Critical Reflection: Design Thinking & Innovation Management at WSU

This report critically reflects on a design thinking project aimed at improving student enrollment at Western Sydney University (WSU). It begins by outlining the business problem, focusing on WSU's weak digital presence and lack of awareness among potential students. The report then reflects on the application of the design thinking methodology, highlighting its benefits, limitations, and challenges in developing innovative solutions. It considers user feedback received on the prototype, suggesting improvements to address the business problem more effectively. The report also analyzes group dynamics during the project, reflecting on the experience of conducting the design thinking process. Ultimately, the project emphasizes the importance of innovation management and professional practice in addressing real-world business challenges and improving organizational outcomes, concluding that a stronger digital presence and targeted communication strategies are crucial for boosting WSU's enrollment.

Innovation
Management and
Professional Practice

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
Business problem in the design thinking project and view of the problem definition....................1
Application of Design Thinking as a method of developing an innovative solution by identifying
the benefits, limitations and challenges...........................................................................................1
User feedbacks received for the prototype and ways to further improve the solution....................2
Group dynamics in performing the design thinking learning by reflecting.....................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................5

INTRODUCTION
Innovation in business means the use of such tools and ideas that help an organisation to
achieve its aim and objective with higher efficiency and effectiveness. Innovation management
and professional thinking are very important for an organisation to flourish in their business.
Design thinking process is explained as the meaningful and actionable problem statement which
is focused towards resolving that problem of design thinkers (Rikke Friis Dam, 2021). The
following report will describe a problem statement and the application of design thinking for
creating solutions that are innovative for achieving successful results.
Business problem in the design thinking project and view of the problem
definition
Problem statements are critical for layout questioning tasks because they guide teams and
their crew and attention at the particular desires they find out. It additionally creates the ability
and optimism to allow crew individuals to generate thoughts in the third and subsequent stages of
the design thinking method, the ideas phase.
Primary surveys and group member surveys show that WSU is struggling often in the early
stages of admission. That is generally the "discovery" component for future college students. It
was mentioned that the main problem with WSU is that it has a more potent social media
presence than WSU and isn't always well diagnosed amongst other universities such as United
States of America, USYD and Macquarie. This was due to the fact many students had been
ignorant of early university admissions and scholarship opportunities, college students
effortlessly encountered other college possibilities, and there was a clear loss of capacity
individual interplay means.
Application of Design Thinking as a method of developing an innovative
solution by identifying the benefits, limitations and challenges
Design thinking is an iterative manner wherein people challenge ideas, redefine new issues,
and create revolutionary and modern solutions (Rikke Friis Dam, 2021). In essence, design
thinking significantly improves the quality of the student enrolment system at WSU through 5
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easy steps including test, define, ideate, emphasise and prototype. The application of design
thinking strategies to this difficulty identifies opportunity solutions that revolve round a deep
interest in the main in understanding and emphasizing target users, and the university continues
thru trying out and trials for destiny applications allows to carry out the experiment.
User feedbacks received for the prototype and ways to further improve the
solution
As a matter of some importance, the essential problem to manage is the shortage of virtual
presence for WSU, there are various strategies to move about this despite how the fundamental
response we might be examining is sorting out our objective of market coverage, zeroing in on
aiding over 'advancing' and remaining active in the market (Brent Barnhart, 2021).
The difficulty portrayed here is that potential college undergrads didn't know about WSU,
their initial access or grant bundles as well as really regularly had compelled report with them.
To this a methodology that the college ought to practice can be to first, see their essential
prospects and customers. WSU's essential customers must be the prospective alumni from
extreme staff and their parents; from these records it will suspect that the virtual social media
sites to be greatest dynamic on must be fb, Instagram and YouTube, instead of exceptional sites
like Twitter and Reddit. Notices featuring grant open doors and ability graduate projects ought to
be achieved for fb to focus on the parents (mother and father) and Instagram can feature extra of
the gaudy and ideal components about the school which consolidates further developed libraries
and moving food stores, to draw in the understudies. most importantly, the main trouble to
address is the deficiency of virtual/digital presence for WSU, there are various ways to deal with
