to at my university at home. However the lesson was a bit confusing and very structured because we only had 60 minutes to create something by following the five steps of design thinking:

1) Empathize: develop a deep understanding of the challenge

2) Define: clearly articulate the problem you want to solve

3) Ideate: brainstorm potential solutions. Select and develop your solution

4) Prototype: design a prototype to test all or part of your solution

5) Test: engage in a continuous short cycle innovation process to continually improve your design.

Although I hate feeling pressured and under time constraints to do anything, yet alone get to know my partner, understand and figure out his story and identify his needs and then create and present my prototype for him I do realise not in retrospect that deadlines are necessary as they push you to work more quickly and efficiently and often you are most creative when you have a time limit on your work.

However, I did like the layout of the 5 design thinking steps. It was clear what was required in every stage and it was a logical approach to reach the end goal where we had to recreate a gift giving experience. Although at this stage I wouldn't necessarily call my self a creative person I can definitely feel that my confidence is improving slowly as I get stuck into this process so watch this space!