Featured – Page 2 – Exhibit Change

Practicing Being a Sponge

Posted on April 30, 2014September 3, 2014 by Jenn Chan

In 2010, I was lucky to be invited and hosted at a training on Toronto Island for the Youth Social Infrastructure (YSI) Collaborative. This training was transformative. I was able to connect to a group of extremely passionate, like-minded, action oriented folks who understood the value of reflection. It was powerful.

Throughout the years, I have been intention about practicing these skills of participatory leadership and in particular Art of Hosting. The YSI introduced me to a way of working where voice and power and parallel to the calling to do work that moves you.

Last year, I was honoured to be brought into a calling team looking to connect with others and create another opportunity to practice these tools.

At Exhibit Change, we bring Art of Hosting and Design Thinking tools together specifically in our work to connect with stakeholders and facilitate co-design to build ownership and purpose into each project we work on.

Next week, I am excited that Art of Social Innovation is finally happening. Being on this team has already taught me so much. Heading into next week’s training, I am delighted to be a host and a sponge.

I know that I will get the most from the 3 days of training and 1 day of design by opening myself up to people around me and learning with my heart and mind open.

Art of Hosting practices key principles that have resonated with me for some time. Primarily, it is about having conversations that matter. Honouring people for who they are and their voices and experiences.

“Give what you can and a little bit more” – Tim Merry

We have often integrated Art of Hosting tools into our work. You may have experienced a World Cafe or Open Space or Pro-Action Cafe with us. Each of these tools builds our tool kits and gives us methods of convening and cultivating relationships and connections.

World Cafe is a great tool for getting a sense of the conversation in the room and drawing out themes in the room. The harvests from World Cafe are often nuggets of surprise or questions that lead to deeper conversations.

Open Space is a ideal tool for creating a container for participants to lead conversations or inquiries that they wish to share and jam on with others.

Pro-Action Cafe is useful for connecting others to one idea and working the intention towards action.

The best part about these tools is that we can facilitate conversations with them and scaffold a conversation for deeper meaning without having to explicitly tell participants about them. For example, here are 2 events we have used these tools in:

EdCamp Design Thinking (world cafe & open space)

Designing Toronto (pro-action cafe)

As a process and methods nerd, these trainings get me excited in a particular way as I know that they will stay with me long after the training has ended.

I am really looking forward to next week and being able to bring back and share learnings.

Connecting with Richmonders

Posted on April 28, 2014September 3, 2014 by Jenn Chan

The James River is 560 km long and one of the 12th longest rivers in the United States that remains within the same state (source: wikipedia) and the centre piece to a design challenge at Collegiate School in Richmond Virginia.

How might we connect with Richmonders to bring awareness to the James River?

This HMW question was the frame for a 1 week design challenge and I had the pleasure of being able to kick of the design thinking work with Collegiate. I travelled to Virginia for 2 intense days of design thinking following a half day Jane’s Walk aka “Jenn’s Walk” designed specifically for me by the Collegiate Students 🙂

Often, the question about design thinking is around what are the outcomes and what are the students really learning by being involved. Most evidently are the practical outcomes of producing a product and being able to present that idea that get assessed and evaluated, and then there is the process and perhaps more intangible outcomes. These are the outcomes that I took notice of.

Talk to strangers We teach kids not to talk to strangers. For some of the students, it was unnerving to go up to complete strangers to ask questions and they soon realized that they had to pick themselves up quickly from rejection. It was invaluable how the students had to learn to grab someone’s attention and to try and state their intent quickly, this was something they had to iterate on often. These grade 8’s at Collegiate very quickly had to learn how to talk to strangers and we had a critical conversation about when it is appropriate to observe strangers and a few expressed concerns of unease when it came to people watching and making notes about it. The major difference between your personal comfort level as a researcher/designer and how to gain information needed to inform your work to be human-centered.