head around this anyway the significant response we can be talking about is sorting out our
objective market, work in aiding over 'selling' and remaining dynamic throughout the market
(Brent Barnhart, 2021).
The problem defined here is that students may have good performance but are unaware of
WSUs, Early Access, or scholarship packages, and / or very often have limited verbal
communication. For this reason, one technique that universities should pay attention to is to first
become familiar with the major target markets. The main target audience for WSU is those who
will soon be graduating from high school and their mothers and fathers. From this data, we can
see that the social media sites they want to be most active should be Facebook, Instagram, and
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YouTube, no other sites like Twitter or Reddit. A commercial Facebook that emphasizes
scholarship opportunities and skills needs to apply for a graduate application to appeal to fathers
and mothers, and Instagram is around the university, which consists of quality libraries and
trendy grocery stores. You can attract scholars by emphasizing the appropriate elements that
catch your eye. Another way WSU can do is to use the right to assist instead of looking for a
"promotion". More specifically, we usually try to provide a solution rather than encouraging
students to use it. This shows that social media is a content material focused on simplifying
registration methods, creating an environment where people can ask and answer in a timely
manner.
Inactive social feeds generally tend to appearance horrific, so the last idea is to live active on
social media (Brent Barnhart, 2021). Staying active on social media just means simple such
things as replying to remarks and scheduling organized posts, so it does not have to be time
consuming. First, the primary trouble that wishes to be addressed is the shortage of presence of
WSU's social media. There are numerous methods to do that, but the predominant answer
defined right here is to become aware of the audience and awareness on support instead of
"selling" and continuing the interest (Brent Barnhart., 2021).
The problem described here is that future college students were ignorant of the WSU, its
early admission or scholarship software, and / or generally had limited communication. Because
of this, one of the techniques a college can adopt is to first identify the primary target audience.
The primary target markets for WSU have to be someone who will quickly be graduating from
high school and her parents. From this statistics, you can see that it's miles the most energetic
social media site on fb, Instagram and YouTube, now no other websites inclusive of Twitter and
Reddit. In order for fb to attraction to parents, it needs to put in force advertisements that
spotlight scholarship possibilities and potential graduate applications. Instagram can entice
students by using highlighting the more outstanding and ideal elements of the college, together
with stepped forward libraries and cutting-edge grocery shops. Some other strategy that the WSU
can put in force is to use the ideal of support instead of looking to "promote." In other words, in
place of constantly encouraging students to use, we attempt to provide a solution.
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Group dynamics in performing the design thinking learning by reflecting
We began the design thinking technique with the intention of addressing purchaser troubles
at some point of the registration method, starting with troubles that institution participants
emphasized of their registration technique and pre-registration college visibility. Using the
institution-created mind maps, we had been capable of correctly perceive important issues. Mind
maps have been created using the personal experience of group members and primary surveys
performed via Google forms. Each survey strategies found out that low visibility changed into a
prime problem amongst university candidates. Many of them said they failed to really recognise
Western Sydney College and didn't bear in mind it an admission option. a lot of them have seen
content from different faculties on social media and faculties, that's why that they had this
aptitude. Study more about those universities (United States of America USYD and Macquarie
have been the most commonplace answers to questions on university programs).
CONCLUSION
It has been concluded from the above report that Innovation management and professional
thinking are very important for an organisation to flourish in their business. Moreover, the
problem statement has been stated along with the use of design thinking to improve the problem
and bring out solutions. Finally the use of user feedback has been shown to solve the problem
and with the use of reflection on design thinking learning.
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REFERENCES
Online
Brent Barnhart, 2021, “15 tips to building a better social media presence”, 2022. [Online]
Available through, https://sproutsocial.com/insights/building-social-media-presence/
Business Insider. (2019). TikTok was bigger than Instagram last year after passing the 1 billion
download mark. [Online] Available through, https://www.businessinsider.com/tiktok-hit-
1-billion-downloads-surpassing-instagram-in-2018-2019-2
Recruiting the digital native, 2021. [Online] Available through,
https://eab.com/research/enrollment/whitepaper/recruiting-the-digital-native/
Rikke Friis Dam, Teo Yu Siang, 2021, “what is design thinking and why is it so popular?’ , viewed 26
May 2022, https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/what-is-design-thinking-and-why-
is-it-so-popular
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