Reflection on My Design Thinking Experience and Development

This assignment is a reflective journal detailing a student's experience with design thinking activities at the university. The paper explores the student's knowledge development, personal growth, and challenges faced during the weekly activities. It discusses the student's initial apprehension and evolving understanding of design thinking concepts like journey mapping, mind mapping, and rapid prototyping. The student reflects on how these activities improved their creative thinking, problem-solving skills, and teamwork abilities. The journal also highlights specific tasks, such as self-reflection exercises, journey mapping, and mind mapping, and their impact on the student's ability to view problems from different perspectives. The student also identifies areas of difficulty, like time constraints and group conflicts, while emphasizing the overall positive impact of the activities on their skills and personality. The student concludes by detailing the skills gained, including teamwork, conflict resolution, and a deeper understanding of design thinking techniques such as brainstorming.

Running head: REFLECTION ON MY EXPERIENCE
REFLECTION ON MY EXPERIENCE
Name of Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Table of Contents
Executive summary.........................................................................................................................2
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Knowledge development.................................................................................................................3
Personal development......................................................................................................................6
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................9
Action plan.................................................................................................................................10
References......................................................................................................................................12
Appendix........................................................................................................................................14

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Executive summary
Self-reflection helps a person in analyzing his activities in details and learning from the
same such that in case of similar situation in future they can carry out the activities differently.
Reflection converts the experience into learning about various goals and values and about
various issues and therefore helps in developing problem solving ability. It helps in self
improvement identifying the strengths and weaknesses of an individual. The main aim of the
paper is to reflect the activities carried out by me during the various weekly activities. The paper
has discussed about the knowledge development, the personal development and action plans
carried out by me.

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Introduction
Design thinking is a very important task for the designer since it helps the person to
develop their thinking skills and also helps in personality development. Design thinking refers to
strategic, cognitive and other practical processes with the help of which design concept can be
formed. This activity is usually carried out by the design team or the designers. It helps in
developing new products and services innovatively for the company. Designers need to know
about many topics such as journey mapping and other forms of mapping in order to improve
their thinking process (Fidalgo-Blanco et al., 2015). Before undergoing the program and
activities I did not have the required knowledge and skills of a good designer but after going
through the activities I have improved my knowledge and skills on design thinking. The main
aim of the paper is to show the process of how I developed my personal skills and knowledge
after undergoing all the weekly activities (Kolko, 2015). The paper also discusses about my
feelings before undergoing the weekly activities and after undergoing the same.
Knowledge development
Before participating in the weekly activities, I felt very scared because I had not
undertaken such design thinking activities before. I did not know about various concepts such as
design thinking, journey mapping, mind mapping and various other activities as I had not done
those activities before Many tasks were given to us such as activities on improving design
thinking, journey mapping, mind mapping, varying out various interview session for design
projects (Liedtka, 2015). We had to carry put rapid prototyping and had to design innovative
products based on the rapid prototyping. Besides this, I had to be a part of becoming a good

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listener and we had to take part in group presentation. All these activities were carried out in
order to improve my design thinking and it is important for me to think out of the box. However,
these activities helped me in improving my knowledge and personal development. After carrying
out the weekly activities I understood the meaning of design thinking (Salmon, Stanton &
Jenkins, 2017). Design thinking is very important for any organization as well as for individuals
for various reasons – it helps an individual in thinking out of the box and looking at problems
through a new perspective. Design thinking refers to strategic, cognitive and practical process
with the help of which various proposals and others concepts are developed. The various weekly
studies have helped me in developing various innovative products and the same can help me in
future. In order to improve the design thinking, various activities such as brainstorming is used
and other activities such as six thinking activities all these techniques helps an individual in
thinking innovatively and creatively. By learning design thinking, I will be able to solve
problems more easily then before because I will be looking at all the problems through a
different perspective. The design thinking helps in motivating entrepreneurial spirit. This
technique helps in developing prototyping and other activities, evaluating and testing and also
various other activities. Therefore this technique helped me in developing the prototype and
launches it in the market. During the weekly activities we were required to think out of the box
and innovate a product that is creative and our group developed the dog diapers and created a
prototype of the same such that it can be launched for trial by few customers rather than directly
launching the product in the market. Design thinking helps in solving different types of wicked
problems, farming the problem in a better way, thinking in a more solution-focused way. It is a
technique through which I have also learnt about mind mapping (Filatro, Cavalcanti &
Muckenberger, 2017). It helps us in visually organizing the information and helps in forming the

