Design Lab Chapter 8: Iterate There and Back Again
Welcome to the Iterate phase of the TFF Design Lab. In this chapter, you will be reviewing all of the work you have done up to this point, and make changes to your concepts and prototypes based on the feedback you have received.
It is important that you do not "fall in love" with your idea and prototype. Try to put your personal feelings for them aside, and ask "How did the user see it?" What aspects confused them, and what parts did they love? Did they ask for you to make any changes?
Make sure you analyze all of the feedback you have received, and then determine which chapter(s) that you should repeat. Remember, no one gets it right the first time. Check out this case study about Airbnb -- it takes a long time and a lot of hard work to learn what a customer wants and needs, and how to best deliver that to them.
The Iterate chapter should be repeated as many times as necessary throughout the life of your project or business. It is critical to continue to get feedback from your users and customers, so that you limit any unnecessary work for yourself and you continue to develop useful and important features.
At the end of this section, you will be prompted to set up a meeting with your team to talk about how you all worked together and what could be improved in the future. Most teams fail because of a lack of leadership and conflict within teams -- it is important to sort out issues now, and take steps to make sure your team will continue working well in the future.
To start the Iterate chapter, click here. Don't forget to share your results with us through your blog or on social media! We'd love to hear all about your progress.
Welcome to the Test phase of the TFF Design Lab. This is one of the most important chapters of the Design Lab -- This week you will be getting feedback on your idea, concept, and prototype.
Before you begin, read the following sentence multiple times. You are not trying to sell anything or convince anyone that your prototype is a good idea. You will have plenty of time to do that in the Pitch chapter of the Design Lab. Instead, in the Test section your goal is to get unbiased and truthful feedback from potential users and customers. Let people struggle with the prototype before you offer any explanation -- It is important that you see what does and does not work.
To effectively test your prototype, come up with an interview plan. What questions will you be asking? Who will be asking questions? Who is recording how the user interacts with the prototype? Where will you find people to interview? Use the Feedback Grid to record your interviews.
By the end of the Test chapter, you will have tested your prototype with potential customers or users. You will receive all kinds of feedback, both good and bad. Make sure to listen and to understand all of it, even if it is hard!
To start the Test chapter, click here. Don't forget to share your results with us through your blog or on social media!
Welcome to the Prototype phase of the TFF Design Lab. In this chapter, you will pick a topic related to your concept that requires additional learning, and create an experiment to test it!
To get started, review the persona and design statement you made in the Define chapter. Now look at the concepts you created in the Conceptualize chapter. With both of those in mind, review the following three aspects of a prototype that you will need to test.
Usability or desirability -- Do people want this? Will people understand how to use it?
Technical feasibility -- Is this idea possible? What kind of new technology or process will you need to create?
Economic viability -- Will your users be able to buy your product or service? Will you be able produce it at scale, for a reasonable cost?
Which one of these aspects are the most critical in determining the success of your project? Think of your prototype as a science experiment - You have a hypothesis, but now you need to create an experiment to see if it is true or false!
With this in mind, start sketching out your experiment. Who will you need to speak with to get your questions answered? Where will you need to be? What do you need to create to test it out? Once you have some of this figured out, start building it. This is not a final product -- in fact it may look completely different than your initial concept. It's ok if it is sloppy and does not work right, the important thing is that you create it, and test out its desirability, feasibility, or viability!
By the end of the Prototype chapter, you will have designed an experiment, and created the prototype you need to test it. To start the Prototype chapter, click here. Don't forget to share your results with us through your blog or on social media!
Welcome to the Conceptualize phase of the TFF Design Lab. In this chapter, you will begin turning your ideas from the Ideate phase into a reality, and get feedback on your early stage concepts.
