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Work in progress - notes coming soon

Logistics

Supporting Transformational Change with Design Strategy Tools

Background & Context

  • Phyllis has a higher education background, most recently working on user experience at UW Madison
  • Current role (as of February 2021) is Chief Experience Officer at UCSC
  • Phyllis' role at UCSC is being created somewhat organically and focuses on the following areas:
    • Bringing design and human-centered design principles to higher ed problems
    • The intersection between people and technology
    • Developing practical ways to apply design thinking to our work

Don't Touch the Third Rail

  • As the session progresses, think about gnarly, wicked, hard challenges, "third rail" projects that everyone is afraid to touch.
  • These difficult problems are particularly well suited to design thinking and strategy.

Frames

  • Framing is a strategy for encapsulating an area of focus to help think about it clearly.
  • Phyllis described an example from their life working in a machine shop
    • How and why are they used?
    • How can people access them, learn from them, etc.?
    • Tried to develop a system.
    • Their relationship with blueprints and need for them changed - a new perspective.
    • Learned things that they wouldn’t have considered from this new, expanded point of view.
    • Phyllis' area of expertise within the shop was in the office, filing blueprints.
    • This was a tiny little slice, or “frame”, within a much broader space.
    • Over time, the need for people to work with blueprints became more involved and complex.
    • Phyllis eventually started working on the shop floor instead of in the office.
    • Quick Poll
      Image Added
    • Results - roughly half of participants create frames for others and half both create and receive frames. A majority prefer to work with larger frames.
      Image Added

Design Strategy Tools for Everyone

Four Design Strategy Tools
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Problem Statements

  • Leaders and teams often focus on “symptoms” but lack really solid problem statements.
  • This makes it challenging to solve problems, leads to getting stuck, delays, and squandering resources.
  • Framing problems well is really hard!
    Image Added
  • We’re often not working on the “right” problem.
  • Some key questions to ask when framing problems are as follows:
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  • Who
    • Very important in human centered design.
    • Focus on the human side of things.
      • This can be hard to discover and often requires investigation.
    • A joke...
      • “What is the technical term for when there is no user research?” Guessing!
    • We often fall into “guessing” - sometimes we have to, but investing more time in gathering actual information can go a long way.
    • Use the experience of people as our evidence layer
  • Building an example problem statement:
    Image Added
  • Gathering up evidence creates a much more meaningful and well-defined problem that is more likely to be solvable.
  • A lot of patience is required...
    • It's tempting to not investigate enough or just try to tackle “low hanging fruit”.
    • Again, the human aspect is key (emphasized).
  • Another quick poll:
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  • Results - in practice, well defined and researched problems are not the norm...
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Meaningful Impacts

  • We tend to know more about our internal problems and less about the problems experienced by our users, customers, clients, etc.
  • Solutions we come up with often don’t work for end-users.
  • How do we define and understand how what we do impacts our users?
  • Chat bot example - is this really making our users' lives better?
    Image Added
  • One magical and important human-centered question we can ask:
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  • We often aspire “lower” than improving someone’s life.
  • A user or human centered focus really changes things...
    • It holds us to a very high standard and sets a high bar (in a good way).
    • It paves the path for motivating and sustaining transformational change.
    • It’s hard to think this “expansively”.
      • Sometimes induces panic or fear.
      • Can feel too ambitious, too hard
  • In higher ed we often struggle both with actual scarcity and with attitudinal scarcity - "we don't have the resources to do an awesome job!"
    • But we need big goals to shoot further on the horizon and deliver truly-impactful outcomes for people.
  • Back to our example problem statement, but now let's try to include “meaningful impact”:
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Predictive Outcomes

  • With predictive outcomes, we're looking for changes in human behavior, something that solves their wicked problem meaningfully.
  • This is not based on things like server efficiency, response times, or open rates, but on things that actual people actually do.
  • How do we know if we are making a meaningful impact?
  • Changes in behavior can often indicate that we are on the right track… Or the wrong track!
  • Think about scenarios when you expected an outcome but it’s not turning out the way you thought…
    • Users aren’t using the tool.
    • Help desk requests are increasing instead of going down.
  • Changes in human behavior are the strongest measures of the impact we are having…
    • Think about better measures of human behavior and changes.
    • Seeing these changes is very powerful and meaningful to leaders and stakeholders.
    • We often fall back on “one dimensional” measurements.
  • Sometimes we may need to start over.
  • Let's return to our example and add a predictive outcome:
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  • It's important to think about the outcomes (changes in behavior) that would be most powerful and impactful if solving the problem is successful.

