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Process Journal: Process Reflection

Prompt: Reflect on how you can make improvements to the structure of the creative problem solving process to improve the outcome of each phase in order to get better overall results and summarise those ideas in a new post in your process journal. What stages can be removed, and what stages need to be added? What methods and techniques are mandatory for each stage of the process?

Prior to starting this project, I was initially skeptical that each stage of the Creative Design Process Iteration cycle was necessary. As we progressed through the World Peace project I realized that rather than removing some of the stages, I naturally combine things like analysis and definition when I solve my own problems or complete tasks.

For many of the projects I work on outside of this course, I actually find it harder to separate analysis and defining constraints, versus completing them together in one step. Without defining constraints and identifying objectives from the start, the analysis stage can take too long, or result in too much data.

Regarding adding stages, I’m not sure there are any other stages that aren’t already addressed in the Creative Problem Solving process. Many times during this particular project, we found ourselves backtracking to revisit previous stages and reconsidering our selection. At other times we wanted to skip from the analysis stage to the selection stage, without fully ideating the other ideas. I view this process as more of a circle than a linear series of steps.

I would say the most important stages overall include acceptance of the problem, analysis of the subject matter, selection of a solution, and evaluation of the selection. However, it’s difficult to progress to these steps without including at least parts of each of the other intermediary stages as well.

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This is a wireframe of our proposed website. It is not fully built-out yet but rather meant to give a general idea of the theme we could incorporate into a fully functional site.

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Process Journal: Evaluation

PROMPT: Reflect on the methods and techniques that are most appropriate for evaluating the performance of your group's implementation and summarise those thoughts in a new post in your process journal. How do you assess the outcome of the various phases of the creative problem-solving process that your project has gone through?

When it comes to evaluation, there are a number of tools available to measure the implementation of our world peace problem-solving business concept.

During the design and implementation phase, we can use polls, voting and ranking to determine the best ways to scale our service to the target audience. We’ve already implemented this during the ideation phase when we polled our classmates to determine whether the preferred solutions seemed feasible.

We will also seek feedback from our peers, faculty and special guests attending the final presentation. There’s a broad range of talent and ideas in the class that we can draw on to refine this project. Since this project is purely conceptual at this stage, we still have time to process suggestions from the audience and incorporate new approaches in our creative problem-solving approach prior to real-world implementation.

Ultimately this business concept proved difficult to implement much in the way of real-world change in such a short timespan. Much of the project remains conceptual at this stage, although there do seem to be a number of potential societal benefits if we were to proceed with our business plan in some form.

Hypothetically, if we chose to move beyond the conceptual phase and actually launch the service, we would then consult with industry experts such as additional USC faculty and undergraduate students, and possibly other organizations operating in similar spaces. These industry experts likely already work on similar projects and will provide implementable feedback to help better design our business model and curriculum prior to testing it with incarcerated youth.

Once the curriculum is finalized and a segment of incarcerated youth is identified, this provides another opportunity for us to perform a formative and summative evaluation to measure their educational and behavioral progress. Finally, we would seek feedback based on the success of our graduates, asking questions such as, “were they able to apply this knowledge and skills in the real world”, and “did it have a measurable impact on peace starting in their local communities?”

Perhaps in a future Design@USC course, I will make further progress with this world peace solving concept and consider bringing some form of it to fruition.

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Process Journal: Business Model Canvas (group)

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Process Journal: Implementation (individual)

Prompt: Reflect on the methods and techniques that your group plans to use to communicate the ways that your project should be implemented and summarise those thoughts in a new post in your process journal. How do you most effectively pitch your idea to various stakeholders? How do you visually communicate the objects, environments, systems, processes, and interactions involved in your project implementation?

This week our group worked on the next stage of our Solving World Peace assignment via the Implementation phase. Although we have not actually “implemented” our solution, the goal was to refine our proposed solution into something quantifiable and then design a business canvas model around the idea.

To develop our business canvas model we utilized online whiteboard software from Micro.com. The whiteboard can be found here: https://bit.ly/2G5MTcL

We met as a group via Zoom video conferencing and collectively added our ideas to the whiteboard, merging and combining when appropriate. As part of the discussion we realized we needed to revisit the basic premise of our business idea and ask the question: are we launching our own business, or are we providing a suggestion for another organization to implement using our research? Ultimately we felt more comfortable launching our own business, but we may need to revisit the idea of proposing our idea to another organization for implementation based upon the available resources and capital we have.

Our business canvas model is broken down into various aspects of our business. These include identifying prospective partners, quantifying our key activities and resources, key propositions, customer relationships and segments, awareness channels, cost structure, and revenue streams.

Our refined business idea targets three main groups of stakeholders:

Prospective partners - These partners will help us from financial and development perspectives.

