Soren's MSIDBT Process Journal

Reflect on the methods and techniques that are most appropriate for evaluating the performance of your groups implementation and summarize 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?

SOCIAL & GLOBAL IMPACT As innovators, our purpose is to improve the lives of others and strive towards a healthier planet. We have a unique opportunity to design systems and solutions that bridge divides and bring people together, for the benefit of humanity.

INGENUITY As innovators, our quest is to unlock the future and dream big. Our hearts must be filled with endless optimism and the joy that comes with ever-flowing inspiration. We must find that roads less traveled that reveal vantage points of true insight.

UNDERSTANDING & EMPATHY As innovators, we must build a strong foundation of the domain we are working within. Rigorous research should form a foundation of discovery. Researchers should be driven to understand and empathize with all stakeholders and users in the ecosystem.

ENGAGEMENT As innovators, we are called to captivate the hearts, minds and imagination of others. A product story should drive value for the audience by drawing them into the world you have created.

How our team spent the week iterating our solution

Our team has been steadily building out elements of our prototype. We have been having design reviews as a team and iterating on components of our presentation. We still have lots of work to do to build a clear set of product benefits. We’ve debated as a team which form factor our product should take and what our product portfolio should be.

What were some of the success, and failure points?

Our team has been successful in generating volumes of content and there was a big boost of enthusiasm when our team created prototype renderings. We have had some struggles with definition. We’ve debated form factor and what our portfolio of products should be.

Did you have to pivot your idea?

We have not pivoted. It’s fun to think about how a pivot could lead to interesting new possibilities. It feels like a necessary reflex a startup must have.

How did you generate visual assets for your solution?

Our team created 3D mockups of our product, logos, color palates and wireframes.

How can you put these to use in your final presentation materials and to further your collective ideas to realize your solution?

Our brainstorming clustered around our initial hypothesis a range of technology tools, user needs, design principles and there was convergence to shift our focus on mood. Our team’s new focus is on understanding, supporting and improving mood.

Problem definition can be a challenging process when teams are grappling with a large domain that presents multiple possibilities. Our team has been immersed in passionate discussion and we’ve had powerful realizations together. In some ways when working within health, it can feel like patients are missing out with the team converges. Eventually we landed on a high level problem definition:

My sourdough bread is heavy and dense and crusty and crunchy. The interior of this bread is spongy and sour. My sourdough bread is heavy and dense, but crusty and crunchy. The interior of this bread is spongy, but sour.

My dog’s fur is silver and black and white. My dog’s ears are pointy and soft. My dog’s tail is bushy and furry. My dog’s fur is silver and black, but white. My dog’s ears are pointy, but soft. My dog’s tail is bushy and furry.

My Nike flyknit free sneakers have a woven outsole and a foam insole. The soles and laces and outsole are white. The shoes fit like a sock and are very comfortable. My Nike flyknit free sneakers have a woven outsole but a foam insole. The soles and laces and outsole are white. The shoes fit like a sock, but are very comfortable.

My cap is blue and has a small California flag on the front. The back is fastened with an adjustable snap and the band slips inside the cap. My cap is blue, but has a small California flag on the front. The back is fastened with an adjustable snap, but the band slips inside the cap.

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Simone

Trauma surgeon and member of healthcare innovation lab in San Francisco

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How do you generate ideas? (How, when, and where are you inspired? What inspires you?)

I don't know that I generate ideas like on the fly in a high-pressure environment. The way that I think ideas come to me is first was like, identifying the problem. And I think I have a couple of different buckets for how problems come on my radar. One is like direct observation or direct experience, like, yeah, "we keep running into this issue."

A good example would be making schedules. So, we all have to make these schedules and there's these confines we have about, you know, if you're on call for 24 and you can't be on call for another 24. And so like thinking about who's posting all day and then residency sure to have the space it out. So that's pretty good. One day off in seven. And there are certain rules that apply to interns that don't apply to other roles.

So, as a schedule maker, you just realize like we're spending so much brain power and effort to make these things, and it’s stupid. There's got to be a better way to do it.

That is a way that a problem will come on my radar and I guess there's, what could we do how might we better automate this process or take the brain work out of it.

Then there's ways that problems come on my radar, because I get inspired from an interesting conversation or because other people are talking about it. It is maybe a problem I hadn't thought about until somebody brings it up. Like, “hey do you ever notice we do this?” “Oh yeah, that's a huge issue!’ I just didn't directly realize that.

