Mauro Carella 1 

 “ Design Thinking for Innovation ” 

 I.   Challenge 

 I am in my second year in the MBA program at National University of Malaysia . I am currently 

 working on one of my elective classes , which is “ Innovating through Design Thinking . ” I 

 wanted to not only gain knowledge on the different processes that take part in design thinking , 

 but I also wanted to get my hands on a real project where I could see the results of such an 

 effective technique . I came up with the idea of developing a new solution for “ poop scooping , ” 

 since in the college town where I live , 6 out of 10 students own a dog . 

 The action of poop scooping can happen in different places such as home , sidewalks , parks , 

 friend ’s house , or any place where a dog owner decides to take his or her dog for a walk . The 

 process of cleaning up the dog ’s poop is , in my opinion , probably the least desirable stage 

 when walking a dog . Therefore , when I made the Journey Mapping of the poop scooping 

 experience , this was the stage with the strongest pain and with the lowest emotional point , thus 

 creating a space for innovation and opportunity to offer a better solution . 

 II .   Selection 

 I chose the tool of visualization , which according to the book “ Designing for growth : A 

 Design Thinking Toolkit for Managers , ” is “ the transformation of information into images that 

 you see , either literally with your eyes or figuratively with your mind ’s eye . ” This tool is used 

 in the four “ W ’s ” of the design thinking process : what is , what if , what wows , and what works . 

 I decided to use this tool in the process of “ what is , ” since it helped me make my ideas concrete 

 and situate the potential customer ( students ) on the same page when conducting ethnographic 

 interviews . Even though visualization does not eliminate the “ vagueness ” that is present in the 

 interviewer ’s words ( vagueness because I did not give students any clue about how my product 

 might look like , in fact , I did not know how it would ) , it de - risked my project by making the 

 students ’ mental models more similar to mine . 

 III .   Application 

 I asked my university to send me a list of undergraduate and graduate students from 

 different colleges ( business , applied science and technology , arts and sciences , education , and 

 nursing ) , and sent personal emails to a total of 300 students , asking if they owned a dog and 

 were willing to help me with a project . I filtered the list based off students ’ replies and the 

 number came down to 50 , to whom I contacted again for an interview . 

 Mauro Carella 2 

 The interviews took place in team rooms in the College of Business at Univesidad Nacional de Colombia Sede Manizales . When talking to students , the first thing I did was to show them pictures of puppies 

 having a fun time with their owners at a park , and asked them to tell me what thoughts and 

 emotions came to their mind . Soon after , I showed them pictures of un - scooped poops on 

 streets and at parks . Their reactions varied from gesturing and signaling disapproval , while 

 others even recognized that sometimes they do the same for different reasons . 

 IV .   Insight 

 Visualization provided me with many valuable insights that helped me untap into students ’ 

 way of thinking when it came to scooping their dogs ’ poop . For example , I realized that the 

 main reasons students do not clean up their dogs ’ poop is because current solutions in the 

 market are either too complex to use , too big to carry to parks , or too expensive for a students ’ 

 budget . Had I not used the visualization tool , it would have taken me a long time to explain 

 students my idea and the problem I was trying to solve . Showing pictures also switched the 

 emotional side of interviewees , making them more vulnerable to providing valuable 

 information . As for design thinking itself , I like to link visualization with prototyping ( which 

 is also part of my project ) , or “ thinking with your hands . ” I realized how valuable this tool is 

 in every stage of the design thinking process because it speeds up meetings , problem solving , 

 and most importantly , feedback generation . 

 V.   Approach 

 Next time , I might do things a little differently . Instead of showing pictures to interviewees , 

 I might ask them to draw on a white board all the things associated with owning a dog ( reverse 

 visualization ) . This might lead to clues about what owners like and do not like to do , such as 

 scooping their dogs ’ poop . 


