FACILITATING CREATIVE THINKING DMGT 732 - Winter 2017 - Professor Tom Hardy
Jessica Wilson - Lucia Salgado - Alejandra Chavarria - Hien Le - Hima Tadimeti
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Table of Contents Course Description................................................................................................3 What is Facilitating Creative Thinking? ................................................................4 The Professor ........................................................................................................5 The Team ...............................................................................................................6 Timeline..................................................................................................................7 Planning ................................................................................................................8 Recruiting Process Prototyping Tools and Techniques...........................................................................................13 Warm-up activity Secondary Research Methods Primary Research Methods Gaming Facilitation...............................................................................................19 Roles Activities Yarn Activity Visual-Analysis Game Persona Creation Card Game Collective Data ...................................................................................................35 Combining data with teams 1 & 3 Conclusion ..........................................................................................................39 Bibliography ........................................................................................................40
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Course Description
The course taught the students how to create conditions for creative thinking and innovation within an organization composed of a wide variety of professionals, most of whom are not familiar with design thinking. The course prepared the students to lead teams in the envisioning of new ideas and solutions by developing skills in framing, imaging and group interaction as they apply the process of design conceptualization outside of the familiar domain of studio skills. In a series of simulations and group exercises, the students acquired experience in idea facilitation through working successfully with non-design people in a creative mode.
Source: https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*Newrr3Gp0Qclc73O-fPhhw.jpeg
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What is Facilitating Creative Thinking?
Facilitating creative thinking is a way to get participants to brainstorm thus generating new ideas. Creative thinking is particularly useful when trying to gain insights from user groups not directly associated with creative fields. Facilitators use creative methods to assist a group in problem solving for common objectives.
Source: https://blog.usertesting.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/ideo-human-centered-design2.png
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The Professor
The class was led by Professor Tom Hardy. Hardy received his B.I.D. from Auburn University and worked with Coca-Cola, Ford, J.P. Morgan, Lenovo, Lowe’s, Maytag, Merck, Microsoft, Polaroid, Procter & Gamble, Samsung, Tupperware, Verizon and Xerox. During seven years of consulting with Samsung on brand-design strategy, Hardy helped increase brand equity from US$5.2 billion to US$16.9 billion, building its presence as a global design leader. Hardy also played key roles in development of the original IBM Personal Computer and IBM ThinkPad.
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The Team
Lucia Salgado Barrancabermeja, Colombia MA Industrial Design & MA Design Management.
Alejandra Chavarria Quayaquil, Ecuador MA Design Management Hima Tadimeti - Indore, India MA Industrial Design & MA Design Management
Hien Le HoChiMinh City, Vietnam MFA Advertising & MA Design Management.
Jessica Wilson Roebuck, SC MA Design Management
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Timeline Week 1
Week 2
Week 3
Week 4
Week 5
Week 6
Week 7
Week 8
Week 9
Week 10
Secondary Research Primary Research Recruiting Plan Recruiting Process Mock Up Rehearsal Facilitation Data Collection Data Analysis Process Book
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Planning
Recruiting Process The designers began the recruiting process by brainstorming ways to recruit gamers who were non-designers. The team came up with many ideas to recruit participants including social media, flyers and cultural probes. The process also entailed creating a list of various locations that the team could visit to recruit gamers. The locations consisted of gaming halls, popular game retail stores and even a trendy record store. The designers used social media as the main platform to reach out to a larger audience quickly. They designed a flyer and circulated it online, primarily using Facebook. Almost immediately participants started reaching out to the team via email. They were then asked to fill out a brief application form which was later used for data collection. Out of 40 applicants the team hand picked 16 applicants based on their primary gaming console, favorite games, age and gender.
ARE YOU A GAMER AGE 18-35? Do you want to make $50 & free pizza for 1.5 hours of “work” ? If you answered yes to both questions
Who: SCAD Graduate students sponsored by Lenovo & YOU, the GAMERS! What: 1.5 hour design facilitation, games, free pizza and $50 per participant Where: SCAD Jen Library – 201 E. Broughton Street When: Feb. 21st 6:00PM-7:30PM Why: We are conducting a facilitation that involves NON-DESIGNER gamers. *To qualify please email Hien at HIENLE20@STUDENT.SCAD.EDU by Feb. 17th **If you have studied design or worked in design, you do not qualify. SORRY! ***BY INVITATION ONLY. YOU WILL RECEIVE A FORMAL INVITATION AFTER EMAILING US.
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Planning Age
Culture
Gender
Occupation
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Planning
Prototyping A mock facilitation was held two days prior to the event at SCAD’s Gulfstream Center for Design. The designers practiced their planned facilitation activities with fellow classmates in order to gage the time limitations and gain feedback into how well they understood the activities. The team performed the activities with the same set of information and procedures as planned for their final facilitation. The exercise resulted in constructive feedback and changes were made accordingly.