The point of the Conceptualize chapter is to create quick, messy, and incomplete concepts that help you gather feedback from users, experts, and advisors. To do this, we recommend you build a physical model representing your idea with everyday materials around you. For example, maybe you want to make a new fish feed for fish farmers in Kenya -- create a mockup of what the fish feed bag might look like, and share that model with an aquaculture expert at your school. Perform multiple interviews (here are some suggested questions) with several of your top concepts, and after each interview make sure you fill out a Feedback Grid.
By the end of the Conceptualize section, you should have a good idea of some concepts that will work, and the pros and cons of each one. As a team, explore the results of the different Feedback Grids, and select the concept you want to move forward into the Prototype stage!
To start the Conceptualize chapter, click here. Don't forget to share your results with us through your blog or on social media!
Welcome to the Ideate phase of the TFF Design Lab. This chapter is all about brainstorming and coming up with solutions that address the Design Statement you made in the previous Define phase.
Before you begin brainstorming, review the Design Statement and persona with your team. Find a room with a whiteboard or chalkboard, or get sticky notes or a large piece of paper for you to work on. Quickly look over and agree to Stanford's Rules for Brainstorming. Finally, make sure you are all standing, and have some space to move around and get active -- brainstorming is a fun, creative, and high energy activity!
Now it's time to begin brainstorming. Think of questions such as, "How might we..." or "What if..." and begin forming some ideas.
In this stage you want to generate as many ideas as possible. We encourage every member of your team to spend the first five minutes writing or drawing pictures with different ideas. Have a competition for who can create the most ideas -- remember that no idea is too crazy. In fact, the crazy ideas are usually the best ones (or will lead to the best conversations). If you are feeling stuck, try thinking of ideas that utilize vertical farming, synthetic biology, big data, and appropriate technology -- these are some high potential areas that Thought For Food has identified for industry disruption.
Once those five minutes are up, everyone should take turns sharing their ideas. As you do this, start to filter and categorize your ideas into different areas. See if you can combine ideas, and, if any new ideas pop up, write those down too! Once this is done, select some of your top ideas, and "park" the other ideas in your "idea garage" to revisit at a later date. In the next chapter, Conceptualize, we will start forming these ideas into concepts.
Click here to start the 4th chapter!
Design Lab Chapter 3: Define User Personas and Design Statement
Welcome to the Define phase of the TFF Design Lab. In this chapter, you will make sense of all of the data you collected during the Explore chapter. You will be asked to come up with different personas utilizing the knowledge you gained, and try to see the problem from their point of view.
A persona is a fictional character that you create to represent your proposed user. Think of this persona as a real-life person that will be buying your product, participating in your research, or attending your training. A great way to create your persona is to follow the same creative writing strategy authors go through when preparing to write a novel. Here are some questions you can use while you are creating your persona -- remember to utilize the information you collected in the Explore phase to answer questions appropriate to your focus area.
The outcome of the Define chapter is your Design Statement -- one sentence that says something about your user, their needs, and the world around them. To solve big problems, you must have a clear understanding of what you are creating. The Design Statement is your starting point for creating big solutions. Here is a template you can use while creating your Design Statement.
Click here to start the third chapter!
Design Lab Chapter 2: Explore Challenges To Identify Your Focus Area
Welcome to the Explore phase of the TFF Design Lab!
In this chapter, you will identify a focus area for your project. There is not a concrete, single solution to solving how we will feed 9+ billion people. Instead, we need teams to explore all of the facets of this complex challenge, and find the topic that resonates with you most. Together, we will uncover many different innovative and bold ideas to achieve a world in which there is enough healthy, affordable, and sustainable food for all.
To start this chapter, you and your team will brainstorm some different focus areas you are interested in. The TFF Team put together a list of 30 Spaces for Innovation to help you get started. Then, you will create a plan to learn as much as possible from the customers, users, experts, and/or individuals impacted by your focus. Finally, you will execute your plan by observing and conducting interviews to soak in as much information as possible. Make sure you read this article about How To Interview Your Customers -- it will help you to ask meaningful questions so you can collect impactful answers.
By the end of the Explore chapter, you will have a focus area and the information needed to start figuring out the intricacies of your idea. Click here to start the second chapter!
