My Unforgettable Journey of Design Thinking

Wherever and whenever there is a problem there’s no doubt there will be a solution if not we will create one, like the saying goes ‘When there is a will there is a way’ but little did I know that solutions for solving problem had different steps in them and in order to do it right we had to follow certain procedures. But Design thinking class taught me this well enough. When the course was first introduced to me on hearing the name I thought it is a subject which will teach how to enhance our thinking or let’s say psychology, but to my surprise this course was more about dealing with problems and providing solutions for them by empathizing with those people who were facing the problem. Solving a problem is not enough unless and until the people facing the problem are completely satisfied with it was the first thing I learnt in the Design thinking class. And how do I know this? My answer would be the first and unforgettable PowerPoint presentation that Anjan sir showed us where he shared with us his license experience and how problematic our system was and how many people had to face this problem daily. I still remember that was how I understood what Design Thinking really was when he told us it is a Human Centric approach to solve problems by empathizing with them and understanding them better.

Talking about the subject and how my journey went, first of all this subject never felt like a subject to me rather whenever I attended the classes it felt like I was a kid in a playground and Mr. Rakesh and Mr. Anjan were my friends. All the classes I attended it never occurred to me like they were a burden as other classes always feels like, I always used to enjoy every minute of the class specially the breaks. Design Thinking class was always a pack of surprise for me as I never knew what games we would be playing next or what activity we were to do. This concept of Playing games and involving in different activities and teaching or educating us through this approach was a completely new and effective experience for me. The most memorable activity we did which I liked the most was that we were sent to a breakout room with different strangers and we had to interview them about certain problems they had and reach deep into the roots to understand more about it and in order to provide a solution we had to empathize with them, well it definitely taught me the basic procedure of design thinking but the most interesting part about this exercise was that we were sent into breakout rooms and we didn’t know who would be in the other end. And honestly this was a great experience for me as it not only educated me but also helped me to make new friends. Now talking about the course, the course was continued with great efficiency by two of my favorite teachers and Mr. Rakesh and Mr. Anjan their way was simple but interesting and effective. I still remember how we were taught to deal with a problem and provide solution for them with the help of crazy 8 and the problem Rakesh sir faced was he wasn’t able to eat pork chop during the quarantine. About the teachers I always felt like Mr. Anjan is more serious and Mr. Rakesh is the funnier one and I enjoyed a lot seeing him in the Simpsons background and this combo was great. The classes went by and the activities went by and after some time we were divided into different groups and mine being ‘Osama Bin Laden’ and the main purpose of the group being a presentation where we had to show different problems of various users in the tourism industry during the quarantine, while doing this presentation we interviewed different users and we understood them and their problems and most importantly we were able to connect to them due to the teaching of the course. We gave our best to the presentation and it payed off as we were among the top 10 teams who were better than the rest and that made me and my group proud. With the passing time and passing classes and different group works we developed a good bond in our team where everyone was great in their own field some being exceptions of course.

Now one more interesting thing about this course was we had to fill in the feedback thermometer and the weekly grading forms. About the feedback thermometer I always rated it 8 or above as I really enjoyed the classes but I remember this one time I graded a class 6 during a guest lecture because of the extra 20 minutes he took. The weekly grading form was more interesting as I was able to grade my group members according to their performance and I was totally honest with my answers. This was interesting to me but at times it also used to feel like a burden as I would forget to fill in the forms sometimes, nevertheless I didn’t miss any forms and I was on time. Within the classes the next fun thing to do was to work on the miro board with all the group members and by the end of the class our board would always look like a mess with different How Might We’s and different prototypes of the problem our user were facing. With all this our course was not just limited to the games activities and group session we also had different guest lectures and appearances towards the end of the session where we learnt a lot about prototyping, agile, lean startup, business model canvas and many more which eventually helped us in our final presentation. Now, this time our final presentation was about the solution our group proposed for solving the problem which we had recognized in our previous presentation, and our solution was an app which would solve the problem of tourism industry called as ‘Ghumante’ and we as a group learnt a lot about app development and app structure. We had a lot of fun and was a lifetime worth of experience. Yes, we had some feedbacks which we could totally work on, nevertheless we did our best, learnt a lot and enjoyed to our fullest and well that’s what matters the most at least for me.

Lastly, this was a great journey on a digital platform with all the teachers, friends and group members. I imagine sometimes, if digital platform can be such fun in the DT class what would physical class look like? Well I guess it’ll all just be in my imagination. I always used to look forward for the Sunday morning Design thinking class with my full energy and enthusiasm after a weekend break and honestly the classes would be worth waiting for. But I guess after 6th December waking up early morning in the morning on Sundays will be the same stereotypical boring ones without the energy and without the enthusiasm.