I do not remember when it was that I have heard of design thinking. It sounded close to me, though no vivid memory of knowing it before. Just a day before it was to start as a formal credited course in the classroom, I thought, it would be a good thing to punch it on a search engine. When I did, my preconscious abstract idea of design thinking became vivid. I came to know of this as one of many strategies for problem-solving. Indeed, this was the second workshop that highlighted the problem- solving strategies after the Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA).
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| Madam Namgay running us through the slides. |
Whenever there was a problem, I normally generalized the solution at my own comfort. At times, I would react at once to the problems, empathy sense would be out my head. I cannot recollect a time where I once sat in a circle to look for a solution. Everything was what my heart perceived it was in society. But again, it is not that I have not heard of problem-solving strategies earlier. In all years of schooling, some fraction of problem-solving strategies was unintendedly imparted to us by our teachers. So, I can confidently admit that I had some knowledge, skill, and aptitude to confront any type of problems, only the thing was that these were not defined but a nitty-gritty integration.
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| My friends working on deep user interview questions |
The first day of the workshop on design thinking, though I was prepared, was a stimulus of a lighting match stick that ignited the flame of thinking to look from other’s lenses, i.e. the principle of getting ourselves into other shoes [empathy]. But what stranded my thinking was how feasible it could be to solve the problems by becoming human-centric. This knot of doubt was unleashed with dream home activity. When I drew my dream home, I drew what I visualized it to be; but it was confined by my ability to think far, I had barely what I wanted. However, when my friends were engaged to build my dream home, they asked me what I wanted, which eventually made my dream home come to the standard I wanted. This gave me a lesson that understanding others well by seeking to unveil what is inside can be a solution to many problems.
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| My dream home (made to this by my friends) |
● Deep user interview skills
● Empathic listening skills
● Observation skills
● Taking notes skills
● Need finding skills
● Ideation skills
The mini design challenge helped me design my thinking empathetically, i.e., knowing the details of a problem through users. In addition, all design thinking strategies involved in the process gave me a pragmatic feel.
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| The first sign of personal development |
Having tremendous gains from the
three-day workshop, my potential in problem- solving has improved. After a few months, I will be working in one
of the organizations in the country. When it confronts problems, I will come
forward to use this approach. I will use tactics such as deep interviews to dig
deep into identifying the root cause, web ideation to look for possibilities in
solving the problem, and use need-finding skills to really understand what the
issues are about. This is because this approach is human-centered. Hence, I will be giving them the new approach
of design thinking to solve the problem which is cost-efficient and effective.
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| Prototyping/ The majors to solve the queue problem at JDWNRH |
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| Marshmallow challenge with Kinley Wangmo |
