Assignment on Design Thinking     Mickael Richardson 

 Challenge : As part of the Corporate Social Responsibility ( CSR ) activities of our multi - business   organisation , we run a volunteering initiative , whereby employees are encouraged to offer time and   expertise in supporting CSR projects undertaken by the independent companies constituting the group .   While there are large number of employees with the right skill and those who could spare time for   these projects , the number of actual volunteers are very few . It has been our challenge to get more   people to volunteer . The various stakeholders involved in addressing this challenge include : i ) Group   level CSR team – responsible for developing the program , ii ) Individual company CSR teams – who   identify relevant CSR projects from several requests for help that each company receives , iii ) Existing   Volunteers – who have already pledged their time for supporting the projects , iv ) Non Volunteers –   employees who could possibly participate , but have n’t yet volunteered , v ) Representatives from CSR   projects – who specify their requirement for effort / skills required for successfully completing their   projects .   Even though the present volunteering efforts have surpassed the targets set , since this is an   ongoing initiative , the aspiration is to tap the immense potential amongst those not on board yet . 

 Tool Selection and application : It my endeavour to apply the Design Thinking approach to address the   above challenge . The 4 stages discussed in this course – What Is ? What If ? What Wows ? And What   Works ? are perfectly applicable to the challenge . There are two tools that one could use in my efforts :   mind - maps and story - telling . Both mind - mapping and storytelling may be useful in all four stages , and   for all five stakeholders ( as mentioned earlier ) albeit with some degree of difference in application . The   reason for selecting mind mapping as a tool is because of its simplicity and ease of understanding by   participants as also mentioned in the video on mind map tool shown in Week 3 . While mind mapping is   not very common amongst participants , it is intuitive and easily adopted once explained . Moreover ,   there are really no mistakes that one can make in a mind map , at best some of the nodes may not be   considered relevant and ignored . Another consideration for selecting mind - mapping is because of   availability of automated tools such as www.mindmeister.com , www.mindmup.com , https://coggle.it/ ,   http://wisemapping.com/ etc . which are freely available and make the drawing of mind maps very easy . 

 Tool Application : The manner in which I intend to leverage power of mind - mapping across four stages   and five stakeholders is as follows : 

 Group   CSR 

 Team 

 Company   CSR 

 Team 

 Volunteer   Non Volunteer   Project   Beneficiary 

 What   Is ? 

 To clearly state the   expectations from   the   group   level 

 program 

 To clearly state the   proposed value to   be delivered in the   present   projects 

 selected . 

 To   clearly   state 

 one ’s experiences   of in terms of   inspiration ,   time 

 spent ,   activities 

 carried out , and   learning . 

 Understand   the 

 reasons for their   lack   of 

 involvement   and 

 concerns   that 

 seem to hold them   back 

 How   have   the 

 present   sent   of 

 volunteers   contributed   to 

 their projects 

 What   If ? 

 To explore what   could   be   larger 

 impact   of   this 

 program   on 

 various   stakeholders as far   as the organisation   was concerned 

 To   specify   how 

 they could further   improve on the   variety   of   CSR 

 projects   they 

 select in order to   attract new people   into volunteering . 

 To   understand 

 from them what   more they would   have liked to do if   some   of   the 

 constraints   were 

 addressed   or 

 opportunities were   available 

 To   help   them 

 vocalise   what 

 would   need   to 

 happen for them   to   join 

 volunteering ,   or 

 alternately   what 

 would   they   do 

 differently if they   were to join . 

 To   let   them 

 imagine   what 

 other   outcomes 

 and   value 

 propositions   would   be 

 achievable   with 

 the same set of   resources   available . 

 Assignment on Design Thinking     Mickael Richardson 

 Group   CSR 

 Team 

 Company   CSR 

 Team 

 Volunteer   Non Volunteer   Project   Beneficiary 

 What   Wows ? 

 To identify unique   ways of leveraging   the   program   to 

 create   hitherto 

 unimagined value   to all stakeholders . 

 To let them specify   what would be an   ideal result that   would help them   emphasise   their 

 importance at the   organisation . 

 To   make   them 

 relive some of the   highlights of their   experiences which   could   act   as 

 inspiration   for 

 others . 

 To support them   with articulation of   what they would   consider as a wow   project which they   would   be 

 compelled   to 

 volunteer . 

 To help the project   beneficiaries   identify   superlative   achievement   of 

 their goals 

 What   Works ? 

 To shortlist couple   of new programs   from   the   new 

 ideas . 

 To help the CSR   teams with a few   novel project ideas   and a completely   unique of doing   those projects . 