We will seek out venture capitalists and corporate sponsors to help finance the business launch and assist with scaling opportunities. We are also hoping to partner with organizations working on similar initiatives such as Girls Who Code and The Last Mile initiative for business coaching ideas as we grow our business.

We will connect with development partners, such as the USC Viterbi School of Engineering, to develop a basic software framework for the “World Peace” theme. We also hope to secure mentors from the USC Viterbi School of Engineering faculty and students to teach the design and coding curriculum to incarcerated youth.

Incarcerated youth - As they progress through the design and coding curriculum they will be responsible to develop plugins and expansion packs for the original game. Some of these game expansion themes could include gaming concepts like solving water access problems and expanding vaccination problems for rural communities. This group could be expanded to children in public or private schools in the future, based upon interest from school faculty.

Gamers - This group will help expand awareness of our initiative by purchasing access to the game via a mobile application or desktop/web based software. We will target and build awareness of the game through viral video and social media campaigns, as well as display at gaming conventions. The concept behind the game is similar to Minecraft and we hope to draw interest in the game from a similar youth-targeted audience.

For the next stage of implementation, we will present this business canvas to our colleagues to gather feedback. Once we process the feedback and make any adjustments to our business model, we will take the next step of developing sketches and a conceptual storyboard of our business concept to present to interested stakeholders.

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Process Journal: Selection (group)

As we moved into the selection process, Team Peace of Mind began to discuss the viability and feasibility of our ideas. On Friday, we met with Britney McCoy from The Obama Foundation. She gave valuable insights into our proposed solutions and participated in a poll identifying which solutions ideas she believed would be viable for this project. After meeting with Britney, we each took a few days to further analyze the list of favorite solutions before we re-engaged to select the final solution.

On Saturday, our team met again to identify the final solution. We started with the Idea Potpourri technique by revisiting individual solutions and identifying remaining opportunities to combine ideas. An example of this occurred when we combined the idea of developing and teaching coding and/or design skill curriculum to incarcerated youth, culminating in the design of a world peace-themed video game.

We also imagined “What would happen if…” scenarios which lead us to discussions about the pros and cons of each idea. Some of the questions we discussed included: Does the ultimate result of our solution look like peace? Is the outcome measurable?

Finally, we revisited the Take a Poll technique using a Doodle Poll to anonymously vote on our list of favorite ideas (previously generated during the Ideation phase using the Asana app). The initial goal was to determine if we’d all converged onto one or two ideas, or if we were still all divergent in our solutions. Surprisingly, we all agreed on one of the nine solutions: implementing the coding/design curriculum for juvenile delinquents. Through discussion, voting, and expert recommendation, we selected this solution as most viable and feasible under existing circumstances. We also identified that this could be a stand alone product/service offering, or expansion of an existing business model.

Next, we slightly revised our problem statement to further identify our target audience, youth, and the specifics of the problem (access to quality education) for which we are solving.

Our revised problem statement:

The lack of access to quality education for youth is one of the biggest root causes of poverty and conflict.

As a group, we debated potential what-if scenarios such as further scaling opportunities to incorporate some of our other solutions such as an educational subscription box, pop-up schools, etc. We also discussed partnering with existing programs that offer a similar business model to increase our ability to start up quickly and potentially get funding. Examples of proposed nonprofit organizations included Girls Who Code and The Last Mile, and technology giants such as Microsoft or Apple.

We agreed to start our project small to make an impact locally before rolling out on a larger scale. Many of our “favorite” ideas can be incorporated in the larger scale application of our business model as it develops. This proved to be a great way to compromise on idea selection.

After some interesting discussion, we ultimately decided to focus on our most viable product (MVP) and revisit scaling and expansion opportunities after the initial implementation and evaluation are complete. Many of these concepts will need to be addressed, but first, we need to present our proposed MVP solution and gather feedback from our peers before we can discuss implementation and scaling opportunities.

Our selected solution:

Our project will implement a mentorship-based coding and design based curriculum that improves the quality of education for incarcerated youth. Expanding access to quality education for incarcerated youth will improve world peace, starting at a local level, by teaching collaboration, building awareness and tolerance, promoting critical decision making, encouraging mindful creativity, and enriching lives.

We will start the project in a local community and scale to a global audience. The curriculum will focus on a mentorship-based coding and creative design curriculum, and teach children to develop a world peace-themed video game.

We selected our target audience because we feel that incarcerated youth have less adequate access to education because of their circumstances. This leads to a life of missed opportunities, limits the potential for productive citizenship, and creates a lack of peace starting at a local level.

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Process Journal: Selection (individual)

As our group progressed through the Selection process, we utilized several of the suggested Methods and Techniques for Selection. We started with the Idea Potpourri technique by combining suggestions from multiple group members into one proposed solution. An example of this occurred when we combined the idea of developing and teaching coding and/or design skill curriculum to incarcerated youth, culminating in the design of a world peace videogame.