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relationship between the different concepts. There are different concepts and those are related to
the main idea. It can be used to generating, structuring, visualizing and classifying various ideas
and can be used for decision making, problems solving and various other activities (Baker,
2017). There are various application of mind maps such as educational, family, personal and
others and includes brainstorming, note taking, and helps in solving complicated issues. After
carrying out the various activities of the weekly tasks I have also learnt about journey mapping
and how it can improve design thinking. It is the visualization of the process and the activities
that an individual does in order to achieve the objectives. Being a designer, I should be able to
think creatively which I was not doing before undergoing the weekly activities and understood
the same during the activities. The activities made us think innovatively and creatively such as
we were asked to carry out self-introspection through the process of self-reflection. For this
activity I had to think deeply about myself in order to carry out self-introspection properly. It
took me a lot of time as compared to my friends in order to properly analyze myself and to think
about various other aspects. After the first weekly activity however, I felt good as I found out
about my strengths and weaknesses (Liedtka, 2015). This activity helped me think out of the box
because I had to analyze about myself and the introspection activity was not such an easy
activity. We got the weekly activity of visualizing personnel from Australia. While carrying out
this activity I found it difficult because had to think from the perspective of an old man and
thinking from that perspective helped me gain ideas about motivation, frustration and other
feelings. After completing the weekly activity it made me feel good because I was able to think
from other persons perspectives. In the next weekly activity we were required to carry out
journey mapping for ourselves. It was based on the journey mapping related to the exact
planning activities in order to get a degree in Australia. I felt the activity was difficult because I

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had to describe my feelings and actions for all the different phases of journey mapping and it was
not an easy task. After the task I felt good because it was like I had to go back into the past t
scrutinize all the activities carried out by me. This was quite interesting task for me as I had to
carry out all my actions based on my past experience and as if I was repeating the same in order
to get the degree. We were given another task of mind mapping for the purpose of understanding
the mind mapping tools in relation to higher education. I felt this task was rather interesting
because of the fact that I had to analyze the different functions of higher education such as the
various benefits and requirements of the task. Some more weekly activities were carried out such
as the rapid prototyping activities and innovation of products dependent upon these rapid
prototyping activities.
Personal development
I have developed various skills during the weekly activities such as team work. I did not
know how to work in teams before the weekly activities were given to us. There are various
advantages and disadvantages of working in teams because the teams can achieve the objectives
faster but for that the team should be first able to work together and that is not an easy work
because of conflicting interests of members of the groups. Through the various activities I have
learnt about team work and how to overcome the problems in carrying out team work. The best
part of the weekly activities was that each activity taught me something or the other. There were
about 8-9 weekly activities and all these activities helped me to improve my skills and
knowledge about design thinking. Being a designer it is very important to have design thinking
for me in order to think innovatively and innovatively. These activities helped me to think out-
of-box for each activity. In some weekly activity, I had to think from the perspective of an old

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man. In carrying out some weekly activities, I had to carry out self-inspection through the use of
self-reflection techniques. I had to think innovatively for designing my journey map and step into
the shoes of another person for the same purpose and I had to carry out the mind mapping for a
weekly activity which made me think from the perspective of higher education student. These all
weekly activities helped to improve team working skills and developed my overall personality
with the help of various techniques such as self-reflection and others. The part which I did not
like about these weekly activities was that it took me too much time to carry out various
activities and so much time was not given to us. For instance: while carrying out self-
introspection through self-reflection I had to think deeply in order to analyze my strengths and
weakness and so it took me more time. I had difficulty in deciding the research method in case of
each of the weekly activity. While working on teams, there were many points of conflicting
interest in the team or group work due to which my experience was not so good. We were asked
to carry out group presentation and that was also a part which I did not like about weekly
activities because I am scared of talking in front of large audience and I had to do the same and
so that made me feel uncomfortable and ultimately led to poor experience on my part. However,
my overall experience with the weekly activities was good because I developed many skills and
knowledge after undertaking the weekly activities and participating in the same. Some of the
skills that I have learned by participating is team work, how to overcome team conflicts and
work as a team, I have gained knowledge regarding design thinking and its various techniques
for improving the same. For instance: we carried out brainstorming activities in order to improve
the innovative thinking of the people. During the weekly activities various types of tasks were
given to us in order to improve our design thinking. These activities were considered as difficult
initially by me because of various reasons and that is why these activities led to poor