 To help volunteers   pin - point that one   compelling reason   that would make   them come back   to   join   this 

 initiative 

 To identify that   one   compelling 

 argument   which 

 will reduce their   dissonance   and 

 turn   them   to 

 volunteering . 

 To   establish   a 

 practice   that 

 would help them   maximise   their 

 results . 

 Insight : The insight one aims to gather from use of mind - mapping activity are the non - obvious , hitherto   unarticulated and sometimes non - connected motivations , inspirations , concerns , and other such   emotional drivers for volunteering . These insights might be leveraged for creating the right appeal for   potential volunteers and reinforcing messages for existing volunteers . One also hopes to generate   insights that might help measure actual impact of volunteering on completion of projects . This will be   very useful for project managers as well as policy creators in an organisation , to assign credit to the   volunteers in order to reward or recognise them meaningfully . Further , insights from this activity could   also help match the nature or diversity of projects with the type of employee skills within the   organisation , so that more people will find volunteering easier . Finally , insights from this exercise could   also be used to identify – i ) interesting new project ideas , ii ) novel ways of participating in existing or   known projects , iii ) filtering out un - intended misconceptions about volunteering etc . 

 Alternate Approach : As mentioned in the tool selection paragraph , the tool of storytelling could also be   used powerfully for achieving similar results and insights . Program managers could be asked to narrate   stories of how and why they chose to draft the program in a certain manner . These would lead to   exploring what other ways could they have achieved similar result ( if they had chosen different   initiatives ) , or what other results could they have planned for ( if the selected initiatives were   maintained as is ) . Volunteers could have narrated stories of their experiences and helped create   emotionally compelling drivers for others to join the volunteering initiatives . Non - volunteers could have   been requested to tell stories of failed attempts of volunteering that they might have heard from others   and which resulted in they not volunteering themselves . The reason this tool was not considered was   due to the difficulty faced by common folks in converting their experiences into stories that can be   narrated impactfully . Most participants would have to be trained to help them capture their emotions   into stories and make them engaging enough for others . Most importantly my own confidence of   conveying the usefulness of how story - telling might be best used in developing insights was limited .   Hence , this tool was reserved for a later date when one would develop enough expertise and   experience . 


EMAIL: 
ID_NUM: 
NAME_STUDENT: Mickael Richardson, Mickael Richardson
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: Assignment on Design Thinking     Mickael Richardson 

 Challenge : As part of the Corporate Social Responsibility ( CSR ) activities of our multi - business   organisation , we run a volunteering initiative , whereby employees are encouraged to offer time and   expertise in supporting CSR projects undertaken by the independent companies constituting the group .   While there are large number of employees with the right skill and those who could spare time for   these projects , the number of actual volunteers are very few . It has been our challenge to get more   people to volunteer . The various stakeholders involved in addressing this challenge include : i ) Group   level CSR team – responsible for developing the program , ii ) Individual company CSR teams – who   identify relevant CSR projects from several requests for help that each company receives , iii ) Existing   Volunteers – who have already pledged their time for supporting the projects , iv ) Non Volunteers –   employees who could possibly participate , but have n’t yet volunteered , v ) Representatives from CSR   projects – who specify their requirement for effort / skills required for successfully completing their   projects .   Even though the present volunteering efforts have surpassed the targets set , since this is an   ongoing initiative , the aspiration is to tap the immense potential amongst those not on board yet . 

 Tool Selection and application : It my endeavour to apply the Design Thinking approach to address the   above challenge . The 4 stages discussed in this course – What Is ? What If ? What Wows ? And What   Works ? are perfectly applicable to the challenge . There are two tools that one could use in my efforts :   mind - maps and story - telling . Both mind - mapping and storytelling may be useful in all four stages , and   for all five stakeholders ( as mentioned earlier ) albeit with some degree of difference in application . The   reason for selecting mind mapping as a tool is because of its simplicity and ease of understanding by   participants as also mentioned in the video on mind map tool shown in Week 3 . While mind mapping is   not very common amongst participants , it is intuitive and easily adopted once explained . Moreover ,   there are really no mistakes that one can make in a mind map , at best some of the nodes may not be   considered relevant and ignored . Another consideration for selecting mind - mapping is because of   availability of automated tools such as www.mindmeister.com , www.mindmup.com , https://coggle.it/ ,   http://wisemapping.com/ etc . which are freely available and make the drawing of mind maps very easy . 

 Tool Application : The manner in which I intend to leverage power of mind - mapping across four stages   and five stakeholders is as follows : 

 Group   CSR 

 Team 

 Company   CSR 

 Team 

 Volunteer   Non Volunteer   Project   Beneficiary 

 What   Is ? 

