11:00:55 I know I usually try to finish one email before jumping onto a meeting and then I'm five minutes late so at least give at least give those poor people a minute.
11:01:04 That happens.
11:01:14 All right, we have a few more hopping on.
11:01:17 Video on or off. It's up to you.
11:01:23 Hi, Molly, this is Erica. I'm currently showing as MDF bug light, which is the name of our Zoom, but I don't have the ability to change my name.
11:01:33 So if you or somebody else who is hosting We'd like to that'd be awesome.
11:01:40 Yes, I…
11:01:40 The cool thing. No judgment. Yeah.
11:01:42 Well, you can call me that, I guess. Might be confusing.
11:01:46 Sounds like a wrap, maybe a rap name or you know some sort of performer.
11:01:50 Right. No big deal if you can't, but I just… I can't.
11:01:57 That is really funny.
11:02:01 Yeah, Matt, you made me look at mine really quick. Okay, good.
11:02:11 You can be updated.
11:02:14 Thanks. I appreciate that.
11:02:17 No worries.
11:02:24 All right. We are… And about two minutes.
11:02:29 After so i'm going to start talking And we'll still give people a few minutes to hop in.
11:02:39 But I want to introduce myself and give a little bit of order of business before we start.
11:02:46 I'm Molly Thompson. I'm the industry partnerships program manager with the main state workforce board, and I know not everyone on this call is from maine so Welcome to those of you who are not.
11:03:00 A few orders of business. So first of all, we will be recording this training And we will make a copy available on the new WorkSource main website Which is going to launch later this year. We will actually have an industry partnerships
11:03:15 Section on that website and all of the webinars that we do this year will be recorded and posted there for people to watch Again, if you need it before that website launches and you'd like to rewatch our recording, just let me know.
11:03:32 And I'll find a way to get it to you. We have also allowed all of you to use your video and your sound on this.
11:03:39 A lot of times webinars won't allow that. We have chosen to allow you that access.
11:03:46 So that you can ask questions throughout the training. We do have an open Q&A section at the bottom. You're welcome to post questions there. If you don't want to interrupt or raise your hand.
11:03:57 If you post something there and I cannot answer it then I will raise my hand and I will read it out to our speaker, Dan.
11:04:07 To answer. You'll also have a little time at the end to ask questions when the presentation is done.
11:04:15 So we're going to get started now. Please make sure that you are muted.
11:04:21 To start off, but you're welcome to have your video on or off as you prefer.
11:04:25 Now it's my pleasure to introduce our speaker, Dan Griner. Dan is the Director of Design Innovation and Strategy for the College of Engineering at the University of Colorado Denver. Cu Denver is known for really long titles.
11:04:41 Dan actually has three of them, so we're only using one of them today.
11:04:46 But he also leads several entrepreneurial programs at CU including the Smart Futures Lab and the Outside Lab, which is a partnership with Outside Magazine.
11:04:57 So he's got his hands a lot of buckets.
11:05:01 Prior to this current role, Dan spent over 30 years in entrepreneurship and product development roles.
11:05:08 He's founded four companies and two nonprofits, which is kind of a funny mix. Most people go one way or the other, not both.
11:05:16 But he's got expertise in a lot of areas. He's worked with a variety of products, services, and initiatives across a wide range of industries.
11:05:24 And that's part of why we've invited him to speak to us because he touches a lot of the industries that are important to the state of Maine in his current work. He's also held leadership roles in a Fortune 500 companies in higher education, and he has lived and worked around the world, not just
11:05:43 In Colorado. So we're very lucky to have Dan here today. Dan, thank you for being with us. And the virtual floor is yours.
11:05:53 Well, it's going to be impossible to live up to the the high bar that Molly just set for me here, but I really do hope to provided a little bit of insight into some of the projects here and If I could just really briefly go around the room, just understand what kinds of
11:06:13 Work people are doing. In the chat here or in or you can shout it out. It would help me to maybe temper or understand how to understand how to understand how to understand how to you know make this information relevant to you.
11:06:28 If a few of you would like to give some comments about what you're doing, that would help inform me.
11:06:41 Erica, I'll pick on some people here.
11:06:48 Yeah.
11:06:44 Sure, sure. Now that I had my name changed. Yeah, so Erica Watson, I work with the Maine Development Foundation and I work with Molly on an industry partnership for the forest product sector here in the state.
11:06:59 And I also work on industry partnership for the seafood sector and workforce development for the growing space economy here in the state.
11:07:09 And I'm fortunate to also be able to work with some adult students or those helping adult students who have not earned their credential yet, but whom have or who have, you know, credits towards that.
11:07:27 Go ahead. Yeah, nice to meet you as well. Amy.
11:07:25 Very cool. So it's great to meet you today.
11:07:32 Hi, Dan. Thank you. I work for the Catherine Cutler Institute at the University of Southern Maine, and I do public service and evaluation work for the local workforce board in our coastal counties region here in Maine. I do a little bit of evaluation work for other projects. One is with the industry partnership.
11:07:54 Pilot project with the State Workforce Board and then also evaluation work with the Department of Education.
11:07:59 And I'm a PhD student at the University of Southern Maine in public policy with a concentration in educational leadership.
11:08:06 So the workforce training components are all of interest to me with this series.
11:08:11 Very cool. And Lisa
11:08:18 Oh, you're muted, Lisa.
