We decided that prior to delving into the crux of the work, we needed for our team to have a first-hand experience with the steps involved in design thinking. Oftentimes, the first step of the process is defined as "empathy" - building a connection with your user and understanding the problem(s) they are facing. To help us get a feel for how to gain empathy, we partnered off with the goal of creating a name tag for our partner that would tell something about them that the group didn't already know. This was a great exercise that modeled good process and in the end, we all had some rather unique and unusual name tags for our time at the mini-conference:
As such, Parker Thomas presented the group with a special challenge and divided us into two groups. We immediately jumped into the empathy phase, focusing on using the strategies known as "5 why's" and "defining extreme users". Post-it notes began proliferating on the windows as we worked.
Once we had an adequate understanding of the issue and we had defined our problem, we began actively prototyping our ideas. Nicholas Commons became a flurry of activity as we rushed to beat the stringent timeline imposed by Parker, who kept reminding us that "perfect is the enemy of done."
At the end of our time, we tested our prototypes by giving short presentations of our work to the other team.
The team agreed: this was time well spent. It was a very valuable start to our mini conference as those who might be teaching this process to others got a chance to truly experience it themselves.
We moved on from the design thinking exercise into a series of very deep (and very important) discussions, which dominated the remainder of our conference. Among other things, we spent time on these questions:
What is a skill?
What is knowledge?
What is the difference between skill and knowledge specifically?
What is important for our students to have mastered by the time they depart Parker?
In the spectrum of "maker space" to "design lab," where do we want to fall in terms of our philosophy/approach and for our physical spaces?
What skills and knowledge do we believe design thinking (or a design lab) would impart to our students that they are not currently receiving via our established academic program?
We used post-it notes to capture each idea or thought presented throughout our discussions. Soon, most windows of Nicholas Commons were full with ideas, thoughts, and strategies.
We also invited in some high school students to talk with us about their experience at Parker, their thoughts about design lab and design thinking, and what they wished they would experience during their time at our School.
Our second day was devoted to fleshing out our thinking from the questions above to craft our "Version 1.0" of our design thinking process. We examined some other models that were in use by some other schools, as well as thinking long and hard about our discussions from the prior day. By the close of the day, we had drafted out the steps for the Parker Design Thinking Process, and had even come up with a graphical representation of this process. Please read the blog entry entitled "Parker Design Thinking Process" to learn more.
We closed out our time together discussing how we would move forwards for the 2014-2015 school year and gained consensus on an invitational "growing together" approach for the year. We also agreed that we believed our vision and work should define our physical spaces, and as such, the placement of hardware, machinery, and "toys" would be iterative and based upon the needs of classes and students as they delved into design thinking.
In all, it was a very busy, tiring, and yet exhilarating two days. The participants left feeling like they had achieved a great amount of important work, including the important task of setting the stage for the year ahead. Not only had a preliminary version of our design thinking process been created, a plan for integration and implementation had been thoughtfully designed (using design thinking, no less!) that had buy-in from all present.
The next step of our process will take place when faculty return for their pre-service professional learning week on August 25. Stay tuned to find out what happens next!
Contact information for Parker Thomas, the consultant with whom we are working: me@parkerthomas.com