When approaching how exactly to Ideate, our group thought of doing the Crazy 4’s exercise individually, and then Ideate together as a group. What we did, is we presented our ideas in a meeting, and then once everyone proposed their ideas, we clustered ideas with similar innovations together. After clustering, we voted on what our top solutions were. This helped narrow down what we thought would help Provinzial the most in their dilemma. Subsequently, we moved onto the Prototype phase. We weren’t quite sure of what the business was looking for, so we decided to ask the faculty and accumulate guidance on our progress thus far. After much thought and consideration for what our prototype was going to be, we decided on a model that specifically details the key points of our ideas. A model that highlights intricacies like timelines, stakeholders, features, functionalities, and more. Once we were done in our breakout sessions, we reconvened as a whole group and discussed each prototype. This was a time where criticism, questions, compliments, and concerns were addressed with each prototype in which we decided on what could be improved for each model.
Something I admired about the way we make decisions is the balance of individual time to group time. It creates an environment where groupthink is not tolerated, and it allows all types of psychogenic compositions to really innovate. There is never a decision the group makes without full agreeance and regarding everyone’s commentary. Every person and idea is valued. Another component I admired is our unconventional method of prototyping. Once we agreed we should highlight the details of our ideas, all the work started to come together. I came to the revelation of how Design Thinking is all about not doing things how they normally would be done, so when we applied that to our Prototyping, the outcome was astounding. Once we all had that epiphany, the burden was taken off the group. In terms of length and stress, day 3 definitely took the most time and effort by far. I attest that to the ambiguity of the prototyping and narrowing/conceptualizing the ideas. Overall, I am proud of our decisions we came to, our models we created, and the milestone we arrived at. The group surprises me daily, and I think we all can agree that the more we work on this, the closer we get and the more dynamically we work.