Reflective Report on Design Thinking for Managers-Course: Design It

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Assessment 3: Reflective Report
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Executive summary
This reflective report has been made for depicting the overall learning and understanding of the
students about the ‘designthinking for the managers’ and also of the whole course ‘design it’.
The report also summarizes and shows the experience which has been gained by the scholars by
learning from this course. The report is covered a major part with the scholars self-analysis in
which most of the highlighted part is about the strengths and weaknesses of the students that they
have at present. The reports mainly promote and cover, in addition, about the importance of the
concepts and how it has been understood by the scholars during the course and also about its
importance for the scholar’s future development. The course of the design it specifically
elaborate the design prototype, research of the design-led, research of the co-creation of the
ethics, analysis of the mind mapping, analysis of the chain value, needs to carry out the analysis,
problem findings and solving, nature and the use of designing concepts, and many more such
concepts. In the consecutive weeks, many workshops has been organized which tells that the
whole course in overall was about the understanding of the concepts of the designing. An action
plan for the reflection of the difficulties that has been faced by the scholars and also the ways by
which it can be overcome by the scholars has been provided in this report. The action plan that
has been made depicts the activities that will be helpful for the scholars to improve the skills
analytically.
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Introduction
The discussion on the understanding of the scholars about the course of the designing thinking
for the managers that they have developed during the course will be discussed in this reflective
report. This report will talk about the course’s introduction (introduction to the designing
thinking), the process of the designing, the theory of designing, designing prototypes, approaches
to the design thinking, and the differences between the approaches of design and business. It can
be said from the topics that has been covered in the course that each and every week discussed
major variety of the techniques, approaches, and tools of the designing thinking and that every
week holds uniqueness is one way or the other. The main part of the course of designing thinking
was that every week’s topics were delivered in the workshops every week. This report also
consists of an action plan that will help the scholars to improve their skills and will also fulfill
the requirements of the future development if implemented in an effective way.
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Self-analysis
This module (introduction to design thinking) was the important module for me as it helped me
to grasp the knowledge of the designing that are important for further learning of the course. The
module in return turned out to be my best learning experience and I tried to put all my efforts to
learn each and everything that has been taught to me and I realized that it is true that “efforts
never get wasted if done with right mindset”.The lecturer in the first week gave the lecture by
organizing and carrying out different activities that helped in understanding the concepts of the
design thinking in an effective manner. The lecturer organized those activities to enhance the
observation skills of the students and I found it very effective. It made easier for me to make
notes which I can use for revising. It is obvious for me that this course will help me in the
development of professional life in the designing as I have learned the concepts of the design
thinking in an effective way (Lei, et. al., 2014).
In the next module of the design thinking I was taught about the design process. In this module,
Mr. Jeffery we have been taught in brief about the design thinking after he gave us the overview
of the first class. In the topic of design thinking he started with the explanation about the
empathy in brief. Then he told us about the processes and stages which are involved in the design
thinking and it came out be visualization for me. The process contains of five steps that he said
are the most crucial for the designing and he explained it in a very easy way by taking help from
the activities and it turns out to be very effective for me. There are many different ideas
mentioned in various books of management in the form of articles and journals.
The next module which was the theories underlying design thinking and this module has been
very effective for me in many different ways; the analytic view and the process that undergoes in
the analogy of the preparation of design and the way in which the learning outcomes has been
expressed. This module discussed briefly about the writing of the blogs by analyzing the things
that can make differences in writing blogs that are considered by the lecturer matters the most. It
has been shown to us that the design thinking is the strategic, practical, and cognitive process
which helps the designers in developing the concepts of design. The lecturer then performed
some of the activities that reflected what the class is doing, how the class is doing, what changes
are needed, and which part one has to work more. This helped in identifying my mistakes’
pattern that was impossible to be identified by me without these activities. Then another activity
was organized by the lecturer that helps us in assessing which areas are not up to the mark and
also how can we improve those areas.
The Fourth module that has been taught to us was the problem finding and needs analysis and
this module very interesting for me as this module does not consist of much of the sessions of
theories. We had been given liberty by Mr. Reyaz for exploring the brainstorming things, ideas,
pictures and many more things by making us indulge in different activities and made us to play
the vital role which made a lot of major differences. A good visualized activity was organized
which proved to be a helpful approach for the posters’ designing (Mendenhall, et. al., 2016).
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With the guidance of the teacher we started learning the problem findings which is a process in
which he told us to look at the problem rather than just seeing it and then he asked us to jump
directly at the identifying how the problem can be solved. This activity helped me a lot in the
problem finding and problem solving.
Need analysis and problem solving was the next module in the course in which many of the
activities and discussions has been done. For me this module proved to be very productive as I
came to know about many of the concepts of empathy; empathy is the capacity of a person to
understand and feel what the other person is going through, how the person is feeling, and what
the person is experiencing about a thing that is occurring in the person’s life. The lecturer told us
that empathy is of three types; emotional empathy, somatic empathy, and cognitive empathy. In
addition, we have been provided a briefing that consists of two new tools of design thinking
which were the journey mapping and brainstorming and these tools are known to be very
important for the design thinking. I gained a lot of knowledge from the use of this tool
(Robinson, 2013).