Design Frames

  • A way to draw attention to, define, and bring clarity and focus to a problem.
  • A frame can help us decide which problem we are focusing on, what the impacts are, and how it will help people (improve their lives).
  • Design frames help people rally around a problem, really understand it, and envison how success might look.
  • Design frames tie the design strategy tools together with a design-thinking "how might we?" mindset:
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  • Again, the four design strategy tools, shown here with a human centered focus as our foundation:
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  • We often need to “loop” back on this path to make it better.
  • Some tips and tricks for employing these techniques:
    Image Added

References & Support

  • See this Google Doc for various references and reading material.
  • Reach out to Phyllis.

Questions & Discussion

  • “How do you recommend framing measurements of things that may be more qualitative in nature, such as behavior.  I find that many are more comfortable with more concrete measures.” (from chat)
  • Can be hard...
    • Sometimes we need to look for creative ways of showing changes in human behavior.
    • This can be hard, but it’s possible!
    • People often want to fall back on more quantitative measurements.
    • “Softer” measurements are harder.
    • Tie quantitative measurements together to show change in behavior? One idea.
    • Traditional “satisfaction” measures are often useless.
      • Are people actually changing - staying, leaving, accomplishing something they couldn’t previously, etc.
    • We sometimes have to do qualitative research and analysis. (Louis)
      • A different type of assessment is needed, even though it is harder.
    • More human measures, if you can do them, are much more compelling. (Jim)
      • How much time mucking around in tools versus experiencing some high-quality help/advising? (example)
      • Hard to argue if you show real human change and quality of life improvements.
      • Ground things in human experience - makes for compelling cases.
    • Phyllis
      • UK gov online services redesign example.
      • Important to grasp the “whole problem”.
      • Solving things on the periphery can sometimes make things worse.
  • How do we approach folks who have come up with a strategy but there does not appear to be a clear problem statement informing the strategy? (Dana from chat)
    • Can be a tricky pitfall.
    • Ask questions - do we really understand this?
    • Ask to re-frame, redefine.
    • Phyllis - problem framing, outcomes, and impacts needs to be taken seriously rather than “simple brainstorming”.
    • Try to adopt the mindset of an outsider - ask questions - help me understand this. (Louis)
      • Beginner’s mind - novice mindset - can be very powerful.
      • People often respond positively to this and are happy to take a step back and explain.
    • Assumption storming (Phyllis)
      • Really look at our assumptions and talk about how they fit into a bigger picture problem.
  • Deficit mentality (Jeff from chat)
    • Problem / need can often be huge.
    • Low hanging fruit - problematic expression.
      • What really matters to people may not be evident.
      • People may not want a chat bot - they want to really solve something - their lives become easier.

Itana Business

  • New to EA graduation coming up and will present in a bi-weekly ITANA call.
  • Business

...

  • Architecture group ongoing.
  • API working group has a session May 11 - API developer portals
    • June meeting will be a retrospective on the group and its future.

