Managing Innovation

Design Thinking – Group Assignment

Batch #5

Problem
Missing sense of XL
community in the virtual world
Product
Desktop Application connecting
XL’ers across the globe
Vision
Our Vision is to connect all the XL’ers
INTRODUCTION
and build a stronger community
within XLRI and garner the support
among students
Value Proposition
This Platform will add value to XLRI by
building it into a stringer brand with a
strong network among its students across
the globe
Design
Thinking
Approach

Stages of Design Thinking, Source: https://dschool.stanford.edu

Motivation to take up this work
Why it is critical ?
• XL – one of the oldest Management Institute
produced community of bright minds by world-class
faculties.
• Presently, 500+ students (as of now) are graduating
every year.
• Ever-growing XL communities
• High chance to solve challenges of world through
mutual relationships
Empathize - Customers
Lead identified users for whom we are solving the problem
incudes:
• Current students of XLRI across different courses including
GMP, BM, HRM, FPM, Executive courses
• Alumni of XLRI across all the courses
Empathize - Interviews
Intended Outcome : Understand needs and desires
of the Customers
Steps Involved
– Questionnaire Preparation
– Brainstormed within team to create a story for video
sessions with different lead users.
– Outcome is being mapped through USER
PERSONA and Empathy map in order to construct
meaningful PROBLEM STATEMENT
Empathize – Empathy Map
Say
• I want to help my batchmates for placement but when I reach out to alumni via
LinkedIn, sometimes there is no reply or the replies are very late
• I want to lookout for people with similar interests but don’t know where and how
should I got about
• I am looking for clubs/communities for interacting and discussing on my interests
areas
• I am in Bangalore and trying to find alumni in this city
Do
• I send connect request on Linkedin
• I join different whatsapp groups for study, classes, electives, alumni , events,
committees, etc
• I use other social media- Facebook/Instagram to stay updated with college events
• I form separate WhatsApp groups for discussions
• I ask my friends to introduce me to other coursemates
Pain
• Inconvenient to handle multiple watsapp groups or track email for every
announcement
• Cannot differentiate imp and critical info with other info
• Cant find people outside my course and alumnis for other activities
Think
• We should have some way to connect with people in different courses and alumni
• I don’t know who are the students in my college and alumnis and my connection
is restricted to linkedin
• Linkedin is too objective oriented, we don’t interact on a daily basis
• Like other b-schools, we should have a strong alumni and current students
network
Feels
• Anxiety in interacting with new people
• Uncomfortable to break the ice with people outside my course
• I wish to explore and make new bond in different courses but I feel clueless on
how to do it
• I feel a Fear of missing out when I am not updated with what is upcoming and
what is happening around the campus
• I miss out on keeping up with conversations with so many watsapp groups,
mailbox, and other social media platforms
Gain
• Having a more better view and interaction across Xlers will add value to the college
and students
• We will have a strong community within Xlers across the globe
 Empathize - User Persona
Name : Erastus Name : Srinivas

Course : GMP Course : BM

Batch : Alumni Batch : 22-24

Goals : Placements and learning Goals : Pursue swimming hobby and build career in consulting

Frustrations: finding people for placement support, Convenience
Motivations: better placements for the batch
Challenges: Placement related interactions, objective oriented
conversations
Needs: have conversations above objectives, build stronger bond, a
more open forum to reach out to alumnis for placements support
Frustrations: limited time to find relevant help, less guidance for
electives selection
Motivations: Networking is the need of MBA
Challenges: FB/LinkedIn is time taking, never get replies from
people on these sites
Needs: Find people for career support, sharing hobby, more sense
of building XL community
 Empathize-User Persona
Name : Divya Name : Ayush

Course : GMP Course : GMP

Batch : 22-23 Batch : 22-23

Goals : Learning and build network Goals : Friendship, Relationship Building

Frustrations: Busy Schedule and Time Crunch, too many WhatsApp Frustrations: different channels for different interactions, AIS is
groups only available platform for academic info

Motivations: to add value to oneself and Motivations: Have long term relations

Challenges: Alumni interaction, Finding ways to connect with students Challenges: AIS doesn’t display cocurricular news, other
of different courses batchmates info

Needs: Community feeling is missing in other social media, turnaround Needs: Sense of belongingness
time is less, other social media gives very limited information,
discussion forums
 Define

• As a current student, I don't know who all are current students across other courses. I am not
aware of what is happening around my college and we are dependent on hundreds of
WhatsApp groups for every specific communication and email. There is no one common
platform where we can find all the information and connect with students for any kind of
help.

• As an Alumni, I don’t have a way to interact with the current students, past batches and share
2 way knowledge. For placement related help , other B-schools have alumni platform where
we can reach out to other alumni's and get contact information. We are very much dependent
on LinkedIn which is just a way to connect but not interact.
 Put all the ideas that you could think of.. Can be irrational as well.
We will negate all these ideas with a reason that why it doesn’t
work

Ideate Concept revisited:

1) Brainstorming
In Ideation phase we have also used Closed Analogy and Distant Analogy to
identify al the alternate solutions 2) Addressed two challenging questions of managing
innovations
• Use AIS to provide with additional services of interaction between students 1) Which idea to pursue ?

2) How to implement and track the idea ?

