Stakeholder Involvement: Part 3a

STAKEHOLDER DESIGN WORKSHOP 

Setting out to build a user-centered school requires involving users from the start! This entry will provide an overview of the process. A follow-up entry will touch on reflections from this set of events.

After the high school fair, I began reaching out to high schools and student organizations to participate in the research and design process. Without knowing where the school would be located, I reached out to a range of high schools that would capture lots of different student perspectives. I spoke with students at neighborhood high schools and a city-wide admission school to inform and recruit students for the project. I also reached out to the most influential student organizations in the city to participate. Additionally, I began reaching out to the 31 parents/guardians that expressed interest in the project at the high school fair. I also set out to inform the City Wide Home and School Council to ensure that they were aware of the effort.

The Plan

My plan was to create a participatory stakeholder research and design initiative. Together stakeholders, representing students, parents/guardians and educators,  would work in groups of three to tackle design challenges viscerally experienced by all participants.  Additionally, University of the Arts Masters of Industrial Design program pledged graduate students to help facilitate.  I secured 30 stakeholders (10 from each group, which is tough to get 30 people to commit to do), finished the guide (inspired by the IDEOs toolkit and Design Thinking for Educators site, but tailored for this endeavor) created for the session and was ready to go!

Unfortunately, the region was threatened with a large snowfall, and after getting some cold responses from all parties we decided to postpone (it really didn't end up snowing! Grrr! We wouldn't be able to launch the effort until after the holiday break). ...

Fast forward a month. 

Session 1

Agenda.  Set the tone.  Create a culture of collaboration amongst complete strangers, and unite teams in their desire to improve how schools could work.

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Headlines  + Summary

Headlines-

• Scaffolded critical thinking, creativity, collaboration and communication with the group (straw towers) to prep for entering design process
  
• Stakeholder groups (one educator, one parent/guardian, one youth) formed groups around design challenges
  
• Scaffolded the objective and subjective frames to build cognizance and common language around observations, interpretations and assumptions
  
• Stakeholders excited about opportunity (60% of parents participating approached me after the session to say how excited they were about the opportunity... So encouraging!)
  
• Shrunk the group from 30 to 15. It is much more intimate and interactive as a result
  
• Stakeholders created collective assumptions to drive an inquiry (planned on speaking to 10-15 stakeholders each)

Summary-
This was the initial Stakeholder Design Workshop session. Fifteen (actually 14, one of the students did not attend) and one Master’s of Industrial Design student moved through the agenda set for the day. The goal was to provide a solid overview of the grant initiative, immerse in design-like atmosphere, select a challenge, discuss their assumptions about one another, and create a research action plan. Everyone left with their 

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Session 2

Agenda. Continue to build community. Have stakeholders analyze data, dream up solutions and begin prototyping.

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headlines + Summary

Headlines-

• Two additional parents came (from Citywide Home and School Council), per their conversations with participants (they were excited)
  
• Practice qualitative data analysis in order to ideate and prototype
  
• Really struck by perceived combinations of data (every group so different)
• Analysis of collected data from stakeholders
  
• Teaching ideation (dreaming) can be challenging (thank goodness for Jordan Shade)
• Rough prototypes designed

Summary-
Stakeholders all brought their data to this session! They turned 5 assumptions into 225 pieces of data! The design of the session was structured around practicing steps 2-4 of the process (Analysis/Synthesis, Ideation, and Prototyping). I supplied groups with twenty pieces of sample data from the High School Fair collection for the practice. The teams created their first prototype!

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Session 3 

Agenda. Reflect on stakeholder feedback of designs. Refine and reiterate based upon feedback. Reflect on the entire process. Push harder on the implementation. 

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Headlines + Summary

Headlines-

• 3 of the 5 prototypes are usable in school design, 2 of 5 require lots of continued investigation and relationship building
  
• This was hard. People reflected on the difficulty of working through a challenge with three strangers
  
• People discussed how big and difficult some challenges ended up becoming
  
• Review model design with stakeholders (no official  school name yet)

Summary-
Participants walk away with mixed emotions. Many would like to continue, but the pace and demand of the participation are great (12 hours over 4 weekends). People said that the sessions were hard. People felt the diversity of the group was a challenge and a strength. The session ends with a group reflection on the process and some feedback for future implementation.

reflections about the workshop to come...