Personal Report on Design Thinking

Held on: 04th & 05th Dec, 2019

By: Mr. Rohit Swaroop
Under the guidance of:
Prof. Reena Agarwal

Name - Yanina Chowdhury

Roll No. – JL19RM059
Sec – E Group – LT 05
 Design Thinking
Design Thinking is an iterative process in which we seek to understand the user, challenge
assumptions, and redefine problems in an attempt to identify alternative strategies and
solutions that might not be instantly apparent with our initial level of understanding. At the
same time, Design Thinking provides a solution-based approach to solving problems. It is a
way of thinking and working as well as a collection of hands-on methods.
Design Thinking revolves around a deep interest in developing an understanding of the
people for whom we’re designing the products or services. It helps us observe and develop
empathy with the target user. It helps us in the process of questioning: questioning the
problem, questioning the assumptions, and questioning the implications. Design Thinking is
extremely useful in tackling problems that are ill-defined or unknown, by re-framing the
problem in human-centric ways, creating many ideas in brainstorming sessions, and adopting
a hands-on approach in prototyping and testing. It also involves ongoing experimentation:
sketching, prototyping, testing, and trying out concepts and ideas. The five phases of Design
Thinking are as follows:
 Empathize – with your users
 Define – your users’ needs, their problem, and your insights
 Ideate – by challenging assumptions and creating ideas for innovative solutions
 Prototype – to start creating solutions
 Test – solutions

Day 1
On the day one of our Design Thinking Programme, the entire section E was asked to gather
in a classroom where we had a session with Mr. Swaroop on what is DT all about and what
are the innovations for MBA. We were told about the different aspects necessary for a
manager in the 21st century that included the reason behind design thinking being adopted all
across the globe that is the need for innovative problem solvers in the current market
scenarios. Mr. Rohit also explained to us how analysis and synthesis are opposite aspects of
design thinking but are interlinked for obtaining the final result. Then we moved on to a few
activities for getting to understand the practical application of design thinking. The first part
of design thinking was observation and he used a few activities to elaborately make us
understand that. This is for root cause analysis that is the basis for the structuring of design
thinking.

The first activity was the hand tracing activity in which we were asked to trace our left and
right hand and label our dominate hand as “I have” and the weaker one as “I need” and then
assign those hands with qualities from an array of charts presented on the slides. It resulted in
two segments of characteristics that a manager is supposed to possess and differentiating it
into the ones I have and the ones I need to inculcate in me.
For me the characters that I prepossessed were adaptable, creative and persistent and the
characters that I needed were taking initiative, expressive and leadership. We were asked to
work on “I need” aspects of our personality during the two-day process and I can say I was
able to successfully make decisions and lead in a few aspects while working on the field with
my learning team.
The next activity included everyone designing a wallet or a footwear for the person sitting
next to us by only using our observation skills to assess their current wallet or footwear and
deciding on the kind of wallet and footwear would be most suitable for them.

My observations –
 My friend had an old wallet which was tearing at the seams indicating sentimental
 connect.
 Brand driven (it was a Puma product)
 Into luxury cars as the wallet had the BMW logo on it.
 Cost efficient (minimalistic design and being used for years)
 Sober (the color scheme and the design of the wallet were simple)
 The wallet had become unreliable as the Velcro lock was faulty
 Chain were jammed easily
 Colour palate fading (rough use)

From the above observation I could reach the following empathy –

 My friend would be inclined to buy a new wallet but that is not an agenda for him yet
 He likes wallets that are efficient in storing all the belongings and which has a sober
color scheme
 He is quality driven and trusts the brands he uses

From the following activity I came across three things as a manager. They are-
 Needs of my customer
 Resources available and
 My market environment

We were also taught about empathy and how it plays an equally important role in design
thinking as observation. A number of tools were taught to us to use on field like 5W & 1H, 7
whys, laddering, SPA, etc during the session. The activities and tools were our first step
towards the main aspect of the Programme, our field visit. We were told that this visit was
solely for observation and identifying the problem and that we should never jump straight to
problem solving as analyzing the problem with the data collected is the most important as the
solution lies in the problem itself. It is just requiring to be analyzed from a professional point
of view, diverse in perception. We were then taught the five steps of designing. They are as
follows:
 Observation
 Empathy
 Problem Articulation
 Ideation
 Prototyping and then testing

After all these steps we learnt what exactly design thinking is all about. It is actually first
finding the human need then seeing what technology do we need to use and is it feasible.
Thirdly we see if the product or thought is business wise viable. And at last we solve to find
the design thinking solution.

After learning the basics, we were told what are things we need to bring on the second day of
the sessions. And then came the time to visit the organization decided by our LT’s to visit and
do the whole project on.

FIELD VISIT

The next leg of design thinking was visiting an organization and observing the staff,
managers and customer interaction with the process and technology outlooks that were
offered in the visiting organization. Our learning team visit Kohli Brothers, which is a
clothing store which is in Wave Mall, Vibhuti Khand, Gomti Nagar. It is about sixteen-year-
old establishment and were the second shop to open in the mall right after Mc Donald’s. Over
there we got to talk to the owner, manager, employees and a few customers.
The initial reaction on visiting the store was that the theme of the store was evident in the
infrastructure and interiors of choice. It projected as a very monotonous theme and lighting
and was located conveniently in the center of Gomti Nagar.