Next, we implemented the Take a Poll technique, first during the Ideation phase and again during the Selection phase. During the Ideation phase, we brought in external counsel via Britney McCoy, manager of the Fellowship Programs at The Obama Foundation. After presenting a list of our favorite solutions, we asked Britney for feedback on the proposals and what, if any, solutions she preferred using the Take a Poll technique. Britney provided general feedback on several ideas, and also suggested we revisit our definition of “world peace” to see how that applies to each solution.

Next, we each took a few days to further analyze the list of favorite solutions before we re-engaged to select the final solution. During our Selection meeting, we revisited the Take a Poll technique using a Doodle Poll to vote on the list of favorite ideas. The initial thought was to see if we’d all converged onto one or two ideas, or if we were still all divergent in our solution ideas. Surprisingly, we all agreed on one of the nine solutions: implementing the coding/design curriculum for juvenile delinquents.

After confirming that we all believe this to be the best and most implementable solution, we revisited our problem statement to further identify our target audience and the specifics of the problem we are solving. 

Our revised problem statement:

The lack of access to quality education for youth is one of the biggest root causes of poverty and conflict. 

This naturally lead to a discussion regarding potential implementation concerns (funding sources/revenue streams, scalability, viability, and potential business partners) but agreed to collectively take a step back as we are not yet at the implementation stage. Many of these will need to be addressed, but first, we need to present our proposed solution and gather feedback from our peers.

As a group, we also debated potential what-if scenarios such as further scaling opportunities to incorporate some of our other solutions such as the educational subscription box, pop-up schools, etc. However, we ultimately decided to focus on our most viable product (MVP) and revisit scaling and expansion opportunities after the initial implementation and evaluation are complete.

Our selected solution:

Our project will implement a mentorship-based coding and design based curriculum that improves the quality of education for incarcerated youth. Expanding access to quality education for incarcerated youth will improve world peace, starting at a local level, by teaching collaboration, building awareness and tolerance, promoting critical decision making, encouraging mindful creativity, and enriching lives. 

We will start the project in a local community and scale to a global audience. The curriculum will focus on a mentorship-based coding and creative design curriculum, and teach children to develop a world peace-themed video game. 

We selected our target audience because we feel that incarcerated youth have less adequate access to education because of their circumstances. This leads to a life of missed opportunities, limits the potential for productive citizenship, and creates a lack of peace starting at a local level. 

I’m excited to see the next steps and design our implementation process.

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Process Journal: Ideation (individual)

PROMPT: Reflect on the methods and techniques that your group used to come up with ideas to address the problem you defined in the previous unit and summarise those activities in a new post in your process journal. What ideas were the outcome of your group brainstorming exercise? What were some of the standout ideas and discussion-points that came out of the debriefing session?

Since our team members reside in different states we chose to brainstorm remotely using a variety of technologies. We started the process by refining our problem statement via a Google document (see link below). Next, we set up the meeting schedule and agenda for the following week and agreed to each do independent ideation before our next group meeting. We identified our idea generating question as:

How do we improve access to, and the quality of, education for school-age kids?

For our initial individual ideation we used Asana ideation software (see link below). This is a graphic text-based software that helps users visualize their ideas and compare with others, similar to the sticky note exercises we performed at USC residential. I found this method of sharing ideas to work really well for a virtual setting. As a visual learner, it helped me better assign the broad set of ideas under specific category headers such as technology platforms, learning modules (curriculum), building awareness, potential business partnerships, etc. No idea was too extreme to suggest.

Once we identified our individual ideas, we met as a group to discuss each concept and give additional context for how it can be applied to the problem. We gave ourselves a one-hour time limit to run through all of the ideas on the board.

As we collectively built our Asana idea board it was clear that our group was still somewhat in the divergent stage in terms of identifying the problem to be solved. Some group members focused more on the idea of a world peace curriculum for school-age children that can be taught in virtual or pop-up classrooms. I think this is an interesting idea, in theory, but I’m not sure that our group has the skills to design and implement a broad curriculum within the next five weeks prior to presentation. One interesting idea that came up during this part of the discussion was the concept of pop-up classroom tents. These pop-up tents would be mobile classrooms that can be quickly set up as temporary learning centers in almost any location such as the site of a natural disaster, event space, or a rural area that lacks a brick and mortar school. This could be a relatively low-cost solution to expand access to education for children in underserved communities (taking into consideration things like climate, geographic locations, accessibility issues, etc.).

My ideas for the Asana board generally focused on smaller initiatives such as teaching incarcerated juveniles a technical life skill such as coding or creative design skills -- minimizing the chances they would return to incarceration as adults. With more than 53,000 incarcerated youth just in the U.S., this represents a huge opportunity to have a positive impact on global peace. Recidivism rates for youth under 18 in the three years after an arrest are often as high as 75 percent which clearly can have a big impact on peace within a community. We could start by implementing this type of program in the local community and potentially expand globally over time. The more I researched this topic, the more I saw a need for improved access to quality education for incarcerated youth and a big opportunity for a business project. However, as I presented my ideas, I had to remind myself that we were still in the ideation stage and not ready to select a solution yet.

