Design Thinking Awareness

Design a new city experience is adopted from d.stanford. The objective is to understand design thinking approach by doing. All participants were given a worksheet and worked partners. We went through design thinking method from emphatize, design, prototype and test. At the end of this experience, all participants designed different kind of services and products for partners.

Design Thinking For Executives

Last March (from 18th to 20th), I have attended a Design Thinking Bootcamp organized by Genovasi (www.genovasi.com). This is a program for executives facilitated by Stanford University. It was fulled of fun and pack with activities. Program started at 8:30 am till 5:30 daily. Our facilitator was Jeremy Utley and Perry Klahbahn from d.school of Stanford University.

We started our activities with Design Thinking Teasers. I met a very nice lady whose job is travelling to other countries. This activity is to design a new city experience using Design Thinking approach. It is about a 2 hours program. The result of this activities is for us to design a product or service for our partner. I created an allergic reaction gadget based on my understanding from the experience of my partner. Our Design Challenge is to DESIGN SAVING FOR PEOPLE NOT THINKING ABOUT SAVING. Our journey started with EMPATHY activities. We were divided into groups and were assigned to interview people around BANGSAR. Our coaches demoed the right techniques to interview and how to ask questions. Our team consists of five people and we walked around Bangsar town and managed to interview variety of people including foreigners from Pakistan, security guard, businessmen, housewives, a cobbler and a hawker. At 3:30 pm, we unpacked our activities using Post It Notes and whiteboard. We have to identify the tensions and constraints before we produce a Point of View (POV) Statement. The second day of training is PROTOTYPING DAY. Our team started to prototype our solutions based on the POV we built. We tested our prototype with a real customer. We gather the feedback in a feedback grid. Then, we were asked to present our prototype in a storytelling technique. All of us presented our prototype to our sponsor on the third day. It was fun presentation with a lot of laughs and giggles. Even the sponsor was totally amazed with the solutions although we took only three days to come up with solutions.

At the end of the bootcamp, each of us was awarded with a d.stanford pin and called ourselves a DESIGN THINKER. It was a fun bootcamp with fun and creative instructors at a wide space (used to be a warehouse) at genovasi. This bootcamp gave us a full understanding on DESIGN THINKING METHODOLOGY AND THE USAGE IN INNOVATION. Before we dismissed we were awarded with a certificate and a nice souvenir.

2014 My innovation journey continues

Why i called innovation a journey? During a journey, I will face obstacle and hardship. There will be many milestones before I reach my goal. I started this year with a blast. With a committed team, we organized and conducted a Strategic Leadership Program. We applied Design Thinking approach. Throughout this program, we learned how to facilitate a Design Thinking workshop to design our strategy. The outcome of this workshop is a visual strategy. Our approach was thinking by doing. We prototyped our strategy by role playing, sketching and visualizing. We even built our strategy in 3D. It was fun. I have concluded the event in one visual map.

My Innovation Story Continues - 2012 - 2013

2012 - INNOVATION......DESIGN THINKING........ I was approached by my boss to continue our innovation using DESIGN THINKING. It is a good idea. But what is DESIGN THINKING? I kept the book somewhere in the rack, remember? Now I have to find this book again. Hmm I lost it I think since I moved from a new home. Easy way out -- get a copy from the hr team. Luckily we still have many more copies... Action plan, I must read this book end to end. My target - to create awareness on DESIGN THINKING. A challenge for someone who only study CHANGE BY DESIGN to understand. I did some research through reading and prepare a few slides on DESIGN THINKING. Understand the whole concept? 5% maybe. However I took the effort to prepare slides and launch Innovation Journey on 2012. Although I am pretty occupied with projects, I worked with team to organize and facilitate a workshop using Design Thinking Approach based on Design Thinking Toolkit for Educators developed by IDEO and Business Model Canvas (BMC). I have reached another milestone and I can called myself a Design Thinking Facilitator. My understanding in DESIGN THINKING increased to 15%. However, due to lack of knowledge on monitoring and implementing, some of the ideas remain as ideas. 2013 - One of the ideas contributed was targeted to be implemented. Together with a group of staff, we setup a product team to ensure our ideas is prototyped. We co created with clients. We invested in infrastructure and resoource to ensure we implemented and able to market. We reached another milestone. The product was implemented at two sites. It was a team effort. Looking back, we never have a product if we never have innovation day.And continous innovation is actually resulted in positive impact which can bring value to company. Although 2013 is not a year of innovation culture adoption at our workplace, I continuously increase my knowledge in Design Thinking. I manage to read a few books after Change By Design including Business Model Generation and Design Thinking for Managers. Innovation is an effort that should not only embrace by organization but also all individual. As for me, I innovate in my daily work and increase my knowledge in facilitation.

My Innovation Story - 2010 -2011

DESIGN THINKING...... 2010 - I first heard this word. It was mentioned in a Change by Design book written by Tim Brown. Frankly speaking, I have no idea what is this DESIGN THINKING, or method and how to use it in daily work. When the book was referred by my boss (he actually make a few copies and distribute it to staff for us to read), I did browse through but I have no interest to continue. Probably because of the photocopy version (black and white). I kept it nicely at home...till I forgot where I placed the book. Our office organized an INNOVATION DAY. The idea was originated from En Azman Hussin, our Chairman. We did a brainstorming session using World Cafe Methodology. It was a full day event. Ideas were contributed by eNCoralians.

At the end of the day, we identified a few initiatives to be implemented. In short, it was a successful event. This is part of our effort to introduce innovative culture at our workplace. 2011 - Innovation....Innovation....Innovation.... We continue innovation and conduct another innovation day. The target is to showcase our innovation to our customers and staff. Since the event is conducted close to our annual dinner, we conclude our innovation day at our Annual Dinner with prizes to winners. Although we had this event conducted at prestigious hotel, we are still in the dark on how to go about with innovation. --the story continues

IT projects

What kind of projects that I have involved in 10 years from today? Since I am working with a System Integrator, definitely I will focus in Information Technology (IT) or Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Projects. Some of the projects are ICT Strategic Planning, Software Development,Portal, Maintenance and Support,IT Outsourcing, database, data center and all projects related to IT. So what is the definition of IT projects? IT projects can be defined as a set of tasks which has a set of components which requires to be installed or configured and has a desired system output. Unlike other projects, IT projects normaly will return intangible benefits. As such, the challenge to be a project manager for IT projects requires additional challenge, i.e to convince customers the return of their investment.

The beginning of Project Management Journey

My journey with Project Management started while studying in University Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) in 2001. One of the classes I took was Project Management. I have heard Project Management before, but understanding the method and know how to manage a project is new although I have involved as project management team prior to joining this class. I was introduced to a Information Technology Project Management book written by this lady Kathy Schwalbe, Ph.D., PMP . There 12 chapters in the book. It explains the basic definition of Project Management, the nine knowledge areas as stated in Project Management Book of Knowledge (PMBOK) from Project Management Institute (PMI), the usage of the knowledge areas for Information Technology (IT) projects and how to become a certified Project Management Professional (PMP). This book is the beginning of my journey as a Project Manager.