11:08:22 The cough button got me again. So I'm Lisa Shaw. I'm with the Maine State Library's Division of Library Development.
11:08:32 I work with Maine's 257 public libraries across the state as well as school, academic, special, medical, etc.
11:08:41 And their respective boards. There's two separate but complementary aspects to One of them is obviously continuing education training for our librarians. Maine is a state that does not have a requirement for librarians to have a library degree, although individual libraries hiring might.
11:09:05 So we make sure that people that are going into the job are well trained for that.
11:09:10 Over here, the workforce development aspect is that our libraries are servicing a lot of the same people that workforce development agencies and career centers are servicing.
11:09:20 We have the strongest internet connection, bar none. Most of our libraries are at a gig of symmetrical fiber or more.
11:09:27 They have meeting space and so we have remote work grant funded initiatives for people in the community that are doing that. We have entrepreneurship.
11:09:38 Offerings, people that Need to do work or… upskilling or anything like that. Our databases may help to cover some of that.
11:09:48 Learning Express and different things like that. Another hat I wear is that I'm on the board of the Bangor Area Homeless Shelter.
11:09:56 And I will leave it at that because I literally could go on all day. I think my job title is almost as long as yours.
11:10:05 Well, amazing, important work. I think I've always felt like libraries are kind of the beating heart of a community so They provide so many services across the board.
11:10:15 Well, unless there's anyone else who'd like to provide a little bit of of what they do. I can move on to the presentation, but if anybody has something and last chance.
11:10:29 Going once, going twice? Okay. Well, um.
11:10:35 Thank you for providing a little bit of that. I think it sounds like a lot of you are working in the space of between industry and government and then also in this workforce development piece.
11:10:47 Where you're trying to provide opportunities for people within your community as it relates to connecting them back to industries.
11:10:55 I think that's, I'm sure some of you are differentiated in what you do from that but As we're talking today about things and you hear the word product.
11:11:04 Or some of those things. Try to think about products as not necessarily a physical thing, but it might be more of a service.
11:11:13 Or it might be an outcome that you're working towards. So don't get hung up on the nomenclature of product. In a lot of these spaces.
11:11:22 Products can mean a digital product or a physical product. But in your case, it might also be a service or just an outcome of more jobs to your community, right?
11:11:32 Try to frame that and just as we're going. Today, I think one of the most critical parts of any project is making sure you're starting with the right problem.
11:11:44 Starting with the right opportunity. So I think one of the things that when Molly had talked to me about wanting to do some of this, I said, well.
11:11:52 Is there anything about kind of identifying the need or identifying what are those what is the thing that you're starting with?
11:11:59 Because sometimes that can be where we start off on the wrong foot.
11:12:04 And it can hamper our success later on. So without further ado, I'll get into it.
11:12:13 You've probably all heard of participatory and human-centered design. Oh, I need to share a screen for you guys.
11:12:20 Let me do that.
11:12:27 There we go. Can everybody see that?
11:12:32 Yes? Okay.
11:12:34 We're seeing your home screen, not your PowerPoint.
11:12:38 Of course you are. Let me try that one more time.
11:12:48 How about that? There we go.
11:12:52 You've all heard of participatory design, human-centered design, user-centered design. These are all different kind of flavors of the same thing.
11:13:02 A lot of people talk about design thinking. And what are all these elements?
11:13:09 Really, they are identifying a need that you can then develop into a product or into a service or into something that brings value to your target user.
11:13:22 You know, this isn't a new concept. It has been marketed aggressively. People have written books about it, but it is really kind of a recycling of an old idea.
11:13:36 Before we had participatory design, and so this goes back into the 50s and 60s.
11:13:41 One of the challenges I would say in any kind of product development or any kind of project development in this space is Nobody wants to pay for research.
11:13:50 So the best way we can best way that they could charge for it is they make it seem like it's some special or amazing thing.
11:13:58 However, this idea of asking the people what they need and then trying to deliver that service is not a new idea. Before that, we just made things we needed, right?
11:14:10 It's not a complex approach. However, there are some interesting frameworks that you might be able to use. You've heard of like the five Ds.
11:14:22 Or the double diamond or many of these different processes that people like to use.
11:14:28 All of them have a benefit. And all of them have some elements that are consistent across the board.
11:14:36 And really, it's what you pack into that framework and the work that you do that becomes valuable.
11:14:42 Not necessarily the thing itself. Right.
11:14:46 What we'll talk about today is a little bit about the mindsets that it takes to to begin this type of work and then we'll go a little bit into some of the tools that are necessary.
11:14:57 So. Some of the process frameworks that I talked about, you know.
11:15:04 Discover, design, deliver, right? Identify, empathize, define, ideate, prototype, test, implement, reflect.
11:15:13 The double diamond here, discover, define, develop, deliver. And then empathize, define, ideate prototype, test. All of these start with research or discovery or Identifying, empathizing, right?
11:15:28 Understanding the need, not from your own experience or only from your own experience, but from someone else's.
11:15:36 And that's the thing that's the thing really helps with identifying me with categorizing and coming up with a good project.
11:15:48 Some other types of process frameworks if you've worked in and any type of product industry, there's stage gating, right?
11:15:55 But that starts off with, for these guys, it starts off with idea generation.
11:15:59 So before that. Should have been some of that research, some of that information that helped define what that idea needed to look like. What problems was it solving, right?
11:16:11 So this is another process framework that's used a lot. So, I mean, ultimately, human-centered design is a problem-solving technique.