In the next module we studied about the research skills for design thinking and this module
became very difficult for me to understand as the concepts of the research skills for me was quite
confusing. This could have happened because of my interest in the topic but what I liked about
this module is that it explained the skills that are needed by a person for carrying out the research
of the design thinking in an effective manner and also the concept of the analysis of the value
chain. The module taught us the concepts of the design thinking in more elaborated and different
way and from this I realized that my research skills are very poor and I need to improve it.
Module seven taught us about the ethics, empathy, and analysis in design research and this
module is one of my favourite as I have learned many things like data types, data sources, and
approaches of the research with the help of the videos showed by the lecturer to us. This module
made me re-experience some old thing but it has been presented to us a very new way. It has
been found that the essential parts of the ethical issues are behavior of the person in a non-
harmful way, shortage of data and destruction, anonymity, confidentiality, and privacy. The
process of the sources of data types is such that first the person is needed to collect information
through primary sources which is done by observing keenly. Then, secondary process is being
done which is known as collecting data through internet and many different resources.
The next module was very much exciting for me as it was about the rapid prototyping.
Prototyping for me refers to something that can help me in converting my idea into a model
which will be shown to others to make its picture clear and I think this is one of the most
important parts of the process of design thinking. Teacher asked us to first put the things on a
simple paper and then go for the product formation as it is alright to make mistakes on the
prototype dummy rather than making mistakes in the actual product. Several tools for designing
has been shown and described through some videos which helped in the rapid prototyping. For
me it was a great and memorable experience (Sandelowski, 2013).
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The classes continued with the prototypes and the entire thing that are in relation with the
prototype. At first we were taught about the learning launch in the starting of the week and also
the values of the learning launch was also been taught to us. Learning launch plays an important
role in bringing the in the eyesight of the customers, showing the product up, and in the
marketing operations. Then the next big thing that happened was the activity of the feedback
sessions that was performed by all the students in groups and it was beneficial for almost all of
us present there. In the feedback activity, all the scholars are needed to show their prototypes to
other groups and were suggested to take appropriate feedbacks from them. Other groups were
asked to point out the good things, what has been lacking in the prototype, which thing is needed
to be improved, and how it can be ideated on the later stages (Schlemmer, 2012).
The next and the last module of the course of design thinking were the design presentation and
co-creation and is one of the best weeks which we have been through. The presentation that was
performed in teams was very good; all performed with very good team efforts. My team received
many good complements from the teachers which made me very happy because I had work hard
in the preparation of the presentation. The topic that we had chosen for the preparing our
presentation was ICT toilets for the elders. We got much appreciation for choosing the topic as
well as for the tools of design thinking that we used in the report. We were mostly appreciated
when we used tools with empathy in uplifting our chosen topic that shows our understanding of
the design thinking properly. In this week, the discussion on the blogs and the co-creation was
also done with full efficiency (Luotola, et. al., 2017).
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Action plan
Activities Impact Duration Evaluation
Learning software of
data analysis
Toolkits of this
softwarewill help me in
improving my data
analysis
4 months My ability to
understand and
analyse the data will
evaluate my level of
improvement.
Performing the projects
of practical with other
partner institution.
Using the gained
knowledge in
performing with
different analytic tools.
3 Months Improvement in the
skills and ideas.
Performing tools of skill
development
Developing problem
identifying and solving
skills
4 Months Evaluation of
improvement in
identification of the
problem and solving
it.
Analysing the data
provided by the
community of science
This will help me in
analysing the proper
data and enhance my
knowledge
6 months Improvement in the
knowledge and
analytic skill
Improving the basic
fundamental operations
of design thinking
This will enhance my
problem solving
approach in many
different ways
3 Month Improvement in the
understanding the
fundamental
operations of design
thinking (Meinel, et.
al., 2016).
Mapping of the
concepts
It will help me to
analyse the concepts of
design thinking in a
proper manner.
2 month Enhancement in the
analysis and in
understanding the
concepts
Training courses of
design thinking from
offline and online
source
Understanding the basic
data analysis
4 Months Improvement in
understanding the
data analysis.
After analyzing the complete unit orally, I have realized that the analytic skills which has been
required by me to gain the excellence in the design thinking courses is no up to the mark and I
needed to improve myself by considering the things which has been taught to me during ht
course. I have also faced many difficulties in understanding the concepts of analytic skills of top
quality which is required, during the course of designing (Howard, et. al., 2015). The course
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which requires the analytic skills is very important to be acquired by the scholars for the future
professional development (Al-Hadithi, et. al., 2016) . Therefore, I need to go through to these
skills and put efforts in the way to achieve excellence in the analytic skills follow for my bright
future. The skills in which I have to put my efforts are decision making, brain storming,
theorizing, and interpretation of the data observing skills, and detecting patterns. It has become
very important for me to learn some software of the data analysis like MS excel, R-commander,
etc. as this software’s will help me in increasing my understanding of the data analysis. This will
also increase the insights of the tools of analytics and will help me in understanding how to
implement and exercise them. In addition with this I also need to play some games like Sudoku,
chess and many such mind games to improve my thinking skills (Lenzen, et. al., 2017).
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Conclusion
This report highlight the module which has been taught to these scholars during the course of
Design it in these report scholars has been taught about the concepts of design thinking which
consists of self analysis part in which an individual has to analyse himself. This report covered
many topics during the workshops that has been organized every week such as the course’s
introduction, the process of designing, difference between the approaches of designing and
designing business, theory of designing, and many more such topics. In last part of this reflective
report an action plan has been developed which consists of the strengths and weaknesses of the
scholars.
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References
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