As Creative Director for MasterpieceVR, I have seen the tech start-up through early prototypes to a successful launch and continued development. Working on a small team has advantages when you need to make fast decisions. Our underlying process aligns strongly with the Design Counsel’s Double Diamond (Conway et al., 2017) method but also has flexibility for opportunism and low hanging fruit. This aligns with the Think like a System, Act like an Entrepreneur lens (Conway et al., 2017). Our course reading is encouraging me to believe that we can maintain some level of this flexibility and entrepreneurial thinking as we grow.<\/p>\n
In the earlier phases of a startup, there are fewer possibilities because there are fewer resources and the goals are more short-term; survival. As you grow, you start to have more flexibility to design for the longer vision. Recently, I began in tackling a complex design problem with a small but growing team that was also iterating\u00a0on a process for project management. Until that point, projects had been led primarily by the development team and we were now shifting to a design thinking approach to problem-solving. The design team is comprised of folks with a broad spectrum of experience and skills, so we all had a lot to learn from and offer each other. Happily, my studies also provided some just-in-time learning to help along the way. Reading the theory and experiencing the implementation has been the best learning I could ask for.<\/p>\n
To draw out discrete, linear steps such as those in the Design Counsel’s Double Diamond: discover, define, develop, deliver, as outlined in our reading (Conway et al., 2017), and assign roles is satisfying. However, being in the process of these phases on a timeline can be daunting, especially with a method new to the team. It is challenging, especially with complex problems where the relationships between cause and effect are not obvious (Conway et al., 2017) to separate project phases cleanly. There were moments when it felt unclear where we were in the process as there are elements of discovery at every step, and we would sometimes retrace our steps as the problem was many-to-many and hard to visualize efficiently. As we began this process, I was enrolled in LRNT524 – Innovation, Design and Learning Environments, in which we learned of the measurable skills developed through design thinking exercises, including metacognitive mindshifts. This mindshift is characterized by an awareness of where one is in the design thinking process enabling one to agilely respond to changing parameters of a problem (Goldman et al., 2012). Having completed many creative projects as a concept artist, I am familiar with the learning curve of a new creative process and the increased confidence that only comes with time and experience. Between our course readings and the experience of this first run through a new design thinking process, I am beginning to feel that confidence.<\/p>\n
We are in the final stages now; prototyping, alpha testing, selecting. Now, in this final phase, without full knowledge of what the outcome will be, I see how the design solutions followed the design thinking process, and I feel confident that we have been efficient in our process and that the best solution will be implemented. I\u2019m proud of my team and the work we\u2019ve done and I am looking forward to the next challenge.<\/p>\n
References<\/strong><\/p>\n Goldman, S. et al. (2012). Assessing d.learning: Capturing the journey of becoming a design thinker. In H. Plattner, C. Meinel & L. Leifer (eds). Design thinking research: Understanding innovation. (pp. 13-33). Berlin: Springer.<\/p>\n Conway, R., Masters, J., & Thorold, J., (2017). From design thinking to systems change: How to invest in innovation for social impact. Royal Society of Arts, Action and Research Centre.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As Creative Director for MasterpieceVR, I have seen the tech start-up through early prototypes to a successful launch and continued development. Working on a small team has advantages when you need to make fast decisions. Our underlying process aligns strongly… Continue Reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lrnt525"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0027\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0027\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0027\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0027\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/71"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0027\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=302"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0027\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":304,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0027\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302\/revisions\/304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0027\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0027\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0027\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}