Collaboration takes time We have expectations of what collaboration should look like. For students to work together is a key to learning how to negotiate, how to balance power and where the boundaries of roles are that influence and distract from the team. As Heidi Siwak once said “Collaboration is not group work“. It is not as easy as putting students in groups and expecting them to perform a specific way. On day 2, the teachers at Collegiate and I had a conversation that I think captures this well. It was pointed out to me that one of the groups “was behind”. This prompted an interesting conversation about what it meant to be in this emergent process and how this group was performing in comparison to the other groups. Ultimately, it was the tension of what collaboration should look like and what it actually did. The group stayed together and worked their way through the week at their own pace.

Ask for what you need It takes vulnerability to verbalize how we work. During design thinking 101, I watched as groups pushed through the process and for some it was physically a struggle. I could see the frustration in some of the students faces as they worked through uncertainty and ambiguity. Following DT 101, we had a conversation about Task, Team, Self to reflect and in particular one student spoke up about her personal frustrations of having to move forward before she felt like a task was complete. It was inspiring to hear her share this and together we were able to work out a way for her to ask her team for time to pause before moving on. Later in the day, she told me that it helped her greatly to let her team know what she needed and for the team to be able to reciprocate.

Our time was brief together, it was a ton of fun and I know the students got a lot out of it. It was exciting to be a part of their engagement with the James River. The river that runs through some of their backyards and is the root of a nature, physical activities and economy. Through design thinking 101, an introduction to ethnography through observations and interviews, and a deep dive into defining the problem and developing solid HMW questions; I was inspired to observe some of their lessons learned through engaging in the design thinking process.

Navigating the Emergent Process

Posted on April 23, 2014September 3, 2014 by Jenn Chan

The emergent process is often described as the way to deal with the ambiguity and uncertainty of complex problems. It is the opportunity to navigating the messy parts of usually social and systemic issues that are most commonly known in the design thinking world as “wicked problems” Wicked problems are problems that don’t stop moving and changing to be solved for. They are rapidly changing problems and therefore the solution must be adaptive and iterative to respond and react appropriately.The key is to work on pinning down the problem for long enough to propose a solution and recognizing that the solution is a piece of a much bigger puzzle.

It all starts with a single question. What if? How might we? I wonder? This curiosity can lead to many places.

The best example we have heard lately is that putting a man on the moon is not a complex or wicked problem. It is a technical problem. It requires specific expertise and planning. The details may change, but the outcome is the pre-determined.

However, something like education or healthcare is a complex or wicked problem. You cannot stop these systems from operating, there are many ways to decipher the future state of these systems and therefore many ways to interact and understand the problem.

We have learned a few lessons and wanted to share them as part of our ongoing learning:

1. Understanding Stakeholders

We strive to work in collaborations where the stakeholders are at the table, part of the decision-making process and can see themselves as part of the design and implementation. Our goal is to create engagement and ownership. Within in this principle we have to recognize how we are understanding stakeholders, who we see as having power, the relationships between stakeholders and the expectations that come along with that. We struggle to adhere to the status quo and often find ourselves challenging power dynamics. Ultimately, trust is the largest asset to be gained and lost by understanding stakeholders.

2. Balancing Decision-Making

While working in collaborations with stakeholders the negotiation of decision-making is inherently at the forefront of each conversation as it can make or break the ownership we have worked to achieve. When we engage in a co-design relationship with our collaborators we have to be clear what that means and how decisions will impact our collaborators and the stakeholders. What does it really mean to be co-designing? Who is really making the call? If a decision is made that is in tension with what stakeholders have said, how will that be communicated and evaluated later on? We recognize that time, pressure and expectations can counter intentions for co-design and so we are working to document when and where that is happening.

3. Embracing Messiness

Messiness, discomfort, awkwardness, uncertainty, unfamiliarity…whatever you want to call it, it is where the magic happens. We know it best as the ambiguity that we have to work to push towards and through to get to a solution that makes sense for this set of stakeholders, this moment in time and these circumstances. Our challenge is being able to walk people into the fog and convince them that there is certainty in the uncertainty. We battle with our collaborators desire to let their inner control freak come out when it starts to get messy. We are working on creating the safe space to help ourselves and others work in this awkwardness.