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Tools and Techniques
Warm-up Activity The designers used Yayasan’s Resources for Permaculture Workshops & Follow up - Creative Facilitation Techniques to guide them in selecting a proper warm up activity for their facilitation. Using an icebreaker activity was important to the team because they wanted participants to be comfortable interacting prior to starting the facilitation activity. The team decided on the ‘yarn activity’ to kick off the session. The participants stood upright in a circle and the first participant held a ball of yarn and said something about themselves. A participant who shared the interest was then asked to grab the yarn, eventually creating a spiderweb of interests. The activity showed participants that they shared common interests thus creating comradery amongst the group.
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Tools and Techniques
Secondary Research Methods The designers began secondary research by conducting a popular media and publications scan. They used these methods to learn gamer statistics. According to the 2015 The Verge article, Men call themselves gamers, but just as many women play games, they found that 52% of gamers are female and 48% are male. The team then used Peter Gray Ph.D.’s article in Psychology Today, Cognitive Benefits of Playing Video Games to better understand how gaming plays a role in the improvement of basic mental abilities. The article was also helpful in understanding the benefits of gaming and the gaming environment. Next, the team investigated the different categories of games: massively multiplayer online, simulations, adventure, real time Strategy (RTS), puzzle, action, stealth shooter, combat, first person shooter (FPS), sports, role play (RPG) and Educational. From their research they chose the top five most played gaming categories amongst their participants (racing, adventures, puzzles, combat and FPS) for further research.
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Tools and Techniques
Primary Research Methods
Based on insights derived from secondary research, the designers began the primary research phase. A set of questions were created to help guide them. How might we find out how gamers perceive themselves? How might we understand how gamers emotionally perceive different games? How might we find out how to aesthetically improve the current gaming system? By using these questions the designers were able to carefully select research methods for the facilitation. The team chose to use many methods including surveys, observation, field activities, interviews, persona development, research participant mapping and a user research plan. These methods resulted in a abundance of data that was later affinitized and combined with the research of two other facilitation teams.
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Tools and Techniques
Primary Research Methods The team conducted a survey with thirty-nine females participants. These were the top three games:
Assassin’s Creed (Action-Adventure / Stealth)
Bioshock (First Person Shooter)
Fallout (Action / Role-Playing)
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Tools and Techniques
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Tools and Techniques
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Gaming Facilitation
Roles The team divided responsibilities into roles: note taking, facilitating and photographing. Each member took on multiple roles. The team distributed the work equally amongst themselves keeping in mind their strengths and weaknesses. The note taker’s primary job was to observe the facilitation and take notes accordingly. The facilitator did the majority of the speaking and made sure to stay unbiased and not over direct. The photographer was responsible for capturing the essence of the session for later study.
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Gaming Facilitation Activities The event was a total of 90 minutes. The team had organised four activities to gather information and gain insights into the primary research questions. 6:00 – 6:15 Warm-Up Activity 6:15 – 6:30 Yarn Activity 6:30 – 6:40 Attributes 6:40 – 7:10 Persona Creation 7:00 – 7:15 Card Game 7:15 – 7:30 Wrap Up Warm-up Activity: Yarn Activity All participants gathered in a circle and they started by telling the group one of their personal interests. When someone shared the same interest they would take the yarn and tie a knot around their index finger. Then they had to say one of their interests and so on. This activity showed participants that they all had interests in common. Some common interests were that they enjoyed cooking, traveling and naps. The yarn activity acted as an excellent ice-breaker. It was engaging and started conversations amongst the participants. By the end of the activity the room was full of laughter and the participants were given a short break to enjoy a snack.
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Gaming Facilitation
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Activity 1: Visual-Analysis Game The participants were given shown five images and asked to fill out a scale of attributes. Theses results were later analyzed for data and compared with results from another facilitation group.
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Facilitation Results
Activity 1: Visual-Analysis Game
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During the visual analysis activity participants were carefully looking at the images and took numerous glances before answering the survey. It was observed that participants took the longest amount of time to answer the first set of ten questions. While looking at the third image, the majority of the participants smiled. The majority of participants only looked at the fifth image once compared to glancing at the other images multiple times. At the end of the first activity the team asked how many participants knew all of the games and almost 40% of them raised their hands.
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Gaming Facilitation
Gender
Activity 2: Persona Creation Perhaps the most insightful of the activities, the person creation allowed the participants to be creative and work as a team. During the activity, participants were divided into five teams and each team was asked to create their own persona using cut out accessories. They were also asked to fill out an empathy map regarding the persona for further insights
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Facilitation Results
1 persona: Escape 1 persona: angry/ pessimistic.