• Use existing Alumni portal
3) Different Factors considered
• Have community connects in campus every week where everyone is invited
1) Scenario Planning / Open mindset (Suspended Judgement / Focus)
and anything under the sun can be discussed

• Use LinkedIn/Facebook to grow network

• Have face to face interactions

• Use WhatsApp channels to connect all the students

• Creating a student database based yellow pages

• Build a platform for students to connect and interact ,share ideas, find people
with common interests, make event announcements, etc.
Requirement Feasibility Analysis
Requirements User importance Feasibility Cumulative score Remarks

Platform to reach out (chat) to other alumni 5 5 5*5=25 Selected for 1st Sprint
iteration
Platform to get the contact information of Alumni 4 5 4*5=20 Selected for 1st Sprint
iteration

Platform to connect any current student of XLRI 5 5 5*5=20 Selected for 1st Sprint
iteration

Platform to get contact information of the student 4 5 4*5=20 Selected for 1st Sprint
iteration

Able to see advertisements ,notices, job posting , 5 4 5*4=20 Selected for 2nd Sprint
events iteration

Search functionality search any student or alumni 3 3 3*3=9 Selected for 2nd Sprint
iteration
based on interest , batch etc.

Note – User Importance is scored out of 5 ( 5 being the best),Feasibility is scored out of 5(the more the score, the more easier to implement. Cumulative score indicates the
requirements to take up for the prototype in first phase
 Out of all , this will be our solution

Prototype
From the ideation phase we did feasibility analysis and identified the solution
that fits most of the user needs and pain points with the following solution:

• Design a desktop-based platform where current XL students and XL Alumni

across all the courses of XL can signup using ASTRA ID

• The platform is restricted to current students and alumni's only

• Using this students can search other course mates or batchmates ,interact,
post , advertise, stay updated with upcoming events, take assignment helps,
case helps, chat

• Students will be able to build teams to discuss on something specific related

to their interests, cases, assignments

• User can search anyone's profile, his/her interests, and other details that adds
value in interaction
 Sprint 1
• Develop a desktop based platform where current users and alumni can
use their Astra registration details to signup

• Once user log in, they will see the homepage that display their Name,
Course, batch, interests, committee and teams

• These details are mandatory to be fed in by users while signing up

• As user lands up on the home page the can see Notice board, Job
postings, Events & News

• We have provided a search feature, where user can search for any users
Prototype - 1
Xler’s
Garick Bose
BM 22-24
Interests : Badminton
Teams : BadiChamps, Valhala23
Team Ensemble is looking for volunteers. If interested please write us on XXX@xlri.ac.in or
Committee : Brandcomm,
CatchUp with Team Ensemble
Cultcomm

Catch Up Advertisements

Looking out for a some members interested to participate in a Finance Case Competition organised by
XXX college. Details are as follows:
• Xxxxx
• Xxxxxx,xxxx,xxxx
If interested , please ping me via CatchUp! Catch Up

Want to connect with the current placement committee for an opening with XYZ company. Please reach
out to me on my contact – 70xxxxxxxx
Catch Up Catch Up
 Questionnaire

User Feedback - 1
prepared to cover
feedback

• Why necessary ?
– Required to solve the customer problem
efficiently

• How is to be performed?
• Carried Interviews again by asking
standard set of questions

• Showed the prepared prototype

• Whether the design will solve their needs ?
Feedback Converted
• Includes feedback to solve problems to
satisfy the needs and desires – (Primary Data available)
Prototype
 Sprint 2

• Build a Catchup feature where Users can use this to interact and chat
with other students who are registered on this platform

• We plan to build Advertisement features, where users can post and visit
advertisements related to hose rent(alumni's), selling items , books, notes,
etc

• Users can create/join teams with similar interests or discussions

happening on the platform
Prototype
 Testing phase
We divided 2 of our team members into QA team who again verified the prototype with the
interviewed students our first iteration. We revisited the user problems and identified how
well we were able to solve them

• It solved user needs of finding people with similar interests using the search feature

• It was well adopted by users who were facing challenges in finding support for
reaching out to alumni's and placement related support using job postings feature

• The platform was also able to solve user problems of turnaround time to connect with
people by directly using the Catchup feature

• This platform was giving the users the sense of belonging and providing a one stop
solution for most of the problems
 To be improved…
With the user feedback and end to end user testing , we found few
improvements from the next release of the product as mentioned below :

• Provide a better search result on the basis of committee, teams, interests

etc. Currently the application searches just people profiles based on their
names

• While signup , adding contact details a s optional for users so that users can
contact other users outside platform, if they have shared their contact
details

• When user sign up, as soon as they put their Astra id, their name and course
details can be fetched up directly from the existing database
Future Enhancements

To meet our long term vision and continuously improve, we have our product
backlog in place. Below are some of the future functionalities that will be added in
the product once we stabilize with existing features and functionalities:

• Replicate this application on mobile devices for both android and iOS

• We want to provide a booking feature to book accommodation at the campus for

students/family members who are traveling to campus

• Enhance the search experience by using AI

Reference

Tutorial :
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBkXf6u8htI
• https://www.hotjar.com/design-thinking/tools/
• Tools study :https://www.boardofinnovation.com/staff_picks/favorite-prototyping-tools/

Tools Used:
• https://www.figma.com/file/OnNbbJ7te0gRVOzkFa6nLS/Untitled?node-id=0-1&t=WrJO
QQBvMECnk6WU-0
Help Tutorial:
• https://help.figma.com/hc/en-us/sections/4405269443991-Figma-for-Beginners-tutorial-4
-parts-
Thank you