EMAIL: 
ID_NUM: 
NAME_STUDENT: Mauro Carella, Mauro Carella
PHONE_NUM: 
STREET_ADDRESS: 
URL_PERSONAL: 
USERNAME: 

### Task: You are a PII (Personal Identity Information) Detection. Given a essays written by students, you have to identify ONLY the following:
NAME_STUDENT - The full or partial name of a student that is not necessarily the author of the essay. This excludes instructors, authors, and other person names.
EMAIL - A student’s email address.
USERNAME - A student's username on any platform.
ID_NUM - A number or sequence of characters that could be used to identify a student, such as a student ID or a social security number.
PHONE_NUM - A phone number associated with a student.
URL_PERSONAL - A URL that might be used to identify a student.
STREET_ADDRESS - A full or partial street address that is associated with the student, such as their home address.
### Input: Mauro Carella 1 

 “ Design Thinking for Innovation ” 

 I.   Challenge 

 I am in my second year in the MBA program at National University of Malaysia . I am currently 

 working on one of my elective classes , which is “ Innovating through Design Thinking . ” I 

 wanted to not only gain knowledge on the different processes that take part in design thinking , 

 but I also wanted to get my hands on a real project where I could see the results of such an 

 effective technique . I came up with the idea of developing a new solution for “ poop scooping , ” 

 since in the college town where I live , 6 out of 10 students own a dog . 

 The action of poop scooping can happen in different places such as home , sidewalks , parks , 

 friend ’s house , or any place where a dog owner decides to take his or her dog for a walk . The 

 process of cleaning up the dog ’s poop is , in my opinion , probably the least desirable stage 

 when walking a dog . Therefore , when I made the Journey Mapping of the poop scooping 

 experience , this was the stage with the strongest pain and with the lowest emotional point , thus 

 creating a space for innovation and opportunity to offer a better solution . 

 II .   Selection 

 I chose the tool of visualization , which according to the book “ Designing for growth : A 

 Design Thinking Toolkit for Managers , ” is “ the transformation of information into images that 

 you see , either literally with your eyes or figuratively with your mind ’s eye . ” This tool is used 

 in the four “ W ’s ” of the design thinking process : what is , what if , what wows , and what works . 

 I decided to use this tool in the process of “ what is , ” since it helped me make my ideas concrete 

 and situate the potential customer ( students ) on the same page when conducting ethnographic 

 interviews . Even though visualization does not eliminate the “ vagueness ” that is present in the 

 interviewer ’s words ( vagueness because I did not give students any clue about how my product 

 might look like , in fact , I did not know how it would ) , it de - risked my project by making the 

 students ’ mental models more similar to mine . 

 III .   Application 

 I asked my university to send me a list of undergraduate and graduate students from 

 different colleges ( business , applied science and technology , arts and sciences , education , and 

 nursing ) , and sent personal emails to a total of 300 students , asking if they owned a dog and 

 were willing to help me with a project . I filtered the list based off students ’ replies and the 

 number came down to 50 , to whom I contacted again for an interview . 

 Mauro Carella 2 

 The interviews took place in team rooms in the College of Business at Univesidad Nacional de Colombia Sede Manizales . When talking to students , the first thing I did was to show them pictures of puppies 

 having a fun time with their owners at a park , and asked them to tell me what thoughts and 

 emotions came to their mind . Soon after , I showed them pictures of un - scooped poops on 

 streets and at parks . Their reactions varied from gesturing and signaling disapproval , while 

 others even recognized that sometimes they do the same for different reasons . 

 IV .   Insight 

 Visualization provided me with many valuable insights that helped me untap into students ’ 

 way of thinking when it came to scooping their dogs ’ poop . For example , I realized that the 

 main reasons students do not clean up their dogs ’ poop is because current solutions in the 

 market are either too complex to use , too big to carry to parks , or too expensive for a students ’ 

 budget . Had I not used the visualization tool , it would have taken me a long time to explain 

 students my idea and the problem I was trying to solve . Showing pictures also switched the 

 emotional side of interviewees , making them more vulnerable to providing valuable 

 information . As for design thinking itself , I like to link visualization with prototyping ( which 

 is also part of my project ) , or “ thinking with your hands . ” I realized how valuable this tool is 

 in every stage of the design thinking process because it speeds up meetings , problem solving , 

 and most importantly , feedback generation . 

 V.   Approach 

 Next time , I might do things a little differently . Instead of showing pictures to interviewees , 

 I might ask them to draw on a white board all the things associated with owning a dog ( reverse 

 visualization ) . This might lead to clues about what owners like and do not like to do , such as 

 scooping their dogs ’ poop .
### Output: 