Co-design Workshop

The last step in the Service Design process covered by this thesis was conducting a co-design workshop. The workshop was organized as a remote workshop with users of the learning services on the Alumniportal Deutschland.

The workshop focused on building empathy for the target users, analyse the existing services, and generating ideas and potential solutions for identified problem areas (Stevens, 2019). The main research questions that guided the co-design workshop were the following: (1) What are alumni’s needs and learning objectives regarding digital LLL offers, and what is their motivation for

participation? (2) How does alumni’s online behaviour look like, and how are their overall digital skills? (3) How do the learning context and technical requirements of alumni look like?

The author identified a co-design workshop to be a suitable approach to answer these questions, as it allows applying different methods and activities to explore user’s experiences and needs, and to gain an understanding of different viewpoints and expectations. Also, the workshop offered a space for creativity and brainstorming. (Vaajakallio, 2012) Another advantage of workshops is that they offer an effective way of achieving non-biased collaboration and co-designing in a heterogeneous team (Brown, 2009; Lockwood, 2010). Especially, design activities and tools can help diverse teams to structure, interact, and inspire on questions and problems, as they are flexible, context-based and playful (Vaajakallio, 2012). By bringing users on board of the process, the author tried to advance the SD and value-creation process (Polaine et al., 2013;

Silverstain, Samuel and DeCarlo 2009).

The author selected participants for the workshop in a two-tier process, which comprised a self-selection presampling and a purposeful selection by the author. Participants of the member survey were asked if they were generally interested to participate in the workshop. The author contacted the 318 survey participants who had indicated interest in the workshop and who had agreed to be approached in this regard via email. The email offered further information on the workshop, including the background and objective of the thesis project and workshop, the date and time, the agenda, the utilized methods and tools, as well data privacy information. Also, potential workshop participants were informed at this point that the workshop would be recorded for further analysis in the course of the thesis. Addressees who were willing to participate were asked to register for the workshop via an online form.

From those who registered via the form the author then made a purposeful selection. The precondition for users to be considered as workshop participants was that they completed the registration form and that they indicated to fulfil the basic requirements, including having a computer or laptop with a webcam available for the workshop, as well as having a stable internet connection.

Following the suggestion by Patton (2002), the author defined the further selection criteria prior to selecting the sample. To ensure that core users as well as a range of different user types were included in the workshop, the author selected participants of different gender, nationality, career level, as well as field of study, research or work. After selection of the workshop participants, the author send out a confirmation email including a link to the virtual meeting in zoom as well as the digital workshop whiteboard in miro. Also, the author offered guidelines for using the whiteboard tool miro. Participants were invited to a quick technical check prior to the workshop.

The workshop was sequenced into six phases throughout which different methods and SD tools were utilized to facilitate discussion and collaboration of participants. Emphasis was put on visualization to increase understanding and document the workshop results (Eriksen et al., 2014; Gaver, Dunne and Pacenti, 1999; Sangiorgi, Patricio and Fisk, 2017). In the following, the methods used throughout the workshop phases are described in more detail. The agenda of the workshop can be found in appendix 4.

Phase 1: Welcome and check-in

This first workshop phase aimed at on-boarding participants, setting expectations and paving the way for a productive workshop (Planning a Workshop: Organizing and Running a Successful Event, n.d.). The author, who also acted as facilitator during the workshop, welcomed participants, introduced the purpose of the workshop and gave some background information on the thesis as well as on the Service Design process. Participants were also given details on how the data generated through the workshop would be analysed and reported for the thesis. The author then introduced the workshop agenda and communicated the code of behaviour for the workshop to create a respectful and constructive working atmosphere. Participants were given the opportunity to ask questions before moving on with workshop activities.

Phase 2: Round of introductions and icebreaker

The purpose of this workshop phase was for participants to get to know each other and to get acquainted with the workshop tools, especially the miro board.

Furthermore, it aimed at creating an open and inclusive workshop atmosphere and served as a basis for upcoming activities. As participants did not know each

other before the workshop, the author decided to conduct a round of introductions as well as an icebreaker activity. First, participants were asked to briefly introduce themselves to the group. In the following icebreaker activity ‘10 common things’, two teams were asked to find ten things that all team members have in common and document the list in a dedicated area of the miro whiteboard. This activity was meant to enable participants to get to know each other better and allow them to test some basic functionalities of miro, like navigating on the board and using sticky notes and text. To wrap up the activity, each group shared the items on their list with the others. (Ice breaking games for remote teams, 2014)

Phase 3: User research: interviews and empathy map

The aim of this workshop phase was to build empathy for users and to gain an understanding of real user problems. Workshop participants were asked to conduct user interviews in pairs of two on their experiences with digital learning.