Attendees

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Zoom Chat Transcript

12:05:12 From Dana Miller-U Texas Arlington to Everyone:
    Thanks, Dave!
12:05:26 From Lonnie Smetana to Everyone:
    Thank you, Dave!
12:05:28 From Louis King to Everyone:
    +1
12:10:49 From Louis King to Everyone:
    Reconciling social identities with the same person with institutional identities.
12:11:21 From Jim Phelps (UW) to Everyone:
    Redesigning IT Governance for UW
12:12:19 From Dana Miller-U Texas Arlington to Everyone:
    Sorting out the Advising Task Force strategy…
12:13:04 From jeff kennedy to Everyone:
    Rearchitecting the data integrations, supporting knowledge, and fulfilment processes underpinning our "Student Experience Centre" which is currently a bit broken, and not providing good experiences to students (or our staff).
12:29:57 From Jim Phelps (UW) to Everyone:
    Rats! We missed capturing that naming opportunity for Itana.
12:30:09 From Kelsey Lunsmann to Everyone:
    Reacted to "Rats! We missed capt..." with 😂
12:30:32 From jeff kennedy to Everyone:
    "Leaders of Awesomeness" = https://leaders.centercentre.com/
12:30:42 From Louis King to Everyone:
    Reacted to "Rats! We missed capt..." with 🤨
12:30:45 From Matthew House to Everyone:
    Reacted to "Rats! We missed capt..." with 😂
12:32:46 From Louis King to Everyone:
    Totally agree on the need for big goals!!!
12:32:53 From Lonnie Smetana to Everyone:
    Reacted to "Rats! We missed capt..." with 😃
12:42:23 From Stacy Divine (she/her) Kansas State Univ to Everyone:
    Q:  How do you recommend framing measurements of things that may be more qualitative in nature, such as behavior.  I find that many are more comfortable with more concrete measures.
12:43:47 From Louis King to Everyone:
    Another challenge. Foster a culture of innovation in IT@Yale.
12:46:26 From Dana Miller-U Texas Arlington to Everyone:
    How do we approach folks who have come up with a strategy but there does not appear to be a clear problem statement informing the strategy?
12:46:52 From Lonnie Smetana to Everyone:
    Reacted to "How do we approach f..." with 👍
12:47:35 From Lonnie Smetana to Everyone:
    I second Dana's question. I have just had one of those items drop on my desk.
12:47:36 From Rupert Berk to Everyone:
    We read this book in our Itana book club and I think it has a lot of good ideas regarding how to measure "intangibles": 
    https://www.amazon.com/How-Measure-Anything-Intangibles-Business/dp/1118539273
12:47:37 From jeff kennedy to Everyone:
    Interested also in the deficit-mentality culture (learned helplessness vs growth mindset?) in EDU where we struggle both with _actual_ scarcity and also with _attitudinal_ scarcity in an environment with lots of behavioral inertia = wondering how to shift that, and imagining that framing + focus on meaningful impacts could help with that too.  Loved the "how might we?" too!
12:48:04 From Dana Miller-U Texas Arlington to Everyone:
    Reacted to "I second Dana's ques..." with 👍🏻
12:48:51 From Lonnie Smetana to Everyone:
    Reacted to "We read this book in..." with 👍🏻
12:51:45 From Stacy Divine (she/her) Kansas State Univ to Everyone:
    Reacted to "We read this book in..." with 👍
12:51:55 From jeff kennedy to Everyone:
    UK has https://www.gov.uk/guidance/government-design-principles and similarly NZ has https://www.digital.govt.nz/standards-and-guidance/technology-and-architecture/government-digital-standards-catalogue/digital-standards-principles/ = we use these here in the wider enterprise architecture and design practices.
12:52:30 From Phyllis Treige ( she / they ) to Everyone:
    Reacted to "UK has https://www.g..." with 👍
12:52:32 From Matthew House to Everyone:
    Reacted to "UK has https://www.g..." with 👍
12:53:24 From Stacy Divine (she/her) Kansas State Univ to Everyone:
    Reacted to "UK has https://www.g..." with 👍
12:56:43 From Louis King to Everyone:
    Love that, “assumption-storming.”
12:57:06 From Lonnie Smetana to Everyone:
    Agreed. I am definitely borrowing that :)
12:57:45 From Lonnie Smetana to Everyone:
    And I like your outsider approach Louis, that's usually what I do to get questions answered "Help me understand...."
12:58:18 From Lonnie Smetana to Everyone:
    Reacted to "UK has https://www.g..." with 👍🏻
12:58:50 From Stacy Divine (she/her) Kansas State Univ to Everyone:
    Thank you for your presentation!  Such great information.
12:58:55 From jeff kennedy to Everyone:
    https://www.charannconsulting.com/assumptions-storm/ (and lots of others in the always-helpful https://gamestorming.com/ too).
12:59:02 From Kelsey Lunsmann to Everyone:
    This has been incredibly helpful and can’t wait to try some of these tool!! Thank you so much!
12:59:08 From Louis King to Everyone:
    This has been hugely helpful. Thank you so much for sharing you brilliance!!!
12:59:31 From Lonnie Smetana to Everyone:
    Thank you Phyllis !
12:59:34 From Stephanie Warner - UW Milwaukee to Everyone:
    Fantastic presentation.  Thank you!
12:59:39 From Rupert Berk to Everyone:
    Yes, thank you! This is super helpful.
13:00:02 From jeff kennedy to Everyone:
    Replying to "And I like your outs..."
    +1 and as an enterprise architect there are lots of situations where "hello, i am new here" is an authentic positioning on entering a room | space | undertaking.
13:00:14 From Beth Schaefer/UW-Milwaukee (she/her) to Everyone:
    Thank you, great presentation! Much appreciated, Phyllis!
13:00:22 From Lonnie Smetana to Everyone:
    Reacted to "+1 and as an enterpr..." with 👍🏻
13:00:26 From Dana to Everyone:
    Thanks Phyllis!

Scratch Notes

Info

These rough notes were captured during the session by jeff kennedy (auckland.ac.nz) and are offered here as a placeholder and in case they are useful.

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