We rushed to the 8.45 am lecture like any other day, with breakfast in one hand and books in the other. Something felt different about that day – 5 back-to-back lectures of the same subject in a day – no one had a clue what was happening. We entered our classroom and took our seats. That morning, even our usual classroom had a different aura, as if it was preparing us for the fun-filled day that lay ahead.
Just as we spotted a huge box of art and craft supplies lying at the corner of our classroom, our instructor for the course “Design Thinking” walked in. Ten minutes into the lecture and we realised that we were embarking on a journey filled with learnings through creativity. Our instructor divided the class into eight groups, asked us to give our groups some fun names and to come up with one interesting thing that was common among the group members. He introduced us to design thinking, which mainly revolves around the use of creative strategies to find solutions for specific problems. He also shared some real and interesting cases where design thinking was used to solve problems in a simple way, rather than going for the conventional but inefficient and complex solutions.
Each group was then allotted a problem statement related to some problems people faced on the IIM Indore campus. We were all provided with chart papers, colours, sketch-pens and so on to work out our solution in a systematic yet creative way. Throughout the day, we were engaged in conversations with a different set of people from the IIM Indore community. We conducted a lot of interviews and had lengthy discussions to understand their perspectives and then tried to analyse our findings. The classroom was filled with enthusiasm with peppy music in the background and occasional laughs here and there. Everyone was enjoying this unique task at hand and towards the end of the day, we had come up with certain solutions. We created models to depict our ideas and tested their effectiveness by displaying them to people across the campus. Finally, we zeroed in on the most appropriate solution and created models to present our ideas to the whole class. The presentations too were entertaining, as they could be in any form – a PPT, role play, discussion and so on. The solutions that every team had come up with were out-of-the-box and efficient. It was indeed surprising to see how problems that seemed to have no real solution were being solved with the use of imagination and a systematic approach of design thinking for problem-solving.
The Design Thinking course came as a welcome change from the usual lectures. Although everyday lectures are also quite fun because of the case-based discussion pedagogy, expressing one’s ideas in such a unique way indeed enhanced our learning. This course has been one of my best experiences at IIM Indore and I’ll definitely cherish all the fun and learnings we had!
Wondering What Exactly Is Design Thinking? Here's A Sneak Peek -
Design thinking is a 5 stage process. The first step is that of empathy. You identify your target audience, get under their skin and try to look at things from their perspective. Step 2 is to define the problem statement. Putting your problem into crisp words can bring clarity and focus. The next step is to ideate. This involved brainstorming and coming out with as many possible solutions as possible. The key here is creativity and imagination. Step 4 is that of prototyping the ideas that emerge from step 3. We develop models for the ideas to understand how the users feel about those ideas. The final step is that of testing, wherein feedback is solicited from the users regarding the prototype.