We applied the tools that were taught in the session namely the SPA (space, people, activity)
tool that were used to get the fundamental questions out of the way. All the team members
were asked to note down 12 observations each on sticky notes on the basic of these criteria
which was later supposed to be compiled for a big data forming the base of our problem
analysis.

Next phase was writing down empathy we felt after talking to the different stake holders we
were able to interact with during our visit and changing our point of view as per the
experience with the organization. From empathy we build persona of the owner and manager
with whom we interacted. Understanding their issues and concerns regarding their day to day
work we started jotting down the points one by one.

We then proceeded to curate a questionnaire following another tool called as the 5W & 1H
method that broadly included the basic questions like when, what, whom, where, why and
how in terms of the organization and its requirements.

Our questions were-

What was your inspiration behind the idea of this store and location?
Where else had you considered before finalizing Gomti Nagar as the location for the project?
Who are your competitors?
How is the store been designed according to (age group of targeted audience)?
When are your peak hours?
How do you manage your resources?
What other measures have you adopted for attracting customers?
The above questions were asked to the owner of the store Mr. Guru, an MBA graduate from
Symbiosis Pune whose family has been in the retail business for the past fifty years. Fairly
young to the industry, he had a number of other stores before opening up in Wave Mall.
There were many reasons behind opening of the store here, his source of learning and the
reason behind a 6-month planning and successful implementation of the project with
intensive market research on his front was very overwhelming for him at first but now he is
used to the hustle and bustle of the market and industry.

Key points from the interview –

There are reasons behind the choice of the locality –

 focus being on youngsters, this was one of the trending locations
 Wave Mall was fairly a new and trending mall back then
 No parking issues as the mall already provided the needful
 Near the main road so it was easy to locate

Highlights:
 Separate sections for everyone (men, women, kids)
 Second floor was entirely based for kids wear
 Winter collection was displayed very well
 All the trending brands were available
 Some new and famous brands like Callino, J. Hampstead, Montare Studio and Surreal
were exclusively available only on their store

Future endeavors:
 Bringing more new and exclusive brands
 Changing the store theme
 Making it more spacious
Other than the interview from the owner there were interviews with customers and the
Manager as well. Main outcomes from those interviews were that the claim of bonuses and
incentives were yet to be applied on the employees and the management was autocratic
with no scope for creative approaches from the employees.
The customer responses were mixed with some complaining about the space and no escalator
and on the other hand they praised about the brands available and clothes quality.

DAY 2

Day two began with all our observations being charted on two different chart papers, one for
observation the other one for empathy. The sticky notes were arranged for the further sorting.

Then we were asked to further choose three observations and three empathy from the charts
and put them on the table or aside from the chart. Selections were first categorized under
common headings then the top three issues were taken and turned into “how might we”
questions for further synthesis.
Our three how might we were –

 How might we increase the customer experience of Kohli Brothers from x to 2x in 3

months
 How might we increase the footfall of the store from 2x to 3x in 5-6 months
 How might we bring about better infrastructural changes from x to 2x in 3-5 months

Additionally, we prepared the two personas of the owner and the store manager which are
already attached above. We also prepared a journey map of a customer for further insight into
the solution of the problem. After the journey map we also created a list of stakeholders for
the Kohli Brothers

During the session Rohit sir talked us through the second aspect of design thinking, the
problem-solving part. The three major parts of problem solving were desirability, feasibility
and viability and we were asked to pass our suggestions for problem solving from the above
three segments to validate the efficiency of the solution.

We also understood difference between analytical thinking, checklist thinking and design
thinking and then moved on to ideation – generating diversity and quality to bring novelty
over relevance. We were told about SCAMPER technique, lateral and divergent techniques
for bringing into perspective any other feasible solution that could be hiding in plain sight.

Prototyping and short video presentation

We were at last asked to make a prototype through which we could present our entire
experience to for evaluation and to check how much we have actually learned in this two-day
workshop.

We had an hour to make the model and a small video summing up our observations and
experience. Our model included a escalator, sectioned racks, proper
separate washrooms, spaced walkways, soothing background music, good lighting and other
things that we found relevant to portray in our prototype. But in our case the solution was
more in subjective context for footfall and customer experience that we talked about in the
suggestions segment.
The presentation was given to Mr. Rohit and the video played in the background displayed
our experience across the two days.

It was a one of a kind experiences and I am taking a lot of the points discussed in the
sessions with me for helping out in my journey of becoming a manager, as these are the tools
for managers as glorified gatekeeper to make decisive choices for the wellbeing of the
organization.

CONCLUSION

 To utilize the full space

 To make broader walkways
 To give seasonal discounts
 Provide seating arrangements
 A cloak room and a bag & trolley zone or area