Now that the Design Thinking Boot Camp has come and gone, I’ve had plenty of time to meditate on the entire experience. Whenever Professor Luchs first mentioned the two-day boot camp, I’ll admit that I dreaded what it entailed. I consider myself to be an innovative thinker. Yet, when the idea of designing a new product or feature to fix a cell phone-related problem was introduced, I suddenly doubted my ability to be innovative. However, there were a few things that I learned and realized during the process that made the experience worthwhile.
First of all, the entire concept of coming up with as many ideas as you can and as quickly as you can terrified me. My normal approach to a problem or topic is to think of one solution or idea and ruminate on it until I find a direction to go with it. After reflecting on the differences between the two approaches, I realized that my normal approach creates one major issue for me: I often would get stuck, and thus, frustrated, when my one solution or idea didn’t work. When you dedicate so much time to one sole idea before considering multiples options, you risk finding the best path to take. While my normal approach typically involves going with the first idea that sounds like it could produce great results, the design thinking approach lets you examine multiple options before exploring one path. And the best thing about the design thinking approach that I learned is that even if the first option doesn’t work out, you can still go back to step one and explore another path. Designing thinking isn’t a one-way trip. In fact, your results only get stronger the more you go back and revisit how well your initial problem and solution fit together.
Another thing I learned from the boot camp involved certain character traits that I already knew where strengths of mine. My favorite part of the entire process was interviewing my partner. I’ve always felt a little out of place and inferior in every business class I’ve taken, because I’m quiet and not as confident speaking in front of others. However, this means that I’m naturally a great listener, in addition to being able to empathize with people easily. During the interviewing process, I was able to listen intently to Jessica without feeling the need to contribute a story or problem of my own. I loved listening to Jessica talk about her likes and dislikes, what she felt she used her cell phone most for, and the stories she told me about how it both benefited her and failed her at times. I was naturally able to affirm what she was saying and take note on those important details about her life without being distracted about what I wanted to add or contribute to the conversation. As bad as this may sound, this was my favorite part about the experience because it gave me the confidence to continue with the rest of the boot camp.
However, a close second favorite from the boot camp was creating the prototype. Coming into class on Monday, I was feeling a little uneasy about my idea. I knew that it would be a reasonable fix for Jessica’s problem, but I wasn’t sure how she would react or how it would actually be implemented. Once we started physically bringing our ideas to life though, I could see my idea taking shape in front of me. And even though we only had a short time frame to create something, it only took a few minutes for me to get excited to show it off to Jessica. I think this was something extremely important for me to learn, because design thinking isn’t about focusing on perfection. It’s about constantly refining an idea to create the best solution for an individual.