11:16:21 That puts people at the center of the development process. That enables you to create just about anything if you do the right work and you do the right research in order to inform that process.
11:16:37 You'll see also that in different frameworks that you look at.
11:16:41 They have a specific flavor to them, right? If you've ever heard of lean process.
11:16:48 That's a design framework. And that really works well in the software industry.
11:16:55 Whereas Kaizen works great in fulfillment within a manufacturing process. They all have these different kind of flavors. And really the best thing that you can do as a person in your space is understand maybe the superset of tools or a broader set of tools and really right size it for your industry and for your approach.
11:17:18 If you try to take a process from some of these other industries and just drop it in the middle of whatever you're doing.
11:17:24 You're going to have kind of fits and starts. Parts of it will fit, parts of it will work.
11:17:28 But parts of it won't. And that's what we'll talk about a little bit today.
11:17:33 So these are some of the overlapping systems that you might see across that board.
11:17:38 Human-centered design there is on top. Business design where you're looking at market assessments, market modeling.
11:17:45 Critical paths to success or organizational structure, cost benefit analysis basic kind of business work.
11:17:54 Oh, is there a Is there a question? No? Okay. I'm watching. I'm trying to watch Molly's face and my slides at the same time. In design engineering, they have a different approach, right? In engineering, many times they do start off with a project specifications document. They start off with something
11:18:13 That gives them that information of what they need to build.
11:18:17 And then they take that all the way to production. And then systems engineering, right? This is where you're understanding maybe an entire system layout.
11:18:27 It's outcome-based. This thing needs to start out here. It needs to come all the way through this complex system to a final piece.
11:18:39 So you might say, well. I don't need all this. I know my problem. I already know the challenge that I've got.
11:18:46 You know, come on, Dan, let's just fix the damn thing, right?
11:18:50 But the problem is the problem is we're always looking at things through our own lens or from our own standpoint.
11:18:58 And while a problem might, you might see this weed, right? Okay, well.
11:19:03 There's the problem. Let me just chop that off at the top.
11:19:06 But what lies underneath, right? Is it just going to grow right back? You're going to have that problem the next time and now you're going to have to deal with it another time.
11:19:14 Tracing these problems back to their root. I call it the coffee versus coffee maker problem.
11:19:21 Do you need coffee? There's a lot of ways you can get coffee. You don't have to go buy a coffee maker and then make it. You can go to the shop.
11:19:29 You know, there's a lot of other processes that you could do So in this sense.
11:19:35 Do you need an immediate solution that's just going to maybe address it from a very surface level?
11:19:41 Or does it help you to understand your problem from a much deeper level, understand where it starts?
11:19:47 So maybe you are not necessarily addressing the underlying challenge, right? Are you getting really to the root of that challenge?
11:19:57 So to be able to understand this, right? What exactly are we doing here? What exactly could be done to address a challenge. So we have to begin this process.
11:20:10 And understand that really it takes a mindset of a beginner in order to take on this, no matter what your experience is, no matter how well you think you know this problem or this challenge or this this opportunity, you really need to try to come into it from a beginner's mindset.
11:20:28 No process is foolproof. There's going to be iteration. Almost all those processes look linear.
11:20:34 However, there are starting over points where you try something, it didn't work.
11:20:39 You try it again and try it again and problem worth addressing isn't always perfect in its execution.
11:20:48 To give these things the best chance of success. I want you to try to think about some of these mindsets you need to develop and those within your team.
11:20:56 Because none of this work is done as a solo, right? It's always done as part of a team.
11:21:03 So again, that beginner's mindset remember Whether you know everything about this challenge.
11:21:10 Try to come into it with fresh eyes. I'm using a, now it's becoming a dated reference here but remember you you know nothing, right? So I really try to do this no matter how many times I've worked on the same thing.
11:21:25 I try to come into it with fresh eyes and that helps to inform in a different way each time.
11:21:34 Practice humility and empathy. Being able to go through careful, thoughtful inquiry into the space that you're looking at.
11:21:44 Using observational skills, good research practices, not asking leading questions that lead to the answer you were don't seek validation of your own opinion.
11:21:58 Seek for new opinions on a topic, right? So you're going to likely start with assumptions and conjecture, right?
11:22:07 Call them that. Write them out and say this is an assumption.
11:22:11 Those assumptions can then be They can be verified, they can be researched.
11:22:18 But make sure that you understand that everything that you think about this project Unless you really have it as an evidence-based approach.
11:22:26 Is conjecture is conjecture. An assumption. Those things can be disapproved.
11:22:32 You go through a variety of things, maybe interviews, focus groups, observational research, or data-driven inquiry.
11:22:40 You're going to find out things you didn't know in this process.
11:22:44 And it will hopefully help, even if you already know that space, like I said, it will provide you with better metrics to decide whether your solution is worth moving forward.
11:22:55 Right. You have to because as you're coming up with these solutions. It's not they're not done. You now need to test their effectiveness. You need to see if they're actually meeting the expectation that you've set.
11:23:08 Some of the traps that can happen. This is one that is very common that I see in every industry across the board.
11:23:19 Where people get into these tunnel vision of I've got this vision, I know what I need to build.
11:23:24 And I'm just going to go build it. And if I build it, they will come, right? If they just see the thing that I want to build, then everyone will come to it.
11:23:34 And sometimes it has worked, but very, very rarely has it worked.
11:23:40 A lot of times The best products are developed with people in mind, understanding what the market is, understanding what needs are.
11:23:51 I think of you know i think of companies like Apple, right?
11:23:56 Has apple ever created anything that was completely new.
11:24:03 Anyone know? They're a famous second to marketer.
11:24:11 They take products that already exist. In some form or fashion.
11:24:16 And they understand how people could really benefit from them. And develop new services and user interface that makes those products really sing, that makes them really meet the need of the consumer.
11:24:29 They might do that in a unique way They didn't just build it and expect it to succeed in the market. They really tried to figure out more about that entire experience around that product.
11:24:41 So don't do that. Another one.
11:24:46 The makeup of your team and how it's being driven really makes a difference as well. And I love this this idea of dangerous animals of product management.
11:24:58 You have your hippo, right? The highest paid person opinion, right? A lot of times we are driven from management from leadership within a team.
11:25:11 If their opinion is the only one that matters. Then that immediately undercuts the research and the value that you're going to bring in connecting with consumers or end users.
11:25:23 The wolf. This is the person who's working on the latest fire, right? So they're not able to really see the big picture.
11:25:29 They are jumping from challenge to challenge. In that space, but not really understanding the overall work that's being done.
11:25:38 The Rhino, really here in name only So people who are not necessarily really involved with the project They are taking up space in a sense.
11:25:48 And then the zebra. Zero evidence, but really arrogant.
11:25:52 A lot of these people get their way. You know, uh.
11:25:58 There's a government as well. With this, zero evidence for really arrogant, this can actually really tank a project.
11:26:07 Where a person is very adamant about their opinion. That isn't necessarily based on facts.
11:26:14 So these are all different kinds of mentalities that you make sure that are not represented in your team and not represented in yourself.
11:26:22 As you're going through this process.
11:26:27 So that comes to some positive things we want to do.
11:26:31 The how might be statement. And you'll notice that the phrase, how might we, is a very positive one, right? It's one that is starting from a point of we will do this thing. How will we do this thing, right?
11:26:44 So it's really looking at this from a positive standpoint. And a good how might we statement would start with What we are going to do how might we do what for whom do what in order to create this benefit or value that we'd like to see.
11:27:04 This is a very classic way to frame challenges at a high level.
11:27:11 Something that makes up a good how might we statement is making sure that we are starting with the problems or insights that you've uncovered, right? You've identified what are some challenges in this space You want to avoid suggesting a solution in your how might we statement, right?
11:27:30 So with the coffee slash coffee maker piece, you might not say, how might we make coffee with a coffee maker, right? It's not that's that's that's resupposing the end result, right?
11:27:43 Keeping those how might we's broad. What is that overall overarching challenge that you're trying to address?
11:27:52 Focusing them on the desired outcome, as I mentioned. And then phrasing those things positively.
11:27:58 How could we do this in a positive way? Trying to keep the whole mentality around it In a positive manner.
11:28:06 Mindset. In doing this, this is not a singular activity. This can be a team-based activity.
11:28:15 And you'll see that different people are going to frame these challenges or frame these opportunities in different ways.
11:28:22 Spending some time with your team to write these can really be a great exercise.
11:28:28 Go through this checklist. Is it based on an existing problem or insight?
11:28:33 Is this evidence-based what you're trying to do? Does it track a desired outcome?
11:28:40 Is it definitive enough in the end point to have an outcome?
11:28:44 Is it written positively? Is it broad enough to ensure many creative ideas?
11:28:49 So are you baking in one path to success or are you allowing for many different roads to get to that.
11:28:56 To that outcome. And then finally, does it suggest a solution, right? Making sure you're not presupposing the endpoint.
11:29:05 There's no limit to how many you could produce. However, you're going to need to down select and work with your team to maybe rephrase.
11:29:14 And you might have some that are more of an umbrella and cover multiple how might we.
11:29:19 You're going to need to kind of shift and bring those all under one you know.
11:29:27 Good, how might we statement at the end? But you'll find that the more you have, you'll start to see overlaps. You'll start to see where some nuance in this one versus this one.
11:29:39 And I want to bring those together into a compound, right?
11:29:44 Any questions so far of what we've been talking about? Yes, ma'am.
11:29:49 I'm going to ask you a question because I suspect not everyone in the room has as much familiarity with some of these frameworks.
11:29:57 Sure.
11:29:58 I'm sorry to ask you this, but can you back up to the page where you have the spreadsheet of the different frameworks?
11:30:06 Sure.
11:30:05 Say I am pulling together That's the one. An industry partnership or a group. Maybe we don't have a title for it yet And we want to address a major need for our particular sector. We don't have enough nurses.
11:30:21 Our question is, how do we get enough nurses to fill the need in the state that I'm in?
11:30:29 And we have at the table educational providers and industry. What might one of these, choose one of these frameworks, what might that process look like for someone in my situation, I have a collaborative group I don't actually supervise anyone at the table. We're here all as volunteers
11:30:46 To try to address a statewide need. How might I go through this process?
11:30:52 Choosing one of these. And I'm sorry if that's too big to answer in the time.
11:30:55 Oh, no. I mean, like I said, all of these start off with that early stage research of understanding like what is the actual challenges that you're trying to address? If the challenge you're addressing a lack of qualified nurses within a geographical area.
11:31:16 Then what is preventing that? What are the barriers to entry for nurses into that space?
11:31:24 Is it a training problem? Is it a Is there not enough money in that space? Really trying to go back a little, just like a step back to understand Not how can I train more nurses but how can i
11:31:37 Why do we have this shortage to begin with? And then arriving at that question, arriving back at that question of maybe training.
11:31:46 More informed with, well, the cost structure is so low that the training that it costs for people to get up to that skill level and get those certifications.
11:31:58 It's outsized to the amount of remuneration they'll get over the course of that It's not worth the money basically right so i'm just, I'm presupposing. I have no idea But going back a step and understanding what are the real challenges for people to become nurses in this space? Why are they not
11:32:19 Choosing this career path. And then maybe tracing that back to its source You may not have an ability to change that at that level.
11:32:28 You may not have the ability, but you've now informed what is that end user, the person who you want to be a nurse.
11:32:38 Coming into your community, what are the challenges they've had to go through in order to be there?
11:32:42 That maybe helps you think through and reframe how you're engaging those folks.
11:32:48 So that early stage of any of these processes would start to illuminate that.
11:32:53 I'll talk a little bit more about kind of building out your own process here at the end.
11:32:59 Because in the Miro link that I shared, there's really a superset of different types of research tools that you can use.
11:33:09 And then building out your own process. We're understanding who your stakeholders are.
11:33:15 Understanding what their experience is. Those are all parts of this process that you would want to do for whatever industry you're working in. Yes, ma'am.
11:33:27 Hi, just yes just making sure I don't have my cough button on again.
11:33:27 Lisa. Yeah.
11:33:33 Geez them. Miro always makes me a little twitchy when I hear it.
11:33:40 But that's just a personal thing because it feels like all that's missing is the ketamine in the trance music.
11:33:48 When I've worked on it before.
11:33:50 You're using it differently than me. Man, you sound like you're having more fun with it.
11:33:54 I wish it were. And you probably will touch on this later. So feel free to be like, yeah, just hold on, we'll get there.
11:34:03 Is there a fulcrum point you find Where the problem you're trying to solve becomes… trying to figure out how to use the system or the framework Because I've seen this happen quite a few times where it's like, hey, we're going to work on this thing.
11:34:23 And we're going to use this framework And you've got a group of people that are It's everything from… the most tech savvy person to somebody that is comfortable using the basics of Word and that's about it Somebody that's got astigmatism and can't see these things very clearly on their screen. You know what I'm saying? Just a mishmash of issues.
11:34:48 Like. Have you experienced that? Have you seen that happen in your experience? What has worked to right that?
11:34:59 Yeah.
11:34:58 Or is there a point where you're just like, yeah, this is… Because I think these are supposed to be, you know.
11:35:05 Order of Kaio, not like the other way around.
11:35:09 Well, I feel like frameworks need to serve the purpose of the team.
11:35:13 They need to serve the team, not the other way around, right? If you are trying to jam a team into a process or through this this um this thing that is really alien to them. It doesn't fit how they work or whatever
11:35:29 It doesn't mean that they don't need to make some changes maybe in their work approach.
11:35:34 But ultimately, the success of these things all depends on their acceptance and the willingness of the team to engage in them.
11:35:43 So for me, I experienced this problem at OtterBox. So I was a design manager at OtterBox. I came in And I don't know if any of you feel this way. Every time I ventured a large organization where I think.
11:35:58 Oh man, these guys are killing it. They must have their shit together.
11:36:02 I can't wait to learn how they do their, you know, how they make the sausage.
11:36:08 And then you go into those places, then you're like, oh my God, they're barely hanging on. They don't have a process. So many things are so much more disorganized than I expected.
11:36:19 That was the situation I entered at OtterBox. They did not have a consistent design process.
11:36:25 They had a large team of designers. They had hundreds of SKUs, hundreds of products that they created every year They had siloed approaches where innovation was not working with designers, designers were not working with leadership.
11:36:40 There was all these different challenges within that space. For me, I had to try to understand we have these unique, talented individuals in our team.
11:36:51 How can we get the most out of them? How can they bring their value to bear? And then how can we connect that to the company in a meaningful way?
11:37:01 So that became a design project unto itself. And the team really had to help define and create a process framework that worked for them that they could continue to use.
11:37:13 And then the other teams and the other groups within the company knew how to use the design team better.
11:37:20 They knew how to be part of things. They knew how to create these collaborative meetings, how to get the most out of out of that that process. So you're right. Any of these processes, when it's usually like we're going to do this thing.
11:37:38 That can come off pretty difficult. And if not everybody's on board or if people have tried another process that they're more familiar with, right, there's you've got to make the mistake the approach fit the team.
11:37:51 So that's why I don't ascribe to anyone.
11:37:56 And I like to use more of a superset. I do think there is consistencies through all of them. To Molly's earlier question.
11:38:04 They all start with discovery. They all start with empathy. They all start with understanding or identifying what a need is, right? They then go into defining that need.
11:38:15 Right. Into figuring out, okay, we heard this here's what we think is valuable out of that information.
11:38:22 And you go back to those users and say, is this your card? Did I get this right?
11:38:29 Did I hear you correctly? And then moving that into, okay, if this was actually the challenge.
11:38:36 What kinds of things could help solve it, right? That ideation stage where you're really trying to think through what a solution might look like.
11:38:45 From that ideation stage, you down select. You might have 100 ideas you need to bring that down to a few that you would then bring to a concept. Okay, well, here's what that would look like at scale. Here's what that would look like in this context.
11:38:58 Here's how this team could maybe execute against that challenge. Right. And then you test those things. They are prototypes. They're not solutions.
11:39:07 At that stage. At the ideation stage, they're not solutions. At the concept stage, they're not solutions.
11:39:12 You need to test them. You need to see how they would operate in the real world or with those individuals who you who you've connected with.
11:39:22 You iterate, right? What was good, what was bad?
11:39:26 What were the metrics you set forward as success points? And now let's turn that into a beta or a a primary product that we can then move forward with.
11:39:40 And that thing is going to need to be revisited yearly or whatever cadence you've decided.
11:39:45 It might be quarterly and improved upon. It's not one and done.
11:39:52 Very few of these, especially when it comes to human problems, it's very rarely one and done.
11:39:57 So those consistencies across any of these frameworks you can make it fit your particular industry or your particular need.
11:40:09 And when you do that as a team, you gain buy-in.
11:40:13 You gain shared understanding. And it's never a an enforcement on someone else. It's more of a here here's what we agreed to do. Here's what we have decided is the right path for us.
11:40:26 Does that make sense? Okay, two thumbs up. All right. Wow.
11:40:32 All right. Any other questions before I move back?
11:40:42 Okay. So… we were talking about how might we statements So with some of these how might we statements.
11:40:53 You want to really take a long view in some ways. You can always refine.
11:40:59 But getting to that root challenge really takes takes you to that 10,000 foot level.
11:41:05 Like what Molly said earlier about trying to get more nurses into a geographical area, to a community.
11:41:15 You could say, well, we just need to hire more we need to do this one thing. But really that problem may may exist in another space And if you don't see that problem, you may not be addressing that root cause.
11:41:28 You may not, like I said, you may not have the ability to change that root cause.
11:41:34 However, it helps inform your process. So getting to that 10,000 foot level, 30,000 foot level, whatever you've deemed necessary in order to get to that root problem.
11:41:45 That will help you to understand that. It also helps set milestones around how your team can work.
11:41:51 And how you can… bring this down to earth level again.
11:41:57 Determining length of time and what blockers may exist along a path It is important to time block these things a little bit because I don't know about you i know for myself I nerd out in whatever space I go into, right? I'm a very curious person, so I will go and I'll research and do that.
11:42:19 For me, I have to try to somewhat time box it not that all the information I would get would not be valuable, but it creates a, I always say when you kink the hose, you create a little more velocity, right?
11:42:34 So if you know that you have a month to gather this information, it might change the way that you're working on your project. Or you might engage more people in a parallel path In order to get more of that information early.
11:42:47 I also noticed that whenever you are in a middle management position or a position where you're not leadership.
11:42:53 There's usually pressure for a solution. And the research part of this process can get truncated if you do not set some clear goals.
11:43:02 And I think the worst thing that could happen in a lot of these situations is you end up skipping the research and then going right into prototyping.
11:43:10 Right. Anyway.
11:43:14 So building the right thing. Once you have done that research, right, you've refined it, you've helped to define what those challenges are you are getting ready to ideate, right? You want to take that information and turn it into some solutions.
11:43:32 There are some things that the industry does. For this and it may not relate directly back to what you do.
11:43:37 But if your product is a software-based product. Creating an SRS, a software requirement specification.
11:43:44 Who needs to use it? What level of accessibility do you need to create?
11:43:49 What's the digital divide as it relates to seniors and connecting to that product?
11:43:54 What are the interactions that are required in that? In that thing. So really this the recipe for your solution.
11:44:04 It's not the solution itself, but it is the recipe. Here's the jobs this thing needs to do.
11:44:09 In order to be successful. So in a physical product, it's a product requirements document.
11:44:15 And that might involve regulation. It might involve different sorts of governing bodies who oversee that type of product.
11:44:22 I'm in the medical space, these things are years long processes to go through and create these.
11:44:30 Software has that similar thing, as I mentioned. Marketing, marketing requirements document. How are you going to engage, through what channels Over what cadence of period, what is that um that marketing cycle that you're working towards And then lastly, like a business case
11:44:51 What are those metrics for a business to be successful? What are the things that you are trying to drive towards?
11:44:56 Putting these things down, you probably don't have 90% of these things that's okay. That's okay.
11:45:06 It's okay to have these things in loram ipsum. But they need to be things that you do fill out later. This is more information to go and seek out.
11:45:15 So this is kind of a basic product requirements document where it goes through the project information, detailed objectives and goals.
11:45:25 Assumptions and constraints that you've identified. Background and strategic fit.
11:45:31 Listing the scope, like user stories, requirements, like what is the scope that this product will be used within?
11:45:38 The product features, release criteria. When you decide that it's done and ready to put out into the world.
11:45:46 And success metrics that you can point to. And then finally cataloging exclusions, things that it's not going to do.
11:45:52 Right. Things that are not part of your consideration. Those are also important to understand too.
11:45:59 Sometimes products are unfairly judged. Based on other people's expectations for them.
11:46:06 If you say this is not going to do this. Then they know they know not to judge it by that metric, right? So those things become important too.
11:46:15 From a software perspective, as I mentioned. Many of the same kind of topics.
11:46:21 But systems requirements and functional requirements change quite a bit. With the if-then behaviors, right? You click on this and then this happens or then that happens.
11:46:31 Data handling logic. Now you're dealing with data and how that's going to be used.
11:46:36 Where is it going to be? How's it going to be managed?
11:46:39 What is the safety requirements around that data? Transaction handling does it involve financial transactions.
11:46:47 Administrative functions that will need to happen, regulatory and compliance needs, as I mentioned.
11:46:53 Performance requirements. So all those things have to go into the planning of one of these products. You might say, okay, this is way too much.
11:47:03 But honestly, a lot of these things you're going to know. You're going to know these things as you're going through.
11:47:08 As it relates to your industry, right? So it really does require a lot of accumulated knowledge. Remember how I said at the beginning that you might feel like you know everything about your product Well, this is where some of that information might come in useful.
11:47:24 You might be able to identify what some of those metrics are for success, what some of those requirements are that need to be set up into this product How it gets there.
11:47:35 It might be work that you've informed differently from your research.
11:47:38 But as I mentioned, you might have a lot of lorem ipsum. That's the default language, right, that you get from working in Adobe and some of these programs.
11:47:48 The fake language. You might have a lot of placeholders in some of these categories. That's okay. But know that those things do exist and they are important for you to understand later.
11:48:00 In your process. So you will test those things. You might think you're past this point.
11:48:09 I already know what I need to do. I'm already at the endpoint. I already have gone through this. I already feel like I'm there.
11:48:18 You might be struggling to find customers. You might be struggling to engage with folks.
11:48:25 You might might need help to refine your value proposition that you're really addressing here.
11:48:31 Maybe it's too complex, the process that you've come up with.
11:48:36 But… For this, you have to remember that somewhere Somebody is looking for ways to address these challenges in new ways.
11:48:48 Every time I've ever done a product there is always somebody who is adjacent to that product and is solving it in a different way.
11:48:57 Maybe they're addressing one part of that value proposition in a different way but Somebody out there is solving your same challenge in a different way.
11:49:06 So while you think you might be done, you think you might know what you're doing.
11:49:10 You need to reinvestigate and see what you've left on the table.
11:49:16 With that in mind, you know, I would say make sure you go back to the beginning. Make sure you go back and look at those things again.
11:49:25 What else could be changed? Where have I left some value or some opportunity on the table to be iterated upon.
11:49:34 So with that, I'll take some more questions if there's any, and then we'll go to the Miro which I think we'll give Lisa some fits but we'll try to do it in the least ketamine infused way possible.
11:49:52 Anybody?
11:49:57 I can't imagine that i've… done such a good job that no one has questions but Yeah.
11:50:03 I have a question. You know, I always have a question.
11:50:08 Good.
11:50:09 Can you just give us an example? You've led a lot of collaborative projects where you're bringing stakeholders to the table from a variety of backgrounds How do you go through that process of making sure, and I put a note into
11:50:25 Into chat about this being a common issue with collaborative projects.
11:50:29 Not getting the right stakeholders at the table. How do you in that research stage go through and think, do I have the right people at the table? How do I identify the right people?
11:50:40 How do I encourage them to participate in what I'm trying to build here?
11:50:45 That for a lot of the people at the table, that's where we are for a lot of what's going on in Maine.
11:50:52 How do I identify those people, bring them to the table and engage them in this
11:50:58 Well, Molly, that's a perfect segue into our Miro, where we will discuss stakeholder mapping.
11:51:04 Actually, that's the first thing I was going to go into.
11:51:08 Work.
11:51:07 With stakeholder mapping. So that's exactly one of the first challenges you need to take on is understanding who needs to be in the room.
11:51:16 Who do you need to get information from? Who is affected by the product that you're creating, but maybe not be the user, right? There's all different levels of stakeholders and identifying them is usually a collaborative process where you need to try to work through. And there's some frameworks that can help with that.
11:51:33 That help you to ask that same question of yourself, maybe in multiple ways.
11:51:38 So that you kind of come up with new ideas or new people and then map them in a way that helps you to understand what value you need to get from each of those groups.
11:51:47 So if it's okay, I'll hop over to this.
11:51:59 So this is a kind of a stakeholder map. So you start from the very beginning as maybe your company or the your unit or maybe the challenge that you're trying to work from.
11:52:13 Adjacent to that is the people who are going to benefit or need this product. They're really kind of your maybe your customer.
11:52:21 And then outside of that are maybe groups that are related to that process, right? They're related to it. They will influence it. They may not directly use it But they have some stake still in its success or failure.
11:52:37 So that's a rough outline. Over here, we have kind of a more collaborative one.
11:52:44 If you want to, you're welcome to look at this. I'm just going to to give some some really, we don't have a ton of time. And honestly, I hope to get more into this with the workshop later on this year.
11:52:55 Because I'd love to actually spend some time to go through some of these tools with you. So say you have a solar energy company.
11:53:02 And you have this formal role within the middle. You're connected to suppliers, you're connected to energy transition groups, you have eco groups, energy.
11:53:18 Generation groups that are connected to you. Informal roles might be Emergency management.
11:53:26 End users, lobbyists, off-grid, geographically remote users. And then there are regulatory bodies, right? Institutions who have influence over your product And what it needs to do, right?
11:53:40 So this is just a kind of a really rough approach.
11:53:43 But if you were to do the same thing with your own product.
11:53:49 You have maybe your To use Molly's example earlier.
11:53:54 Maybe you have health institutions are really at the center. Right. Or maybe it's Maybe it's really the pathway for a nurse that you're looking for.
11:54:03 So you look in the middle, what's the nurse? What are the roles or the community they need to be? They need to exist within.
11:54:12 What are the groups that are helping, what are the maybe the education.
11:54:18 Resources, what are the certification bodies and all those types of things and then What are the institutions that oversee that person's ability to enter that market.
11:54:32 So I won't say NIH because who knows? Who knows if that'll be here in a week or two.
11:54:39 But here, but here's that helps to get names on the board, get groups in here. And you understand where they start to relate to the work that you're doing.
11:54:50 From there, you would take it over here. You put those stakeholders down And you start to identify, okay, what do we know about this stakeholder already?
11:55:02 What do we want to know? Putting information here. What are some unknowns that we need to explore with that stakeholder?
11:55:10 What are assumptions or guesses that need validation they need to be I think this, I don't know if that's true. Let's go find out.
11:55:19 What types of questions will help to understand the motivations of your staple?
11:55:24 What has made those people want to do this thing? And then what knowledge do we want to have gained by the end of our research, right? What do we really need from that person that we can't stop asking questions until we get.
11:55:38 So if you look at each of those groups like this.
11:55:44 That will help you to identify, okay, well. I really, this person is number one or this group is number one. They're going to hold all the gold for me.
11:55:53 And I need to go and get it. And then this group has this one part of the process that I really care about.
11:56:01 And I'm going to need these questions from them, right? It really helps you to start building out your research plan.
11:56:07 And going a little further, just trying to skip ahead, I know we're running out of time, but Each of these groups are going to need to be engaged in different ways.
11:56:17 You may not have the direct connection to a person or maybe it's a thousand people that you need to get information from.
11:56:24 It's just not feasible to do that through interviews. You may send out a survey and then you may interview a few of them to be able to validate assumptions based on that survey.
11:56:34 So you'll have to try to think through what does that target audience you're trying to connect to? And then what are the ways that you're going to connect with them?
11:56:43 In this also is story mapping. So maybe how you go through a user story.
11:56:52 I keep using Molly's suggestion, but if it was, you know.
11:56:57 What is the daily life for a nurse? You could go through and say, here's here's how they Here's how they start their day. Here's what they do. Here's how their work begins and ends.
11:57:09 Or it could be how a person trains to become a nurse, right? What is that process?
11:57:15 You can create a persona. So if you've gathered enough people that you're able to create some overlapping data that you can make a persona. I think personas always need to be fiction based on fact.
11:57:28 It cannot just be made up of your own assumptions. It is information you gather from a group of people that you have now been able to coalesce into one super person or one super individual who is able to represent some of the characteristics of that space, right?
11:57:45 So those are all things you can do. Customer journey mapping.
11:57:51 Over here, just to really boggle your mind. So there's a book here called Universal Methods of Design.
11:57:57 It's actually in the Miro. I think it's a 480 page book and you can actually go through it here as you like.
11:58:06 But these are all the exercises. That you can use. And they're all broken into different parts of the process.
11:58:14 Pre-effort research, research, external research. Internal team meetings. So how do you want to make those really effective?
11:58:23 Broader share outs with decision makers and internal teams. Ideation practices, and then launching of solutions. Like this is a testing frameworks.
11:58:31 So each of these kind of, these are all those activities i mentioned um you know to you lisa, about how kind of building your own process.
11:58:41 Having something like this as a resource helps you to say, you know what, this part of the process would be really cool if we did this.
11:58:48 Or I think we could engage these folks really great if we did this at this stage.
11:58:53 So going a little bit deeper and understanding what kinds of tools are out there and then bringing those tools back and plugging them into a framework and making sure it fits the way your team approaches this.
11:59:04 Can be a really valuable way to make it make it unique to your team and unique to the project.
11:59:13 So I know we're probably at time, but There's some other examples in here. And then this is actually an affinity map When you get that feedback, when you get all that research from those groups or you've identified those things.
11:59:26 Taking that information and then going as a team and saying this was a really key insight.
11:59:32 This is a really key insight, right? Being able to down select from that information and figure out what to act upon.
11:59:38 So anyway, a lot to go through in an hour. I really appreciate you guys.
11:59:44 Being here with me and going through this. And I hope to add more value in our next session.
11:59:51 Thank you, Dan, very much. Is it possible for you to drop the link to that Miro board into chat in case people would like to take a look at it?
12:00:01 Sure.
12:00:02 That would be great. And for those of you who came, I thank you very much. I really appreciate you.
12:00:08 Coming for our first webinar in this series. Dan will actually be running the next session as well, which is on scoping projects. So we're going to do a deep dive on the scoping piece And then if you're really interested in all of this.
12:00:22 We will be hosting him in person in the fall. Here in Maine for a two-day in-person workshop where you will bring your own needs to the session and Dan and his team will help you and everyone else in the room.
12:00:39 Work through this process in person. I do not have a date or location for that yet, but it is coming. It'll be September sometime.
12:00:42 Yeah, bring your team.
12:00:52 I was going to say, bring your team if you can.
12:00:49 Thank you all very much. Any closing thoughts, Dan?
12:00:57 Love to actually work on some real challenges in real time and at least get people started on that process.
12:01:03 You know, nothing makes it sticky than working on real challenges, right?
12:01:11 Thank you all so much. Dan, thank you for being with us.