CQUniversity MGMT20140: Design Thinking for Social Work Issues Report

This report explores the application of design thinking to address the social problem of isolation. It details the design thinking process, including tools such as empathy, defining the problem, ideation, prototyping, and testing. The report outlines activities like interviews, space saturation, brainstorming, and workshops, and their outcomes. The author reflects on their role in defining the problem statement and explains how the chosen activities helped identify the problem and its potential solutions. The report highlights the use of tools like journey mapping, secondary research, and co-creation to understand and solve social isolation. It also discusses the viability testing of the proposed solution. The report references several academic sources and provides a comprehensive analysis of the design thinking process in the context of social work.

DESIGN THINKING SKILLS
IN SOCIAL WORK ISSUES

DESIGN MAKING TOOLS AND
SOCIAL PROBLEM
 The social problem identified is that of social isolation.
 In spite of being more connected , people have become more lonely than ever
and they abstain themselves from the social gatherings and the social
support.
 Design thinking is a process that helps to solve the problems, focusing on the
human-centered solution (Gasparini, 2015)
 Design thinking process involves few tools that help in the solving of the
problems. These tools include to Empathize, to Define, Ideate, Prototype and
Test.
Source: Denning, 2013

EMPATHY
 Activities involve conducting one
on one interviews with the
individuals who remain socially
isolated.
 They can be asked the questions of
What, Why and How . The What ,
Why and How questions help to
move from assumptions to
concrete observations.
 The outcomes suggest that
social isolation arises when
people do not connect to anyone
in the society to share their grief
or problems. It can also be
attributed to introverted nature.
Source: Koppen & Meinel, 2015

DEFINE
 Activities involve the unpacking of the stories of the individuals who are
socially isolated.
 The space saturation and the group is another activity of the design
making process, that helps to define the problem statement.
 The outcome suggests that the main problem to address is the
phenomenon in which people tend to isolate themselves from
interacting with the society and suffer from loneliness as a result,
which also gives way to depression and other mental health issues.

IDEATE
 The activities of BrainStorm , Brainwalk, MindMAp,
The Sketch, Analogies and the Challenge
Assumptions can be useful for solving the problem
of social isolation.
 The designers might be asked to sit in a room with
adequate space and design their ideas.
 The outcome of this activity was that the best
approach to solve the problem would be to base
the activities in a customer centric approach.

PROTOTYPE
 The two activities of prototype are low-fi and high-fi.
 The activities also involve the arrangements of
workshops.
 There should be less time sped on workshops which
include the implementation of the plan.
 The outcome of the activity suggested that the
set of activities to undertake the problem
solving would be a 7 step process.

TEST
 The Testing activities might involve receiving the feedback
from the designers.
 They can be made to gather in a room and might be asked
to fill in feedback forms.
 They , with the help of a fun activity can either write down
or sketch the probable responses of the solutions.
 With the help of responses collected from the
respondents, the outcome reveals that the approach is
a suitable one.

Reasoning and reflection
 Generation of values and
identification of them with logic.
 An online personality test would
be conducted.
 Let the participants express
what values they gained from
the activities
 Outcome suggests that most of
the respondents have a
common value, which is
integrity.

Problem identification
and solving
 Involves identification of a problem
and its root causes.
 Ask the participants regarding what
they feel is the root cause to the
problems that they face.

Brainstorming
 The process of storming through a range of alternatives
to get to decide which one suits a situation the best.
 The members pitch in all of the ideas and evaluate each
of them, and list down the most viable solutions to the
main problem.
 The outcome of this activity involves coming up with a
journey map to identify which are the problems faced by
the participants at each stage of the problem.

Journey Mapping
 The journey mapping reveals that disbelief in the
society, decrease in social interaction, lack of
self dependency, and depression are the
sequential problems faced in the journey of
social isolation.
 Social isolation would be understood as a step
by step process, and each stage would be
stressed upon and why they arise would be a
matter of discussion.

Research
 Helps in the gathering and
synthesis of knowledge.
 Thorough secondary research is
conducted on social isolation, in
which, ideas as to why they arise
and solutions to those problems
can be identified and put to use.
 Outcomes suggest that social
isolation is directly related to
introverted nature and
depression.