527 poses some great challenges to me, and in a timely fashion. I am currently involved in a process audit for how the safety program in our organization is operated (I have recently been appointed ‘CASO’, company aviation safety officer) and a big part of this task is to begin to re-vamp the education process in general.

Currently we use a variety of different methods to train staff and management, ranging from outsourced online training, to photocopied handouts and accompanying open book tests. As stated in my flipgrid submission, my challenge is to create a video based safety lesson to begin of catalog of training resources for the company, and I believe that this can be done in-house at a lower cost, and higher quality standard, than most of what we currently possess.

Introduction:

The review of the empathy phase has been helpful, as a lot of water has passed under the bridge in MALAT since we first explored the human centered design concept! As this challenge is also an actual job task for me, it carries real-world implications and having a framework to consult against helps ensure that I am providing my employers the most value possible. I’m delayed in writhing this as all of the executive leadership group was out of the office for a number of days so it was only very recently that I was given permission to use company examples, and access to the records I have collected for my review. As a result, much of the writing for activities 2,3, and 4, as well as assignment 1 will take place over 36 hours. While normally this would be problematic (if I was using an example other than my place of employment) I have been immersed in this project for some time before 527 started so feel very comfortable packaging this material for the purposes of this assignment. The timing could not be better, as I am about to start the iteration phase of my first course right as we are moving into unit 2.

I have been particularly impacted by the concept of ‘Detachment’ (Kouprie & Visser, 2009) as it has grounded me in the responsibility of leaving behind some of my own biases, and apply the education and training I have received to best serve the customer, given the limitations of resources that we face. I have noticed through this process a tendency to ‘be with them’ when they express struggles or frustration, but then stay in that mindset, which is limiting, when I should be producing helpful product as a professional. In fact, while the four step process (ibid):

  1. Discovery
  2. Immersion
  3. Connection
  4. Detachment

May seem to oversimplify a complex and nuanced process, it has most definitely kept me on track as I have proceeded, as I should, at any given moment, be able to express my current activity as an extension of one of those steps. Indeed, reflecting on this routinely, I have confirmed that I likely have spent too much time in ‘connection’ when prototyping and iteration could have begun. In short, I believe I already have enough information to begin production work.

Surprise

My biggest surprise so far was in my re-assessing who my user was. I expected that the final learner was my user, but I am placed in a position to supply training tools for department heads and managers. They are the people whose problem I am primarily trying to solve: Getting quality education to their people with minimal drain on their own resources. I can design and implement very effective learning options, but if I do not solve the problems faced by the department heads, there will be no buy-in, and my product(s) will never see the light of day.

Methods

For my primary method, I am in an immersion position for this project. As I am a department head in the organization myself, many (but not all) of the issues I face are the same as my counterparts. We have a very good culture of communication, and as I am quite new to the organization (7 months) dialog on how things are done, and how effective those processes are, is routine. That being said, respecting my comments above regarding detachment, I think this limitation required I employ a tool to actually objectify my work more, so have decided to use the ‘How Might We’ method from Bootleg Bootcamp to draw me out of the immersion process to a mindset more tuned to production. Although this may be tweaked during iteration, at the moment, teh main question is: How might we shift to in-house, high quality video lessons using available resources?

Barriers

The main barriers I see for this project are limited time available for myself, the bias(es) I hold in terms of the material I like to produce as well as consume, and the diversity of users. Some of  the managers I will be working with are pilots, some are executives, some are flight co-ordinators, and some are technical support. Each of these groups has a very different perspective, vernacular, and culture.

References:

Kouprie, M., & Visser, F. S. (2009). A framework for empathy in design: stepping into and out of the user’s life. Journal of Engineering Design, 20(5), 437-448.

Stanford University Institute of Design. (2016). Bootcamp Bootleg.  Retrieved from http://dschool-old.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/METHODCARDS-v3-slim.pdf