For additional resources, check out this blog post -- Hunting for Bugs: Fixing Solvable Problems Through Impactful Solutions.
Usha Devi Venkatachalam is the CEO and CTO of India-based social enterprise, Krishi Janani, which loosely translates to Nourishing Farm. The company is a subscription service that uses technology to help rural farmers reduce expenses and increase their profits by aggregating their purchasing power. Venkatachalam is also the Founder ad CEO of Appropriate IT (AI), which develops new technology in order to enable social change amongst the underprivileged population.
We spoke with Venkatachalam about some of the big issues the food and agriculture industry is facing, and where big opportunity lies for budding entrepreneurs.
TFF: What are the biggest problems in your fields of expertise, as they relate to food and agriculture, or next-generation leadership?
UDV: There are two that come to mind.
The first is dealing with the past, tackling the problems that have arisen out of our past actions. For example, how will we feed billions while dealing with soil health issues caused by overuse of chemicals? The second is preparing for the future in order to meet expanding food needs while dealing with the volatility of climate change.
Our common planet binds us together. We need to work as a global community to solve problems such as climate change. However, growing threads of isolationism creates a distrust that precludes global collaboration. In my mind, this is our most critical problem. However, all is not lost. A sense of hope for all us comes from the next-generation leadership of global youth who are seeking solutions unfettered by geographical boundaries, identities, or ideologies.
TFF: What’s the most exciting new business model you’ve seen in recent memory?
UDV: What is inspiring us are the questions being asked about existing business models that will push the envelope of innovation further. For instance, Uber is a disrupting force in the global taxi business sector. Now, people are questioning whether Uber’s drivers are contractors or employees. Is it even possible to build a company where the drivers are real partners, on equal footing with employees or investors? This will take business model innovation to unexplored territories.
India has a lot of innovative business models -- Fabindia where artisans and their traditional crafts are finding new outlets for commerce; Aravind Eye Hospital where a tiered billing structure takes into account a patient’s ability to pay.
Our excitement in these business models come from trying to figure out how these models can be localized and customized in contexts where smallholder farmers are the majority? How can the powers offered by technology revolutions enable these business models even further?
TFF: What areas in your industry are hot, exciting and/or seeing the biggest opportunities?
UDV: There is a lot of opportunity in agriculture, but at the intersection of the various problems we have in India. Anything to do with trash, especially how to convert trash into useful products, for instance, small units that convert household compost into fertilizer. Or, village level trash processors for plastic waste.
Renewable energy, including microgrids and distributed energy production, is another area with humongous opportunities. Our energy situation is not getting better. The question is whether we can create something that can be set up quickly and is affordable for a smallholder farmer.
TFF: What keeps you motivated, even when things get difficult?
UDV: At the end of the day, Krishi Janani is a moonshot trying to aggregate smallholder farmers’ purchasing power into a potent economic and social force. Moonshots can be disappointing, difficult, and depressing. Some days it feels like we take half a step forward and ten steps back. But then there is always this one small incident or another that may seem tiny in its implication but has a large impact in inspiring us to take a few more steps forward. Say, a farmer sharing proof of how their household income increased due to the cattle feed we procured for them. Or, a young woman who runs our local ag tech centers taking an independent decision that shows us that she feels an ownership and responsibility for her center’s performance. I see these as the universe exhibiting its own random acts of kindness (or maybe a swift kick? ;)) so we can get up, dust off, and keep moving.
TFF: Are there any challenges you see in India that can be solved by methods used in a different region?
UDV: Speaking from my personal vantage point, we can learn a lot from how the internet, especially e-commerce, disrupted many established retail behemoths. There is also this resurgence of artisanal products. This is next evolution of industrialization and the enforced uniformity of its assembly lines. It holds a lot of promise for a country like India with its vast diversity. Other interesting trends elsewhere in the world such as growing organic, going local, and urban/vertical farming also can provide much-needed inspiration.