For me that comes about from either sometimes reading an article. So, you know, discussions that happen in in a research forum or some other surgical magazine, I’m like “that was a good point. I never thought of it that way.” It can come up with at conferences. So when you sit through a presentation, and you start hearing, like, “this is how somebody solved this problem or started to think about this,’ that will trigger something for me of like, “Oh, I wonder if we should think about it a little bit differently than how they did” or, “you know, these are the barriers that they are going to run into.”

And, and it was a kind of a big issues that come up in conversations you have with colleagues or other things that kind of come up.

I was doing a case the other day and talking to my colleague and it was like, “do you ever have issues with this stapler?” “I can never release this mechanism, without causing a lot of jerky motion.” Again, I’m like, yeah, I totally had that issue. It helps you to realize that you're not the only person dealing with this issue.

So, so that's how I generate ideas or how problems come to me. So I start to realize that this is a problem and then how do I generate ideas.

A couple of this is the stuff to like I don't do well on the spot. I have to noodle over it, like, “what if we did it this way?” and mostly kind of think about it. Or map it out like on a whiteboard. Draw pictures of it. That is helpful for me. Sometimes I get inspired by what other people do. I will say just my own personal process. I don't go out of my way to look for what others do. I actually see that as a weakness more as a strength. I am inspired when other people show me what their inspiration is.

What obstacles do you face in coming up with a new idea, and how do you overcome them?

One of the obstacles I come into is that I get tunnel vision too fast. I have a hard time keeping the solutions broad. I start to go in there and I’m like, “ok, I’ve figured out what I want to do about this,” but it may just be one solution and there's really 10 other ones. I get kind of fixated on the one and then I lose some of my peripheral vision.

Another thing that I run into for problem solving, is not doing my due diligence to figure out if anybody else has tried to solve this

Oh, that happened on a research front more than anything else. “Oh gosh we should totally look at pelvic fractures in this population or rib fractures and the elderly,” and I'll start heading down a road of how to design a study. Only after I've invested some time and realized like, “Oh shit, someone has already published on this and they’ve already done the work.” I don't need to reinvent the wheel.

What process(es) do you use to solve problems?

The process these for me is I'm relatively visual and, there’s something about being able to sketch the idea out that's really helpful for me to work through things. I will have these popcorn ideas in my head, but I won't have a form to them until I start playing around with what it looks like.

I literally have a whiteboard in my house and I am laughing right now as I look at it, because I have this really challenging paper that I’m working on and I'm like, “Okay, well, the hardest part is understanding our process of how we did this so how can I visually make this different or start playing around like what if we did a two by two grid here of highs and lows. And then fill in the interview people who where in that process.”

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Andy

Illustrator who has been commissioned by the New York Times, SF Moma and Outside Lands.

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How do you generate ideas? (How, when, and where are you inspired? What inspires you?)

Most of the time ideas are generated out of necessity. If it is client work, it's solving a problem. Sometimes it’s just sitting with it for a while. Other times it's just not sleeping enough, or just being receptive in everyday life.

What obstacles do you face in coming up with a new idea, and how do you overcome them?

Sometimes I just keep going until I know the block is gone. Oftentimes, I just keep doing thumbnails if it's just like an image-based thing. A lot of times those failures spark something else that I may use later on.

What process(es) do you use to solve problems?

If there's a brief, I pull part elements from the brief and figure out what those are to me. Sit with what my history is with that a little bit. Mainly, I’ll doodle stuff. Sometimes if nothing is coming up, I will explore word association directly but mostly I will seek a different way to explore the visual need.

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Jensen

Architect based in San Diego.

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How do you generate ideas? (How, when, and where are you inspired? What inspires you?)

I make sure I am rested and not hungry. I clean my space so there is room to think and to make. I listen to beautiful, inspiring music. I need good light to work with color and forms. I start to work with the materials I plan to use and that process of beginning leads me to creative solutions.

I am inspired by beauty. I need to see beautiful things every day. It is a necessity for my well-being. I love looking at my garden, the sky. Everything in nature is inspiring to me from form to color to how light changes everything.

I also love to look at what other people build, make etc. I am inspired by the beauty others create. I need to look at inspirational images every day. It is part of my equilibrium.

I am always adding to my library of ideas. I have many files of ideas that inspire me. The subjects range from architectural ideas for front porches to decorating cakes. Music inspires me.

What obstacles do you face in coming up with a new idea, and how do you overcome them?

I know that I will find a solution to a problem if I keep searching for it. When I am working on a solution to a design problem that I don’t know the steps, I start to research by studying photos of similar situations.

Sometimes there is a problem where answers are not readily available because it is a new or unusual problem. Maybe it requires a creative new solution.

What process(es) do you use to solve problems?