 To clearly state the   expectations from   the   group   level 

 program 

 To clearly state the   proposed value to   be delivered in the   present   projects 

 selected . 

 To   clearly   state 

 one ’s experiences   of in terms of   inspiration ,   time 

 spent ,   activities 

 carried out , and   learning . 

 Understand   the 

 reasons for their   lack   of 

 involvement   and 

 concerns   that 

 seem to hold them   back 

 How   have   the 

 present   sent   of 

 volunteers   contributed   to 

 their projects 

 What   If ? 

 To explore what   could   be   larger 

 impact   of   this 

 program   on 

 various   stakeholders as far   as the organisation   was concerned 

 To   specify   how 

 they could further   improve on the   variety   of   CSR 

 projects   they 

 select in order to   attract new people   into volunteering . 

 To   understand 

 from them what   more they would   have liked to do if   some   of   the 

 constraints   were 

 addressed   or 

 opportunities were   available 

 To   help   them 

 vocalise   what 

 would   need   to 

 happen for them   to   join 

 volunteering ,   or 

 alternately   what 

 would   they   do 

 differently if they   were to join . 

 To   let   them 

 imagine   what 

 other   outcomes 

 and   value 

 propositions   would   be 

 achievable   with 

 the same set of   resources   available . 

 Assignment on Design Thinking     Mickael Richardson 

 Group   CSR 

 Team 

 Company   CSR 

 Team 

 Volunteer   Non Volunteer   Project   Beneficiary 

 What   Wows ? 

 To identify unique   ways of leveraging   the   program   to 

 create   hitherto 

 unimagined value   to all stakeholders . 

 To let them specify   what would be an   ideal result that   would help them   emphasise   their 

 importance at the   organisation . 

 To   make   them 

 relive some of the   highlights of their   experiences which   could   act   as 

 inspiration   for 

 others . 

 To support them   with articulation of   what they would   consider as a wow   project which they   would   be 

 compelled   to 

 volunteer . 

 To help the project   beneficiaries   identify   superlative   achievement   of 

 their goals 

 What   Works ? 

 To shortlist couple   of new programs   from   the   new 

 ideas . 

 To help the CSR   teams with a few   novel project ideas   and a completely   unique of doing   those projects . 

 To help volunteers   pin - point that one   compelling reason   that would make   them come back   to   join   this 

 initiative 

 To identify that   one   compelling 

 argument   which 

 will reduce their   dissonance   and 

 turn   them   to 

 volunteering . 

 To   establish   a 

 practice   that 

 would help them   maximise   their 

 results . 

 Insight : The insight one aims to gather from use of mind - mapping activity are the non - obvious , hitherto   unarticulated and sometimes non - connected motivations , inspirations , concerns , and other such   emotional drivers for volunteering . These insights might be leveraged for creating the right appeal for   potential volunteers and reinforcing messages for existing volunteers . One also hopes to generate   insights that might help measure actual impact of volunteering on completion of projects . This will be   very useful for project managers as well as policy creators in an organisation , to assign credit to the   volunteers in order to reward or recognise them meaningfully . Further , insights from this activity could   also help match the nature or diversity of projects with the type of employee skills within the   organisation , so that more people will find volunteering easier . Finally , insights from this exercise could   also be used to identify – i ) interesting new project ideas , ii ) novel ways of participating in existing or   known projects , iii ) filtering out un - intended misconceptions about volunteering etc . 

 Alternate Approach : As mentioned in the tool selection paragraph , the tool of storytelling could also be   used powerfully for achieving similar results and insights . Program managers could be asked to narrate   stories of how and why they chose to draft the program in a certain manner . These would lead to   exploring what other ways could they have achieved similar result ( if they had chosen different   initiatives ) , or what other results could they have planned for ( if the selected initiatives were   maintained as is ) . Volunteers could have narrated stories of their experiences and helped create   emotionally compelling drivers for others to join the volunteering initiatives . Non - volunteers could have   been requested to tell stories of failed attempts of volunteering that they might have heard from others   and which resulted in they not volunteering themselves . The reason this tool was not considered was   due to the difficulty faced by common folks in converting their experiences into stories that can be   narrated impactfully . Most participants would have to be trained to help them capture their emotions   into stories and make them engaging enough for others . Most importantly my own confidence of   conveying the usefulness of how story - telling might be best used in developing insights was limited .   Hence , this tool was reserved for a later date when one would develop enough expertise and   experience .
### Output: 