Being able to work this way is sometimes seen as a luxury of time and resources and we have to wonder ask ourselves if we see another way of doing this work and if we can really afford to keep doing things the way always have. It seems fitting to put an Albert Einstein quote here.

Question. Provoke. Evolve.

TUF Stuff: An Afternoon with the Toronto Urban Fellows

Posted on March 21, 2014September 3, 2014 by Colin Lacey

On March 20th Exhibit Change spent the afternoon engaging with a great network of passionate change makers and professionals who really do want to move the City of Toronto in a positive direction. This amazing group is none other than the Toronto Urban Fellows.

The Toronto Urban Fellows is an innovative program that has engaged 58 professionals to date in an intensive training of what it takes to run Canada’s largest city with respect to governance, operations and administration.

Balancing full-time work and various seminars, we were honoured to be invited to meet with the group to explore at a high level the value of the design thinking process.

Delivering one of our rapid fire workshops, we helped the Fellows to scratch the surface of how to challenge assumptions and making space to focus on the problem definition phase. The workshop was intentionally structured to highlight the value of avoiding our natural tendency to jump into the solutions we already know before we truly understand the people who will end up using these services.

The Toronto Urban Fellows demonstrated great energy and dove right into the workshop’s contents and concepts. It was an inspiring afternoon to say the least!

The Purpose of Ice Cream

Posted on March 19, 2014September 3, 2014 by Jenn Chan

In March, we hosted a series of design thinking workshops. It was a workshop heavy month and one resounding question emerged, “What is the purpose of ice cream?”

Having put on a bunch of workshops like these, we like to play with different design challenges each time for the group. It is not something we choose arbitrarily, but actually something we discuss a lot and very intentionally put forward. For the whole month of March, for every workshop we did was centred around ice cream.

Why ice cream?

Our goal during design thinking workshops is for participants to walk away with tools that they can bring into their everyday work and lives and we have found if you are too close to the design challenge that you spend most of your time actually getting worked up with solving the problem rather than learning how to approach solving the problem.

We are really good at solving problems.

We do it everyday. It is in our nature. In fact, we can almost always come up with a solution. Our quest is to have you question what the problem is so that you can better define what it is you are trying to achieve before coming up with the solution. This is our work.

We specifically choose a topic that we know our participants are not likely to have a large attachment to and instead can focus on getting through the process of learning design thinking. Often, in our everyday, we get told what the problem is and then everyone goes straight to solving for the problem without taking time to really understand what the problem is.

Ice cream is a perfect example of this. Through 3 workshops and 17 groups working on the problem of ice cream, we learned a few things too.

The problem isn’t ice cream As groups tackled understanding ice cream, some became frustrated that ice cream wasn’t a complicated enough task, it is mundane and not difficult enough. Sometimes the task seems as simple as ice cream until you really start to unpack it. We began to recognize a tension where participants felt if they weren’t engaged with the problem, they had less motivation.

The user knows the way As groups worked on understanding the problem, one of the greatest tasks is thinking of who the users are beyond what you as the designer wants to achieve. When we can let go of our designer ego, and let the user guide you to the solution then we can be responsive and human-centred.

There is no right answer Every group we worked with started with the same prompt of ice cream and we wound up with 17 extremely different ideas. Granted some were a little silly but nevertheless, there were 17 beautifully well thought out prototypes ready for feedback and iteration.

At the end of the day, there is no ideal design challenge to start learning about design thinking. The point is to start. The struggles that you face in learning will help you as you conquer greater and greater wicked problems.

The Value of a Pivot

Posted on March 19, 2014September 3, 2014 by Jenn Chan

Often, we set out with a plan in mind and it seems crystal clear exactly how we are going to make that idea happen. In our minds, we have probably been playing with this idea in different forms and sometimes just saying it out loud can take it in an entirely different direction.

