Last post I wrote talked about the Define phase of Design Thinking and how it worked in the scheme of our project. Towards the end I started writing about how optimistic I was about Ideation and I can say it was optimism well-placed: my group had a productive (and fun!) time Ideating together, and I’m ultimately really happy and excited about the direction we’re going in: innovating on Delta’s rewards program so that passengers and staff are incentivized alike to fly sustainably. I didn’t recognize any truly negative experiences, so rather than highlight pros and cons, I’d like to take some time to look at what went really well, and what went somewhat less well (but not badly!).
Not as well: our second HMW statement was a doozy
It wasn’t poorly crafted or anything, but in thinking about how we might reduce the time that the plane engine is on (i.e. in flight, taxiing, stalling), our answers started to get a lot more technical than we were anticipating. Once the more basic ideas were out of the way, we were left wondering what specifically about the way flights are conducted is unsustainable and a pain point; for example, would boarding the plane more quickly have enough of a lasting impact? Even thinking of the airplane in terms of driving a car was a little difficult, as we know that sitting in traffic in a car is wasting fuel, but what is the airplane equivalent? Still, it yielded a lot of valuable solutions and got us thinking about how to reward and incentivize the pilots and staff as well as the flyers, which was huge and another great dimension for us to look into.
Really well: we are working well as a group
I’ve written about this before, but I do want to emphasize how much fun I’ve been having working with this particular group of people. I come into class excited and feeling well-prepared, and we’ve all become much more passionate about airlines than I think we ever were. This showed up in Ideation as well: it’s a lot easier to come up with the really “wow” ideas when you’re comfortable and happy with the group, and feel more open to share. It’s just plain fun to come up with wild ideas when you feel like it’s a group you can really express yourself in. Especially when prompted to come up with “bad” ideas, we were having a blast and didn’t feel uncomfortable using someone else’s idea as a building block, or being honest and admitting when we just didn’t know what something was. It also helps when your group is organized, on top of things, and committed to the process.
Our best ideas (and, from my experience, most “best” ideas) were the ones we came up with as a result of building off of something someone else had said; whether that came from a prompt we came up with or just an idea someone brought to the table that wasn’t fully fleshed out. These ideas were the most innovative, in that they weren’t something already being implemented at Delta (or any other airline we knew of), the most sustainable (in some LP analysis category) and the most in-line with what someone like Karen would actually want to sign up for. With this in mind, I look forward to prototyping, and will keep in mind that the “best” prototype that we, as a group, will come up with, will likely be some sort of combination or growth off of what we come up individually.