During our debrief, it was clear that we still hadn’t narrowed down our target audience beyond “school-age children”. Until we further narrow our target audience to something more specific such as “primary school children k-5”, or “incarcerated youth ages 12-18”, our ideation still seems to be approaching “solving world peace through education” with broad strokes.

Finally, we created a favorites column and each added our preferred ideas from the group. Within this column, there are several ideas that could be combined into one solution. Some ideas were combined into a single entry under favorites. For example, coding and designing learning curriculum is combined with world peace computer game. The idea is that young coders/designers contribute back to the cause of world peace by developing a game that teaches and inspires social change. Several members also agreed on the need for stronger mentorship within the education of school-age children.

The group agreed we each needed to take a few days to reflect on these new ideas and do our research before identifying our proposed solution later this week. In the meantime, we also voted/liked ideas listed under favorites. Now the challenge becomes narrowing our target audience and determining which concepts can be designed for implementation within the next five weeks before our presentation.

Links:

Google doc - Revised Problem Statement: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1i-nEqoJOqDF_gLSlbrkXawQQ2Tf4VRUL0k5fCpUuX60/edit?usp=sharing

Asana software - Group + Individual Ideation: https://app.asana.com/0/1115484694172083/board

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Process Journal: Group Brainstorming and Debriefing Session (group)

PROMPT: Using your problem definition, come to a consensus on what your idea-generating question should be. While you brainstorm with your team, be sure to record everyone's ideas. Observe and visualize your brainstorming process (Do you do it remotely? What collaboration software do you use? Are you writing, drawing, or something else? How does everyone feel?). Limit the duration of your group brainstorming activity and make sure that you always have the prompt in front of you. Get as many ideas out as possible; the more the better. Once your brainstorming session is over, take a little time to look at the ideas that you have generated as a group and attempt to make an effort to organize them in some logical fashion. Discuss some of your favorite ideas from each other and how you could combine different ideas in various ways. Create a new post in your process journal documenting all of this.

Since our team members reside in different states we chose to brainstorm remotely using a variety of technologies. We started the process by refining our problem statement via a Google document (see link below). The revised problem statement reads: 

The lack of access to quality education is one of the biggest root causes of global poverty and conflict.

Next, we set up the meeting schedule and agenda for the following week and agreed to each do independent ideation before our next group meeting. We identified our idea generating question as: 

How do we improve access to, and quality of, education for school-age kids?

For our initial individual ideation we used Asana ideation software (see link and screenshots below). This is a graphic text-based software that helps users visualize their ideas and compare with others, similar to the sticky note exercises we performed at USC residential.

Prior to the group discussion we each uploaded our ideas to the board and categorized them under various column headings such as technology platforms, learning modules (curriculum), building awareness, potential business partnerships, etc. No idea was too extreme to suggest. Some group members focused more on the idea of a world peace curriculum that can be taught in virtual or pop-up classrooms, while others focused on smaller initiatives such as teaching incarcerated juveniles a technical skill such as coding or creative design skills -- minimizing the chances they would return to incarceration as adults. We all agreed that there is a strong need to improve quality education for school-age children across the globe. 

Once we identified our individual ideas, we met as a group to discuss each concept and give additional context for how it can be applied to the problem. We gave ourselves a one-hour time limit to run through all of the ideas on the board. Through this process, we discovered we shared many of the same visions for potential solutions. We grouped these together under their respective column headers.

During our debrief, it was clear that we still hadn’t narrowed down our target audience beyond “school-age children”. Until we further narrow our target audience to something more specific such as “primary school children k-5”, or “incarcerated youth ages 12-18”, our ideation still seems to be approaching “solving world peace through education” with broad strokes.

Finally, we created a favorites column and each added our preferred ideas from the group. Within this column, there are several ideas that could be combined into one solution. Some ideas were combined into a single entry under favorites. For example, coding and designing learning curriculum is combined with world peace computer game. The idea is that young coders/designers contribute back to the cause of world peace by developing a game that teaches and inspires social change. Several members also agreed on the need for stronger mentorship within the education of school-age children.

The group agreed we each needed to take a few days to reflect on these new ideas and do our research before identifying our proposed solution later this week. In the meantime, we also voted/liked ideas listed under favorites. Now the challenge becomes narrowing our target audience and determining which concepts can be designed for implementation within the next five weeks before our presentation.