We work in complex problems and sometimes find ourselves as the ones who have to say, “hold on… what are we actually trying to achieve here?”

This is an extremely difficult conversation to have especially when it feels like forward is the only way to go. We have all been on a project where the bias to take action is imperative, time is of the essence, everything around you seems to be saying yes, yes, yes and yet this is the moment when reflection and feedback serve the greatest purpose.

The value of a pivot:

Take a pause;
Reflect on how you got here;
Question the process;
Develop a strategy to the strategy; and
Fundamentally challenge your assumptions.

It feels simpler to listen to everyone that is agreeing and seek kind feedback to justify what you are doing. The complexity is looking for respectful and challenging feedback for an opportunity to react and pivot.

Momentum can be dangerous, as it pushes you in the only direction it can.

Let’s not kid ourselves, we are huge fans of bringing outrageous ideas to fruition, that is how we ended up doing a Nuit Blanche exhibit in a truck and a ball pit in a park. We love to play with making ideas happen and undeniably we learn greatly from these ideas.

So, sometimes it is awkward to be seen as the one driving towards action and simultaneously having to put the breaks on.

It may feel like taking a pivot is going sideways or even worse backwards, but we strongly value the role and position of being able to embrace this moment and push beyond it. It is an opportunity to fail up (push to, through and beyond failure) to be able to see what you are learning and what you need next.

It takes great strength to be able to acknowledge what didn’t work.

We appreciate that is difficult to both give and receive feedback, especially with every intention of being empathic and vulnerable. (I know that I am trying to work on this.) It is common to be defensive, this is a skill we have honed for years.

This is the messiness of the process. It is never as linear as it is on paper or as clear as it is in our minds. We understand that a pivot may feel disruptive or even abrupt. We admire organizations that can take the time to reflect on the greater good for the users as opposed what the designers want. It can be difficult to separate personal aspirations from project aspirations.

March Break Career Exploration: Rapid Fire DT4i

Posted on March 18, 2014September 3, 2014 by Colin Lacey

After last week’s 2-day DT4i training workshop, we dove right back into workshop mode with the amazing youth from Success Beyond Limits (SBL) last Wednesday. As part of SBL’s March Break Career Exploration, our DT4i rapid fire workshop sought to connect the topic of youth entrepreneurship with the benefits of the design-thinking process.

Condensing two days of content into one afternoon, we weren’t sure what to expect as we moved 45 youth through the phases of the design-thinking process.

We really wanted to show the benefits of why teams should spend more time in the problem defining phase before moving into the problem solving phase. The key is understanding how best to use empathy in articulating your user needs, a true foundation for human-centred design.

It would be an understatement to say that the youth from Success Beyond Limits showed no end to generating new ideas. We were also impressed with how easily the youth could craft unique and detailed “point of views” or POVS through their user experience maps.

The ability to zone in on a specific user stood out in contrast to the other workshop earlier in the week. What we realized was the key difference between our two workshop groups was the youth’s ability to freely design for a specific user.

Professional experience, it seems, drives people towards designing one solution for everyone so no one is excluded. While this might sound logical at first glance, in the end these solution more often than not are solution that don’t work for anyone.

Another impressive feat the SBL youth demonstrated was the lack of fear in focusing on the process versus focusing on the final product. Rather, the youth were quite comfortable to concentrate on the design tensions that revealed themselves from the crafted user POVs. The end result was a whole suite of very creative solutions that started off with exploring the design challenge of ice cream & social enterprise. Proposed projects included designing service robots for seniors, mobile app ideas, outlining ethical farming practices and developing a new approach to manufacture ice cream.

What we learned from SBL’s freedom to focus on the process over the product is our need to highlight and push working professionals to give themselves permission to be uncomfortable and vulnerable in the design-thinking process. The longer term advantage is the ability to creatively come up with new solutions to wicked problems. Otherwise, focusing on the product or “end goal” allows you to fall into the pattern of trying to solve new problems with the feasible solutions you already know.