The researcher provided them with a template with some starter questions as well as space to add further questions and note their findings. After both partners had interviewed each other and summarized their observations, they were asked to sum up their findings in an empathy map. An empathy map articulates and visualizes what is known about a particular type of user and therewith can help to create a shared understanding of users and their needs.

(Stevens, 2019) Most empathy maps have the user or persona in the middle of a map with the four quadrants, “the user says,” “the user thinks,” “the user does,” and “the user feels.” Participants presented the main findings of their interviews as well as the empathy maps of their user to the group. Other participants were given the opportunity to ask questions or comment on the presentations as well as on the exercise itself.

Phase 4: Sailboat exercise and ‘How might we…?’ statements

The next workshop phase comprised two typical DT activities, the ‘sailboat exercise’ and ‘How might we…?’ statements (HMW statements). The sailboat exercise is an innovation and design game, which aims at gaining a shared understanding of a product or service. This includes positive aspects, problem

areas as well as areas of opportunity and obstacles connected to a specific service. (Sailboat: what’s holding your organization back?, n.d.). Workshop participants were asked to look at the digital learning offers on the Alumniportal Deutschland (represented by the sailboat) and from their perspective identify strengths (represented by the paddles), weaknesses (represented by the anchors), opportunities (represented by the islands) as well as threats (represented by the reefs) connected to the learning offers, and add them to a template on the miro board (Sailboat: what’s holding your organization back?, n.d.). The template created for the sailboat exercise can be found in appendix 5.

After participants had added their thoughts to the respective sections of the board, the facilitator and participants went through the collected aspects together. Participants were asked to reflect on the aspects and look for common themes, patterns or concepts that emerged. Matching aspects were then clustered by affinity. (Crawford, 2018a) To wrap up the activity, participants were asked to look at the identified problem areas of the service and prioritize them by voting for those aspects that appeared most relevant, important or most urgent to them (Sailboat: what’s holding your organization back?, n.d.).

The aspects that received the most votes were then taken to the next activity, the HMW statements. HMW statements are another classic Design Thinking activity (Design Kit, n.d.). The aim of this activity was to look at the problem areas and challenges identified in the sailboat exercise and reframe them into opportunity statements. HMW statements suggest that solutions to a problem are possible and therewith can serve as an opener for subsequent ideation sessions (Design Kit, n.d.). According to Tarnowski (2018), they can help to provoke ideas, spark creativity and innovation to improve products or services.

After participants had formulated their HMW statements, the whole group reflected on the statements to check if they allow for a variety of solutions and possible answers (Design Kit, n.d.).

Phase 5: Brainstorming and ideating

The fifth phase of the workshop emphasized finding solutions, ideation, and prototyping. The author decided to utilize the ‘2x3 exercise’, which is a brainstorming and ideation activity. (Crawford, 2020) The main goal of the ‘2x3 exercise’ is to generate a wide variety of ideas and possible solutions to a

problem or challenge within a short time, focusing on quantity of ideas, not quality. These top-of-mind solutions can serve as a basis for deeper brainstorming sessions later. (Crawford, 2020) The HMW statements that had been formulated earlier in the workshop built the starting point for the activity.

Participants were asked to brainstorm and come up with six possible solutions to the HMW statement they chose to work on and sketch their ideas roughly in a

‘2x3 grid template’. The deliverables were up to six distinct ideas per participant in the form of text, images and illustrations. After six minutes, participants were given additional time to refine their ideas. Each participant briefly presented his or her ideations to the group. The other participants were given the opportunity to ask questions and comment on the presented ideas. Lastly, all participants voted for their favorite solutions to prioritize them. (Crawford, 2020)

Phase 6: De-briefing and goodbye

In the last workshop phase, the researcher thanked participants for their participation and gathered their feedback on the workshop in feedback forms.

Furthermore, the researcher gave an outlook on how she and the Alumniportal Deutschland team would proceed with the data and ideas generated during the workshop before saying goodbye. After the workshop, the researcher sent a thank you and follow-up email to participants, also offering them to keep them in the loop regarding the workshop findings and their further development.

After the workshop, a thematic analysis of the written workshop results in the miro board was conducted. The main findings of the co-design workshop are presented in chapter 4.2.6.