Links:

Google doc - Revised Problem Statement: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1i-nEqoJOqDF_gLSlbrkXawQQ2Tf4VRUL0k5fCpUuX60/edit?usp=sharing

Asana software - Group + Individual Ideation: https://app.asana.com/0/1115484694172083/board

Screenshots below from Asana Ideation (individual + group):

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Process Journal: Definition (individual reflection)

Note to professor: This is the Definition reflection journal entry. The individual + group definition of our problem is located here: https://scottmaxwell360.tumblr.com/post/183477442655/process-journal-problem-definition-individual

Prompt: 

Reflect on the methods and techniques that your group used to define the problem and summarize those activities in a new post in your process journal. How did you come to a consensus on what characteristic of the problem needs to be addressed?

In defining our problem, each member of the group began the process by incorporating aspects of the research we completed during the analysis stage. This research led to a variety of opinions on which aspect of education can, and should be, implemented in order to have a positive impact on world peace. Once we developed our own definitions we posted these together in a Google doc to compare and contrast notes. 

It was interesting to see how our ideas converged and differed, leading to multiple definitions and potential solutions. In general, as a group, we found it difficult to define the problem without skipping ahead to the ideation stage. It often felt easier to narrow our focus via Ideation, and then come back to redefine our problem definition. As we worked towards clarifying the group definition we integrated information and ideas from each group member’s definition into our statement.

In terms of how our individual ideas broke down, one member of the group focused on the big picture of world peace by suggesting we explore how conflict resolution can be taught to school-age children to increase tolerance and understanding. The other members of the group suggested we focus on supplementing traditional education (math, science, humanities, etc.) with a curriculum focused on technology and design, integrating approaches by organizations such as Girls Who Code and The Last Mile. 

As we have not yet selected our final solution and it’s likely we will need to revisit and refine our definition throughout the ideation phase.

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Process Journal: Problem Definition (individual + group)

Note to professor: The “Definition” individual reflection journal entry can be found here: https://scottmaxwell360.tumblr.com/post/183501595815/process-journal-definition-individual. The prompt below is the individual + group problem definitions.

Prompt #1 (PROBLEM DEFINITION - INDIVIDUAL): 

Attempt to define the problem on your own and create a new post in your process journal to document the definition. Define the constraints in which you have to work and specify objectives for addressing the problem.

To begin the definition phase, we first must ask ourselves, “How might we…”

improve world peace through access to education?

define the need for access to education?

improve access to education?

improve lives through targeted education of applicable technical skills?

The lack of access to quality education is one of the biggest root causes of global poverty and conflict: 

124 million children between the ages of 6 and 15 years, have either never started school, or have dropped out. This increased to 2.4 million between 2010 and 2013. 

75 million children aged 3 to 18 live in countries facing war and violence and need educational support. 

171 million people could be lifted out of poverty if all students in low-income countries gained basic reading skills. 

Each year of education reduces the risk of conflict by around 20%. 

By providing equitable access to quality education, a country’s gross domestic product (GDP) per capita can increase by 30%. 

Education is the key to promoting the understanding of social justice, health issues, and eradicating global poverty. Education leads to self-sufficiency which frees us to spend more time and resources to dedicate our lives to larger global causes such as attaining global peace.

Some constraints for our project include: 1) a very limited timeline in which to develop and implement our plan, 2) a very broad topic (i.e. “solving world peace”) that is quite difficult to narrow down into an implementable project, 3) lack of familiarity within our group on various technical and business processes necessary to complete the project, 4) conflicting opinions on how to apply education as a tool to impact world peace.

Our current group objective is to arrive at a consensus on what aspect(s) of education can be applied to impact world peace. Each of us brings different opinions on what aspects of education (targeted curriculum, technology advances, collaborative virtual classrooms, etc.) can be implemented to impact the idea of peace. Once we complete the ideation phase and agree on the focus of our project, we’ll be able to assign tasks such as the product design and business strategy to further implement our idea.

Prompt #2 (PROBLEM DEFINITION - GROUP): 

After sharing your individual problem definitions, come to a group consensus regarding what your final problem definition will be and add that definition to your process journal post.

In what ways might we utilize education to impact world peace?

According to Dalai Lama XIV, “Education leads to self-sufficiency, which frees us to spend more time and resources to dedicate our lives to larger global causes, such as attaining global peace.”

The lack of access to quality education is one of the biggest root causes of global poverty and conflict:

124 million children between the ages of 6 and 15 years, have either never started school, or have dropped out. This increased to 2.4 million between 2010 and 2013.

75 million children aged 3 to 18 live in countries facing war and violence and need educational support. Each year of education reduces the risk of conflict by around 20%.

If all students in low-income countries gained basic reading skills, 171 million people could be lifted out of poverty.

Education encourages world peace by teaching social justice, awareness and tolerance, promotes equality, reduces gender-based violence, discourages crime and alleviates global poverty.

We propose enriching traditional education with innovative solutions to drive social change, first at the local community level and then expanding globally, over time. We will focus our efforts on youths during their most formative years. World peace is everyone’s responsibility and everyone’s right. 