DT4i: Solving Complex Problems with Stakeholders

Posted on March 17, 2014September 3, 2014 by Colin Lacey

Last week was an incredible event-filled week that started off with our 2-day workshop DT4i: Solving Complex Problems with Stakeholders.

As DT4i got underway, it was quickly obvious that we had convened a really interesting group that guaranteed that our participants would be bumping into the many assumptions common in their own work environment. This silo-busting group included educators, social innovators, front line non-profit workers, municipal staff and provincial public servants.

Using the theme of “ice cream & social enterprise” as the central challenge, the group divided up into teams to begin driving through the design-thinking process. Beginning with the critical, and sometimes the most awkward step, we find that the amount of time that any teams spent in the empathy phase will often determine the dynamics of the team, the work flow and ultimately the creativity in the outcomes of the process.

To help with the storming, forming and norming of the new project teams, we asked the workshop group to stop often to reflect on where they think they were in the process framed in our Task, Team & Self exercise. The first assumption of the day we helped to challenge was the expectation that feedback is useful for a later time or simply to reflect upon. Once gathering and compiling the room’s thoughts on the fly, we brought back the data and gave each team the opportunity to take ownership of their reflection and implement the feedback in realtime. The first piece of feedback was the need to set ground rules of how each team will work together to make sure everyone could brainstorm openly and generate.

Also, moving through the process not once but twice over the two days allowed each participant to be pushed out of their comfort zone, reflect upon what had happened and figure out what they would do differently… and then do it all over again. The benefit of coming to DT4i is not just the opportunity to identify and challenge your assumptions that we all bring into problem defining & framing but our ability to pivot our thinking and work plan based on real time feedback.

Check out the conversation that happened over on Twitter and find out when you can join us at our next event.

Back from Camp SXSWedu

Posted on March 17, 2014September 3, 2014 by Jenn Chan

At the beginning of March, I spoke at SXSWedu in Austin, Texas on “In The Trenches with K-12 Design Thinking” with Trey Boden, Dan Ryder and Alyssa Gallagher. Together, we made a diverse panel speaking about the nitty gritty, down and dirty secrets of doing design thinking in schools.

In the short 1-hour panel, we talked about everything from getting started, the challenges of make time and space for design thinking, the value of light touch design thinking and developing a culture to support failing up.

Being a part of the panel, always re-inspires me for the work that we are doing and reminds me how lucky we are to be thinking through some seriously wicked problems. As the consultant on the panel, I am humbled to be asked to be a part of the conversation and to be valued for an outsider perspective. It is a welcomed position to be in from when I first started being involved in education conversations.

The best part of being on this panel was the chance to sit alongside Trey, Dan and Alyssa. This group came together from our Twitter Chat community, every Wednesday night at 9pm EST we get together on the hashtag #dtk12chat and talk about everything from design thinking in elementary school, focusing on the process rather than the product to education and social change. Every time I join in, I know I am bound to have a fruitful conversation and catch up with old and new friends.

For many of us, SXSWedu was our first face-to-face meeting with a group of people who we have been talking to for nearly 8 months. This week quickly turned into the foundation of friendships and community that I hadn’t anticipated. The greatest conversations were the ones that happened outside of the conference usually over a table of delicious Austin food. I realized that this is what it must feel like to go to Summer Camp. You never want to miss a moment of hanging out and yet your brain is drained from the stimulation. It was amazing knowing that at any moment at a conference of over 3000 people a friendly face was never too far away.

Our community is built on a culture of “Yes, and”, challenging assumptions and nurturing one another to fail up. I think this fostered connections and welcomed unexpected conversations simply because it was built on a foundation of design thinking.

We welcomed others to join in our chaos at a DTk12 Live from SXSWedu chat experience. It was too much fun being part of the The Show aka Dan Ryder as Oprah at SXSWedu and I think the very nature of being in the same place with Trey and Dan on the show to close off our excitement is something I will always remember and cherish.

Check out our madness: