Discussion

Writing is a great source of learning that has been taught to us from our childhood. However, there is a difference in learning depending on writing. To simply state, there is a difference between thinking and writing and presentation writing is the form of writing that we do when we have to write for other or to communicate with others (Vurdien, 2013). In presentation writing, we tend to have a reader in mind and make our witting as per the audience. Often Thinking and writing is called the process writing as it can help immensely with our thinking. Blogging involves aspects of both form of writing, thinking writing as well as presentation writing (Dos & Demir, 2013). This report aims to develop a critical self-analysis and refection of my weekly activities learning that has been led by experiencing design thinking activity. The report critically analyses lectures of each week and the ways blogging on them have helped me in learning. The report also contains the blogging’s assistance in my personal development and development of my knowledge. Lastly, the report consists of an action plan of the key events that would be undertaken within six months for the need of acquiring the knowledge, skills and behaviour I would require.

There are various things presented in the world we cannot see yet we know it is there or often ignores it until someone else points it out. The most famous example would be the example of gravity. Although it has been present since forever no one noticed until Sir Isaac Newton presented his theory.  From the activity, I have learned people are accustomed to believing only what they see and while moving along with the flow of time, they ignore the basic things.

I have done this myself several times however I have not noticed it or did not pay much attention to it. Blogging about the things we cannot see, made me realize that I need to be more attentive and pay more attention to my surrounding. Reading the blog I have written helped me giving some time to this act of passing by things and not realizing the depth it can have. It has helped me identify that I need to improve my thinking skills abut situation and be observant (Beyth-Marom et al., 2013). It is only when we are asked to pay attention we shift our attention to that particular thing. In our busy lives or our scheduled life, we are constantly carrying out our daily needs and wants without realizing about a million other things that are exiting by our side.  I have come to realize that I need to make a change to this particular aspect of mine. Along with improving my listening skills, situation analysis and being more observant I need to read more that would help me gain ideas regarding things that are not within my academic field.

Make Your Prototype

Making own prototype was a new experience for me which I gladly came across in my lectures. The lecture forced us to brainstorm and present our ideas in on paper. It was a nice experience when we all presented our ideas and be assured that each one of us was capable of doing it. It was mainly on a goggle company and how the company applies the prototype while applying their application. Firstly, they made a prototype application from the paper. Secondly, the main iPad application was developed for the usage purpose. I also learnt that there are primarily ten steps involved in the making of a prototype. The first step is the visualization where I will utilize my visualization for developing the idea of visualization.  The next step would be the journey mapping followed by eight more steps involved in the process such as mind mapping, brainstorming, concept developing, assuming testing, rapid prototyping, customer co-creation and learning launch.

I was one of the first people to do the practical part and develop the prototype. I could easily understand when the lecturer was describing the methods. In the beginning, I thought the topic to be very complex and beyond my capabilities, however, I realised it was stupid of me to build self-doubt. A curious mind is a key to learning (Morrison, Roth McDuffie & French, 2015). Reading the blog I have written on this lecture made me realize that I become intensely focused when I consider a subject beyond my capabilities with the positive thought of mastering it. I continuously try to learn that particular task. However being too engrossed in a task makes me attached to the problem and often when I fail, it gives negative thoughts.

The lecture on the wicked problem was very inspiring to me. The concept of the wicked problem was explained with a simple example for us to have a better understanding, however, to me I can relate this simple logic too many bigger problems or issues. While writing regarding a wicked problem I realized that it is indeed true that there is nothing impossible. With the growth in technology there have been severe medical cases which were years ago only an imagination but now it is easily possible. Writing the blog made me realize the ways things can be fixed. There are various issues which were not actually the issues, however, thinking about it constantly made me believe that t is an existing problem I need to solve. Often it makes me impatience when I want a particular task to be done such as making a routine involving too many activities. Failing to cover all the activities make me be hard on myself. However, the same tasks could be done on alternative days or could be done on a priority basis.

Problem – Different Personal Definition – Wicked Problems

Reflecting on the written blog I can identify myself as a perfectionist who would like to deliver work only when it is analyzed from every perspective and found errorless (van den Brink et al., 2016). However, this particular behaviour acts as a weakness too. The nature of being perfect or delivering the perfect job makes me perceived as a blunt person towards the people approaching me during that period. Since I get engrossed in the work I tend to ignore my surrounding. Since it is not an appropriate behaviour which makes me ignorant of the presence I will improve this aspect.

During this lecture, I was able to learn about the importance of time in our life. People are full of ideas, however, there is one important factor that they tend to ignore. It is the factor of time which people easily take for granted. Therefore, I have learned in this lecture that we should always think about time while generating ideas or making plans. I learnt that we should be to involve the time management while designing our thinking. The thinking process should involve imagination, the basic need, problem solution, different choices and consequences. However, most of the part is depended on the customer’s perspective involving five steps as the parameter, empathize, idea, design, prototype and design.

While writing about this blog and thinking about the lecture helped realize the importance of time (Poister, Pasha & Edwards, 2013). Often I have made plans and expected it to work without giving thought to the amount of time that is necessary for that particular plan. Also, the time-oriented goal is better and helps to evaluate growth and improvement. Although I am good at planning and executing I have realised I need to work on my time management involving the five parameters.

In the reality, it has been found that often it is the person who finds out the problem is the one who will find the solution to it. However, in today’s busy schedule the similar process is not considered the best methods of solving problems. Writing about this lecture and helped me realize the importance of analysing a problem that once comes across. The mere thought of solving a problem is not the only way that can help but thinking about the reasons that have caused the problem might be helpful. Blogging about this lecture I came across the example that organizations have feedback department where they accumulate the customer’s feedback and the research and development department finds a solution to it. The research and development team is present to analyse the problem and its related aspects which helps them find the solution.

When Someone Can Make His/Her Idea To Reality

Reading the blog I have written has helped me understand more. I realized I have the potential to think and analyse a problem to find a solution to it. Although I was unaware of the helpful process, I have always tried fixing my problem with the same procedure. Often we are unaware of what we are doing in term of terminology however we follow the same direction (Maibom, 2014). The only weakness is that I did not know the process step by step which is known to me at the present. Therefore, the improvement will be on the same aspect.

To know the ability of the tool that was produced, it was necessary to present it in front of the customers. This week’s information was regarding the similar factor. We had created a tool which was aiming to make people independent and risk-free however we wanted to know the customer’s feedback as it was the only way of finding out the usefulness of it. We were determined to make use of every feedback we received so the product could be improved. The system was to involve a fast approach to the feedback and reduce the meaningless prototype. We also aimed to go with our prototype and to find out more problems and begin the process of figuring out the causes and solutions of the problem.

While writing about this particular week, there was an interesting part of me I came across. While interacting with the customers, I realized people are different and therefore it is necessary to have proper communication skills to interact with them. People are from diverse background and different people have different norms, values and principles (Kahneman & Tversky, 2013). I understood the basic rule of communicating with a different type of people is by being utterly humble and polite, a quality I possess. I need to improve my knowledge regarding the cultural factors that play important role in communication, however, I am capable of mastering good communication skills.

It was a big problem to find out a solution to the problem that we faced during this course. We were restricted from interviewing people outside our university campus and it was a major problem for us. We all acted together to find a solution and with some brainstorming and our professor’s guidance, we were able to find a solution to it. We thought of going to some organizations such as Vision Australia, Blind Citizen Australia, Department of Health and Human Services and State-wide Vision Research Centre. According to the discussion, we would go to these organizations and give a presentation of our product. Receiving the feedback from them we could make the perfect solution for our customer.

What you want to be? Problem diagnoser or Solver?

While writing about the experience the only word that helped me understand myself was brainstorming. Reflecting on the experience and the blog written by me, I was able to identify one of my strengths. Being a perfectionist and being perfect are two different things (Clayton, 2015). As I have already mentioned that I like to be perfect with my job, it is important for me to find the best possible solution. It was defiantly a good idea of mine to approach my professor who was able to give us helpful information. Therefore, I am good at solving the problem and also find the source of the problem. I still consider it as a part that needs more improvement along with time.

This week I learnt about the Value Chain Analysis and mind mapping tools. I learnt that a product is made to meet the needs of the customers and therefore, a value is added to the product when any company launches it. The value is created by the product’s feature, the purpose it serves and the idea involved in it. Therefore, every company is looking for ways to create more value for their product in front of the customers. Value chain helps in creating the value of a product. It was interesting to know the ways companies use the feedbacks of the customers and utilize the information to create the market value of the product. The research and development department has the responsibility to analyse the feedback and develop strategies to increase marketing, sales, customer service and related aspects. I have also learnt about mind mapping, an activity that helps to convert ideas into a graphical flowchart.

Reflecting on the blog that I have written on this particular week, I have understood the importance of value chain analyse and mind mapping. This tool can be used to develop self as well. Every day we come across different experience and therefore, I will practice mind mapping on daily basis. The value chain analysis will be given more importance so it helps me attract customers in the future (Goldstein, 2014).

Weekly lectures	Action to achieve driven by the weekly lecture	Target	Benefits	Time scale
Things which we cannot see	improving my listening skills, situation analysis and being more observant	Be able to calm myself and analyse situations through various perspective.	Better communication, Concentration.	End of the university.
Make your prototype	Focusing on learning and not the success.	Self-development and developing the understanding of learning.	Stress free mind, focus on the tasks	As needed
Problem- Different Personal Definition – Wicked Problems	Improving listening skills while focusing on tasks and being observant.	Be able to multitask.	Creative and efficient	As needed
When someone can make his/her idea to reality	Develop time management by setting short term goals.	Be able to achieve the short term goals.	Help in setting long term goals and become efficient.	End of university
What you want to be? problem diagnosor or solver	Start writing journals on problems faced daily and evaluate it.	Finish writing problems and evaluation for a month.	Better understanding of situations.	End of the university
Final Present to The Customers.	Improve knowledge on cultural diversity and its importance. Work on multi-culture awareness.	Know knowledge regarding top 10 cultural diversities.	Better communication and capable of developing healthy business relationship	As needed
Customer Co-Creation	Work on communication skills and presentation skills.	Can communicate well with other people.	Better Communication skills	End of university

Conclusion:

Since blogging can help in learning in many ways, it is often used in various places as a method of learning. Many bloggers have similar say to this and therefore it is a widely used method of self-reflection used to improve oneself. Along with nurturing our writing, blogs are useful in keeping track of activities that we carry out and improve refection skills. In this report I was able to identify the importance of the blogs I have written on my weekly lectures and experiences. Therefore, it is indeed a helpful tool for learning and self-improvement.

References:

Beyth-Marom, R., Dekel, S., Gombo, R., & Shaked, M. (2013). An elementary approach to thinking under uncertainty. Routledge. 126-143

Clayton, M. (2015). Anti-perfectionist childrearing. In The Nature of Children’s Well-Being (pp. 123-140). Springer, Dordrecht.

Dos, B., & Demir, S. (2013). The analysis of the blogs created in a blended course through the reflective thinking perspective. Educational Sciences: Theory and Practice, 13(2), 1335-1344.

Goldstein, E. B. (2014). Cognitive psychology: Connecting mind, research and everyday experience. Nelson Education.

Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (2013). Choices, values, and frames. In Handbook of the Fundamentals of Financial Decision Making: Part I (pp. 269-278).

Maibom, H. L. (2014). Knowing what we are doing. Moral psychology and human agency, 108-22.

Morrison, J., Roth McDuffie, A., & French, B. (2015). Identifying key components of teaching and learning in a STEM school. School Science and Mathematics, 115(5), 244-255.

Poister, T. H., Pasha, O. Q., & Edwards, L. H. (2013). Does performance management lead to better outcomes? Evidence from the US public transit industry. Public Administration Review, 73(4), 625-636.

van den Brink, M., Holgersson, C., Linghag, S., & Deé, S. (2016). Inflating and down playing strengths and weaknesses—practicing gender in the evaluation of potential managers and partners. Scandinavian Journal of Management, 32(1), 20-32.

Vurdien, R. (2013). Enhancing writing skills through blogging in an advanced English as a Foreign Language class in Spain. Computer Assisted Language Learning, 26(2), 126-143.