To change the world, we start with education.

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Process Journal: Conjunction Junction

Assignment: Try describing five (5) different things (objects, spaces, paintings, people, etc) using only the conjunction 'and' to specify their qualities. Follow up by describing the same things using only the conjunction 'but' to specify their qualities. The purpose of the exercise is to reframe your thinking about the details of a subject matter by forcing you to describe it in a different way. Create a new post in your process journal with the results.

My bicycle is gray and has blue pedals and black tires. It has 21 speeds and has disc brakes for quick stops. It is lightweight but and sturdy for city riding.

My bicycle is gray but has blue pedals and black tires. It has 21 speeds but does have disc brakes for quick stops. It is lightweight but very sturdy for city riding.

My house is located 15 blocks from the US Capitol building and has great access to transit. The exterior is brick and is not painted, unlike most homes in the city are. The house is surrounded by other rowhomes and has great views of the nearby river.

My house is located 15 blocks from the US Capitol building but has great access to transit. The exterior is brick but it is not painted like most homes in the city are. The house is surrounded by other rowhomes but still has great views of the nearby river.

My desk at work is very organized and everything has a specific place. The desk is located in an open office environment and each desk has great views of the suburbs.

My desk at work is very organized but everything has a specific place to avoid clutter. The desk is located in an open office environment but each desk has great views of the suburbs.

My Nike running shoes are blue and green and have a yellow sole. The sole is stiff and designed for stability when running. The interior fit is tight and helps avoid heel slippage.

My Nike running shoes are blue and green but have a yellow sole. The sole is stiff but designed to encourage ankle stability when running. The interior fit is tight but that helps to avoid heel slippage.

My favorite local running trail is along the banks of a nearby river and has great views of the National Mall. It’s surrounded by historical monuments and often full of runners and tourists.

My favorite local running trail is along the banks of a nearby river but still has great views of the National Mall. It’s surrounded by historical monuments but often full of runners and tourists.

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Process Journal: Individual Morphological Analysis

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Process Journal: Group Morphological Analysis

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Process Journal: Analysis

Prompt: Reflect on the methods and techniques for analysis that you have used this week and summarise those activities in a new post in your process journal. Where have you sought out research material? What kind of interesting things have you discovered? What sort of insights are you able to gather through your research so far?

As I began my research via Google searches and various academic journals, my first discovery was that the implementation of improved access to education as a tool towards solving world peace is quite a broad topic and we needed to narrow our group’s focus. According to The Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education, there is a “lack of rigorous research studies and robust evidence” on the relationship between education and peace. However, I found considerable research from organizations and industry professionals demonstrating the need for further development and implementation within this field.

According to new data from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) show that the global number of children not enrolled in school is rising at the same time that the international community is setting a new sustainable development goal that includes universal secondary education. According to UIS data for the school year ending in 2013, 124 million children and young adolescents, roughly between the ages of 6 and 15 years, have either never started school or have dropped out, compared to 122 million in 2011. The global number of out-of-school children of primary school age rose by 2.4 million between 2010 and 2013, reaching a total of more than 59 million. These numbers have incredible potential to positively, or negatively if left unchecked, impact peace on a global scale.

Once the need for expanded access to education was established, the next step was to analyze how we could implement expanded access. Rather than build our education platform from the ground up, it will be more feasible to partner with an existing platform and expand upon it with new content. One potential business partner is the Big History Project. This curriculum, founded by billionaire Bill Gates and historian David Christian, utilizes an interdisciplinary approach to teach a big picture look at the world and helps students develop a framework to organize what they’re learning both in and out of school. The big picture, interdisciplinary curriculum is designed to appeal to a variety of interests including sciences, humanities, and social sciences, therefore potentially appealing to more students than a historical approach might. Another potential partner, TakingITGlobal for Educators (TIGed), provides free digital classrooms for schools across the globe to interact and collaboratively learn from each other in a live setting. My hope is that we can integrate the best practices from each of these technologies to design a new interdisciplinary approach for global learning.

Lastly, I researched curriculum concepts that could be adopted on a global scale. The Central Asia Institute identified 10 ways in which education contributes to world peace. Reducing poverty, increasing political involvement, and building empathy and tolerance are each concepts that I believe will contribute towards our goal of establishing world peace. Another organization, the Harvard Graduate School of Education, identified a general framework of ideas that we could introduce into the development of our global curriculum. Some of the curriculum ideas included teaching kindness and empathy, using experiential learning, and integrating service learning. Since no one in my group is a curriculum developer, we will likely need to outsource the course development to an industry expert once our technology platform is designed.

Once our product or service is deployed we will be able to measure success through implementation and behavioral testing. Changing lives through education takes time. It’s likely it will take several years to see the fruits of our labor but our hope is we can equip future generations with stronger interpersonal skills and cross-cultural understandings, leading to improvements in world peace.