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experiences. Our weekly activity included a task of group presentation where we all had to speak
in front of vast audience and it was very difficult for me as I felt afraid of speaking in front of
others and on the stage. This made me feel uncomfortable and therefore made my experience
bad. Besides these, there were many times when our group entered into conflicts over different
reasons and it made it difficult for us to work as a team. However by the end of the weekly
activities we learned how to work as a team and how to overcome various conflicts. I initially
found it difficult to carry out the activities of the weekly tasks properly because of lack of
creative thinking and as a result it made my experience bad. I was required to think from the
perspective of an old man in order to carry out the visualizing activity. I was required to carry
out a journey map and a mind map in which I had to think from the shoes of another person. We
were asked to carry out self-inspection through self-reflection and many other similar innovative
activities which made me frustrated initially. These all activities therefore made my experience
bad initially because I had never performed activities similar to these. However, the best part of
the experience was that through every activity done weekly I had learnt something and that has
improved personal skills and knowledge and developed me. These tasks improved my problem
solving skills through various weekly activities such as self-inspection through self-reflection.
Through these tasks the self-learning skills have enhanced and now I know my strengths and
weakness better than before. I have developed the skills of creative thinking by thinking out of
the box since I was given tasks in which I was required to visualize personnel such as a citizen
from Australia. The tasks helped to improve team work because of the fact that information,
suggestions and feedback was needed from the various team members such as in a task we were
required to carry out a journey map regarding getting a degree in Australia. In this task we were
required to think creatively and moreover to get information regarding the task from the team

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members (Yeager et al., 2016). This ability of working in teams was not thee in me before going
through the weekly assignment. In developing the journey map there are various stages engaged
in the same, by preparing a journey amp I have understood about the different stages. In have
also understood about the different tools used for the same purpose. With the help of these
weekly assignments, I have learned to plan my own activities in an effective way. We were given
a task of mind mapping through which we were required to carry out mind mapping for higher
education. I could have improved my experience by being open to design thinking and
innovative thinking. I have faced those issues due to lack of openness to innovative thinking. If
brainstorming activities had been carried out properly then these issues would not have been
faced by the group.
Conclusion
From the above discussion, it can be concluded that through reflection we can convert
experience into actual learning and can apply the same into practical life. After carrying out the
various weekly activities I have developed my knowledge and skills such as earlier I was
unaware of journey mapping, mind mapping and others now I know about the same and I will
apply the same in real life. I could have been more open towards innovative thinking then I
would not have faced the issues. The weekly activities could have started with brainstorming
activities in order to improve the thinking of all the members of the groups and the conflicts
would have been lesser as compared to the actual conflicts. Through brainstorming each team
member gets equal opportunity to discuss about their issues and think innovatively. For carrying
out design thinking brain storming is an important element. Lack of proper leadership abilities
stopped me from carrying out innovative thinking among all the people in the organization. I

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have gained a lot of knowledge and personal development through these weekly activities such
as I have learn about team learning, problem solving skills, conflicts resolution and others. The
activities have developed my knowledge regarding mind mapping, journey mapping and my
knowledge about design thinking and others have improved (Aga, Noorderhaven & Vallejo,
2016). Earlier I did not have a proper idea about design thinking and brainstorming activities.
However, since we have attended these weekly activities my knowledge about the same has
increased. I can in fact carry out my knowledge in real practice.
Action plan
The action plan stage includes the strategy that will be adopted by me in case of similar
problems in future. The areas that can be improved are also discussed in the action plan
(Rickards & Moger, 2017) see appendix A. The steps needed to improve the process are
discussed in this section. The major issue faced by me during the weekly activities was issues
related to team work and conflicts in the same. Team work can be improved with the help of
various technique such as we need to carry out activities to improving the communication
between the team members and for that various activities such as brainstorming, six hats and
others can be used. There needs to be a proper leader in the teams who can lead by example and
help in maintaining proper team activities and help in coordinating all. The steps in the action
plan for improving the team building and team effectiveness will include activities such as-
appointing a responsible leader, alignment of group objectives with the overall objectives of the
project, open communication techniques, a proper conflict resolution technique and carrying out
various team building and trust building activities in the teams (Valentine, Nembhard &
Edmondson, 2015). The practical activities that can be used in order to improve team
effectiveness is brainstorming as that will help in pen communication between the members of

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the organization. In order to build trust the leader needs to share the objective of the group with
the members such that they can understand their roles and contribution to the main objective.
Various team building activities can be used in order to improve the relationship between the
members. The leader can improve the team effectiveness by conducting regular meetings and
taking regular feedbacks from the members, by allowing everyone to participate in the decision
making process. I can also apply the concept of journey mapping and mind mapping in real life
for different ventures in my life. Through mind mapping I can visualize the process that I am
going to carry out in order to achieve my objectives.