Activity 2: Persona Creation When answering the emotional and personal questions related to the persona, each team drew inspiration from their own lives and atmosphere. Some of the similar pain points were technological issues that were related to consoles or gaming systems. Out of five personas, four were male. The four male personas were all single and the female was a mother.
Engage, control/ superior/ sense of achievement/ winner/ passion/ relax/ passive mode/ relieve/ calm, fun/ happy, patient.
Like to play at home, office, cave: out of reality. Play on weekends, evenings, night, when they have time.
4 personas ( men/ woman): play with everyone 1 persona: fellow wizards Listening music while they are playing. Play online/ chatting/ voice group.
The team combined the insights from the five personas and created an overarching persona to represent the common results. Play: Minecraft, , call of duty, kids games. Role play games.
Too many updates, loss internet connection, losing the game, game difficulty, controls difficulty: buttons/ key combinations, to many updates.
Relieve stress and frustration, relax.
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Gaming Facilitation
Activity 3: Card Game In the final activity participants were given a set of forms, textures and colors and asked to choose one form, one texture and a set of two colors representing their ideal gaming system.
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Facilitation Results Male’s Insights Form: Sharp angles, sturdy, powerful, strong, fast.
Colors: Combination looks good, happy, homey, bad ass, zero about color, all about performance, Halloween, prominent colors.
Texture: Rugged, motion, strength, unique, protection, visually appealing, mixture of smooth and rugged, repetitive.
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Facilitation Results Female’s Insights Form: Rounded edges, sleek, simple, easy to customize.
Colors: Simple, breathable, strength, fluidity, mesh, durable, feel cool.
Texture: Cool combination, hi-tech and sleek, neutral color.
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Facilitation Results
Extra Insights - People wants more color options : purple and green. - 11/16 people picked black (10 were men). - People in general prefer high quality, low cost customizable gaming system.
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Collected Data The team combined the data that they collected at the facilitation with another facilitation teams data. The results showed some commonalities between the groups. Team 2: Activity 1
Team 2: Activity 1 + Team 1: Activity 3 Racing Game The majority of both team’s participants said that this image is “confident”. Con·fi·dent -Adjective -Feeling or showing confidence in oneself; self-assured.
Team 1: Activity 3
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Collected Data
Team 2: Activity 1 Team 2: Activity 1 + Team 1: Activity 3 FPS Game The majority of both team’s participants said that this image is “authentic”. Au·then·tic -Adjective -Of undisputed origin; genuine. Team 1: Activity 3
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Collected Data
Team 2: Activity 1 + Team 1: Activity 3
Team 2: Activity 1
RTS Game The majority of both team’s participants said that this image is “leading”. Lead·ing -Adjective -Most important
Team 1: Activity 3
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Collected Data
Team 2: Activity 1 + Team 1: Activity 3 Puzzle Game
Team 2: Activity 1
The majority of participants said that this image is “rational, but slightly unimaginative”. Ra·tion·al -Adjective -Based on or in accordance with reason or logic. Un·im·ag·i·na·tive -Adjective -Not readily using or demonstrating the use of the imagination; stolid and somewhat dull.
Team 1: Activity 3
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Conclusion
After ten weeks of research, planning, facilitating and collecting data the team concluded that facilitating a creative session requires an open mind and a lot of initial detail planning. The team set out to facilitate non-designers to be creative and they felt that they succeeded. The participants provided insightful feedback into the world of gaming and most importantly their ideal gaming computer. Overall, the facilitation taught the team how to plan, organize and carry out a successful facilitation with an interdisciplinary group.
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Bibliography Degges-White, S., Ph.D, E Riggio, R., Ph.D, & Streep, P. (2015, February 20). Cognitive Benefits of Playing Video Games. Retrieved March 09, 2017, from https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/201502/cognitive-benefits-playing-video-games Kumar, V. (2013). 101 design methods: a structured approach for driving innovation in your organization. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. doi: 9781118083468 Martin, B., & Hanington, B. M. (2012). Universal methods of design: 100 ways to research complex problems, develop innovative ideas, and design effective solutions. Beverly, MA: Rockport . doi:978-1592537563 Opam, K. (2015, December 15). Men call themselves gamers, but just as many women play games. Retrieved February 20, 2017, from http:// www.theverge.com/2015/12/15/10220440/pew-research-center-video-games-gender Tom Hardy. (n.d.). Retrieved March 09, 2017, from https://www.scad.edu/academics/faculty/tom-hardy Workshop Resources 1: Creative Facilitation Techniques. (n.d.). In Permaculture Facilitator’s Resource Book for Training and Assessment(pp. 2-26). Bali, IN: Yayasan IDEP with GreenHand. I. (2015, July 9). N/A [Post-its on wall]. Retrieved March 9, 2017, from https://blog.usertesting.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/ideo-human-centered-design2.png
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