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Process Journal (Group): Contingency Management

Discussion Prompt #1

Identify the project’s contingencies, real or imaginary, that may impede progress, that seem outside of your control, and or issues that need to be resolved before you can move forward. 

Kirsten

Not enough research material to our specific solution. We need to get data on how education affects social norms and cultures over time (research).

We cannot connect education in a viable way to impact world peace.

Funding. Need to figure out how to fund the effort; Billionaires for peace?

Language and cultural barriers in educational materials and message. We cannot find a cohesive message that resonates with and is accepted by the world.

Logistics might be too complicated. How can we share information? Offer free information to all educational institutions?

Governments may be resistant to the program

Scott

In addition to the ideas Kirsten presents above, we may face the following challenges to developing our project:

Lack of experience as a team in developing new technology (apps, software, etc.)

Global access challenges to using or implementing new technology (i.e. not everyone has smart phones or computers to use apps / software for digital learning)

Access to education is an extremely broad topic; we need to narrow our focus to a specific market segment in order to develop a product / service that we can implement

Too much research is available; as we narrow our target focus we’ll need to weed out extra, superfluous research.

Financing: implementation and product development costs money; who will fund this project?

Charlene

Challenges in establishing the persona/target market

Challenges in determining a universal curriculum

Challenges in identifying content delivery/the platform

Challenges in acquiring talent/qualified educators who are able to communicate in the local language/dialect to manage the program

Challenges in feasibility and sustainability of program

Challenges in working as a team as we’ve never worked on a big project together before

Challenges in navigating the local political/governmental landscape

Challenges in technology/infrastructure

Discussion Prompt #2

Understand your limits. What are your capabilities and the collective capabilities of your team?

Scott

Due to the schedule of my work I’m most available on weekends (ET hours) when I can dedicate time to our project. The capabilities I bring to the team include experience with researching ideas and developing implementation strategies, as well as how higher education is incorporating technology to expand its digital presence. I have not yet worked with primary or secondary education so I’m less experienced in how those institutions are implementing technology for growth. I also have experience with data analysis, although not extensive, and limited experience (years ago) with graphic design and publication (newsletters, advertisements, brochures, etc.). I’m learning to expand my capabilities through the Design@USC program and hope to build on that knowledge by further developing my knowledge in graphic / product design (presentation, product, graphic, etc.) steps. As a team we have strong knowledge in analytics, research, and design. As we start the creative design process, the first limit we may face is technical implementation as we don’t necessarily have a strong background in technical design (web, software, application, etc.).

Charlene

I will probably be most effective and productive on the weekends when I can give the project my undivided attention. I’m a go-getter and goal-oriented, and I aim to fill in the gaps where needed and contribute to the team any way I can. I have a very strong analytical background, which certainly helps in the planning process. I will be taking on the role of project manager while Kirsten will be responsible for design and Scott research and development. Although we have assigned roles, we will operate democratically and everyone will have input in all areas of the project to give us the opportunity to grow our strengths further while simultaneously taking advantage of the opportunity to discover other skills and improve weaknesses.

Kirsten

Our team is strong in data analysis, which is a great resource during idea generation. When we move to the implementation/feasibility stage in terms of our technology, we may need to seek help from outside experts. I can provide design skills and business insights. As a team, we have discussed leveraging off of a design by committee approach. That, is we are going to seek input from all team members in making decisions to leverage off of different perspectives. Project Team Leader: Charlene, Ed Tech/Business Expert: Scott, Design Expert: Kirsten. 

Discussion Prompt #3

Establish reasonable and feasible goals and standards. What are your and your team’s intentions and are they in line with your abilities. Where does your team have gaps and how will you mitigate that?

Scott

Our initial intention is not necessarily to solve world peace, but rather to have an initial and measurable impact on a population, school age children, that can expand over time. As we discussed the focus of our concept we seem to be approaching an idea that is within the framework of our team’s abilities. I have experience working with higher education but not much experience working with primary or secondary education. We also have a strong background in design and As a team we’ll need to research primary education in order to further narrow our primary target audience in order to make this project attainable. If we pursue app or software development, rather than using an existing technology, we may also need to consult externally on the technical dev process.

Charlene

I personally have limited knowledge on education systems globally, or just the education industry in general. However, researching it should be interesting and doable.

Kirsten

Rules of our group:

Who does what? Set up and agree to roles within the group. Determine project leader.

Design by committee approach.  (Obama example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7AUqGBr074) Solution options based on everybody’s input and perspective. Final judgement based on agreement of team (vote or determination by the expert team member).

If we need help beyond our capabilities, we can outsource or hire an expert.

Project manager to set dates for meetings and deliverables on shared Google Calendar.

Policy of team members giving input even outside their area of expertise. Unique, unexpected perspectives

If there is a team conflict, grievances will be aired during our weekly Monday morning meeting.

Listening is a main tenant of our meetings.

General considerations: Keep an open mind. Be fair to other team members.

Different team members have different creative processes. Respect others.

Discussion Prompt #4

Be strict and consistent. Do not promise what you cannot deliver. Talk with your team on how to stay within scope and meet and exceed expectations with within your collective means.

Scott

Weekends tend to work best for my schedule but I’m flexible during the week if we schedule meetings in advance. As the project advances we will need to refine and narrow our focus within global access to education. We’ll do so through open communication and flexibility to help achieve our common goal.

Charlene

The majority of my input will highly likely come on the weekends. However, I do make a habit of being responsive to emails and text messages usually within 24 hours. Because I’m a morning person my team can also expect much of my contributions to be delivered before 10-10:30PM. I think communication is key to the team’s success. It would be helpful for everyone to keep each other in the loop. Voting on ideas or decision making should also be practiced. As project manager I’m charged with making sure that our attention is focused on the right things at the right time. It’s also my responsibility to make sure we are tackling all the deliverables on schedule.

Kirsten

I am open to some weekend work, but prefer to work during the weekdays.

Perhaps we can incorporate a short check-in during the week, as well as complete weekend work together. It will be important to set task expectations clearly for each team member, so that we can be most effective.

Discussion Prompt #5

Reward yourself. What incentives do you and your team value when you meet your goals and, conversely, what is agreed upon and accepted “consequences” for you or your team members not contributing or behaving poorly?

Scott

I get excited each time we cross a threshold and check off a box on the ‘to-do’ list. Since we’re all working remotely, it won’t be possible to schedule in-person celebrations but perhaps we can dedicate time to socialize and talk about non-project social topics and get to know each other better. As long as we maintain open communication with candid and honest feedback, I’m confident we’ll successfully meet our goals. Outlining clear expectations at the beginning of each stage of the project  and measuring success at established goals will be essential to ensuring everyone is able to contribute in a meaningful way.

Charlene

Good results is the reward itself. Satisfaction can be found in giving the project our best efforts.

Kirsten

I am also a box checker and like to achieve mini goals along the way that move me to my final goal. We will have weekly short check in meetings to discuss the project progress, questions, problems and grievances. Each team member will be able to talk up to 5 minutes about any issues without interruption. Team will then address. Reward system for meeting goals: Social time with team members on personal topics of interest to build team bonding.

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Process Journal (Group): The Destination and Journey

Team summary 

Each member of our team brings a strong set of skills, ranging from data analytics and business implementation to idea generation and presentation development. Together we identified a strong need for improved global access to education as a tool to solve world peace.

Scott

Coming from a professional background in the EdTech sector, I have a passion for expanding access to education through the use of technology. The global need for access to education is vast. Studies show that 59 million school-age kids (K-6) are being denied an education, and 65 million don’t have access to a secondary school. Education is the key to promoting the understanding of social justice, health issues, and eradicating global poverty. Education leads to self-sufficiency, which frees us to spend more time and resources to dedicate our lives to larger global causes such as attaining global peace. The experience I bring to the creative table includes a strong knowledge of business implementation, research and analytics, and high level understanding of technology we could implement to increase access to education. Initially I plan to contribute during the ideation phase by researching the problem and identifying potential technical solutions that are within our team’s ability to implement. As we move through the creative problem solving process, I also hope to contribute to the product or service design, presentation, and potentially implementation stages.

Charlene

Who doesn’t wish for world peace? I would love for an opportunity to contribute to it however small might that be. I think education is an excellent platform to use as a means to achieve world peace. I realize that a person only needs water, food, clothing and shelter to live. However, I’d argue that this is not living; this is merely existing. I’d also argue that feeding the body is just as important as feeding the mind. I think education should be available for anyone. Education elevates a person’s quality of life as it opens doors for job and even career opportunities, which contribute to the development of one’s perceived purpose in life. I’m proactive, hardworking and a team player, and I bring with me my desire for helping people. I also have an extensive analytical and critical thinking background by way of my vocation as a finance manager. I’m handy with mass data analysis and manipulation on spreadsheets and presentation development.

Kirsten

We are attempting to make a shift in education to move the collective world toward peace. We advocate:

Spreading education: peace and tolerance.

Promoting the same unified message to all

Enlightening the world, enhancing empathy for and understanding of others

Acceptance of everyone’s role in peace

Enabling a platform in which there is global access to education

Evolving social norms regarding peace over time.                                                                                              

I am a designer and creative thinker. I am empathetic to others, which gives me a unique perspective on problem solving. I am very visual, which enables me to see the big picture as well as how small parts of a project fit together. My strong suit is idea generation, but I am also hard working, driven and goal oriented. I would like to make a difference on this planet and enable people to help themselves, their neighbors and their world. World peace ensures our existence on this planet. My interest lies in helping sustain the world for future generations including my kids’ generation and their kids’ generation.