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Changes for the 2022 Early Cohort
By now, you have spoken with lots of students, faculty and administrators at your school and, through your Landscape Canvas research, you have defined key gaps that point to opportunities to enrich the I&E ecosystem at your school. You have likely already considered potential solutions, some that are new and others that have been tried by Fellows at other institutions (see these [[:Category:Guides|Wiki pages]] for inspiration).</div><br>As you move forward with implementing solutions for the opportunities you have uncovered, it's important to:
#go beyond the first obvious solutions;
#<div style="text-align:justify;">invest time and resources on a solution that will be well received by students, faculty and administrators and that will have real impact. What appears like a great solution in your mind might not work at all in practice, while an idea that didn't seem that good might turn into a success. The faster you test your idea with the people involved, the earlier you will know if you are on the right path. But if you ask people what they think about an abstract idea, all you are going to get are opinions. Very often others might not understand your idea (this is especially true when we talk about novel ideas). This is where prototyping adds great value. If you can make it easier for people to experience or at least visualize or imagine what your idea is about, you will get more usable feedback. And this feedback is key in order to understand what aspects of your idea work well and which need improvement. Even more importantly, you may discover that there is a more interesting problem than the one you set out to address.</div><br>
<div style="text-align:justify;">
To help you do this, we invite you to put in practice the ideation and prototyping mindsets we explored in Session 2 (Design Thinking). Each teammate should prototype one project. By the end of the session, you should have four to five UIF projects outlined that have the potential to improve the innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem at your institution.</div><br><br>
{{#widget:Youtube|id=4VceRX4MRTs|width=75%}}<br><br>
Here are key takeaway from the video that are important to keep in mind as you grow in your role of change agent:
*'''It is very likely that you will need to go back and revisit an earlier stage of the processproblem/opportunity you are focusing on.''':Based on their testing of prototypes, the students in the video realized they had been focusing on the wrong problem. Then quickly moved back to generating new solutions for the newly defined problem. According to Diego Rodriguez from IDEO, prototyping is not part of the process, [http://metacool.com/prototyping-is-the-process/ it is the process].*'''Likewise, empathy is not just a stage in the design thinking process, ittask to complete. It's a mindset and a way to look at the world.'''
:Once you put your empathy lenses on, you should keep them on, and always have your stakeholder and his/her experience in mind. When you test a prototype, it's not about you and your idea, it's about the experience of the person who tries out your idea. If they don't get what you meant, instead of thinking they have a problem understanding you, ask yourself why they are interpreting your idea in that way. That approach will yield a greater learning and will propel you forward.
*'''Your initial assumptions or inferences about the needs of the stakeholders might not have been accurate.'''
:During the problem definition stage, we make inferences about the thoughts, feelings and needs of the stakeholderstakeholders. Then we brainstorm some solutions for those needs. It's at the stage of testing rapid prototypes of those solutions that we learn whether those inferences were correct. Testing with an open mind and listening to the feedback (asking why, both to the tester and to ourselves) will allow us to learn more about the real needs of the stakeholders and come closer to an impactful solution.<br>
As pointed out in Session 2, defining the problem is one of the most challenging parts of the process, and it's imperative that you keep coming back to it, reflecting on whether it actually captures real needs -- explicit or implicit -- of your stakeholders. Sometimes the revision will be a minor change, sometimes it will be a radical redirection.
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|title=Always a prototyping mindset: an example from a Fellow
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When Fellow Tanner Wheadon completed training and presented campus leaders with his ambitious UIF project of creating a brand new innovation space he didn't get the response he was expecting. He was told there were no resources available. This is what he did:<br><br>{{#widget:Youtube|id=c2BhCnxOwlk|width=75%}}<br><br>Employing a prototyping mindset increases the likelihood that solutions will be embraced by the community they are designed for. Through training and after having visited the d.school, Tanner's wanted to take on the project of creating a space for student innovation. As you heard in the video, he gained traction by distilling the essential elements of what would happen in such a space, and he went through many iterations of prototyping that led to the successful execution of his big vision close to a year after he began the process:<br><br>
* Prototype 1: Outline of a 2-week design thinking module; pitching professor (3 weeks after training)
* Prototype 2: Actual 2-week module in general education course (2 months after training)
|title=Assignment
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For this session you will be prototyping some of your ideas to address gaps in the I&E ecosystem of your institution and, based on what you learn in that process, you will outline strategic priorities that will guide your work as a Fellow moving forward.<br><br>This assignment has 2 deliverables (see below.) Both should be posted in the Training Updates page of the UIF Portal (by now you should be familiar with how to update that page, but you can always revisit the instructions on the [[2022:Training/Submitting Assignments|Submitting Assignments]] page.) Deliverable 2 also required requires that you update your institution's page on the UIF wiki, if you uncover any new information this week (more below). {{note2|1='''Note:''' Both deliverables should be submitted as a team (if you are part of a Leadership Circle.)}}
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{{Content-A
* '''Test the prototype''' with the relevant people -- students, faculty, etc., depending on what it is (see below some things to keep in mind as you test). Remember when you had to go out and interview someone on the first week of the challenge? Testing your prototype is similar to that: you might feel apprehensive about showing a prototype that doesn't look very polished to someone else, and that's understandable. Use some of the same strategies you used to set up your interview: introduce yourself and the project, establish a rapport with the other person, encourage him/her to be candid with you, and demonstrate you really care about what he/she says. You will find that people will be incredibly helpful, even flattered that you care about their perspective.
* '''Iterate'''. Based on what you learned about the problem or the solution, you might make a minor modification, learn that you are solving the wrong problem or make large changes in your strategy for how you solve the problem. Incorporate your learnings into creating a new prototype and test once again with the same person or different ones.
* '''Take a photo of people testing your prototypes,''' and include a short reflection about what you learned from the tests. If you are part of a Leadership Circle, combine all your photos and learnings into one submission.<br><br>{{Fmbox|image=none|style = border:5px solid dimgrey; background-color:lightgrey;|text=Due September 26 end of week 4 at midnight ET: A google doc containing a photo of people testing your prototypes, and a short reflection about what you learned from the tests. Drop this document into your institution's Google Drive folder (find the [[2022:Training/Start Here|folder link here]]) and submit the link in the Training Updates page of the UIF Portal. Instructions are on the [[2022:Training/Submitting Assignments|Submitting Assignments]] page. As a reminder, we will be reviewing Session 4 in the Training Mural to understand your journey, so be sure to document your thought processes and show your work.}}<br>
:Here are some elements to keep in mind when you test your prototype:
* Do NOT sell your idea: Your goal is NOT to convince someone that your idea is good. You want to find out what can be improved.
* Capture the feedback: use [https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9aooElipwnccUdkX1BFcGtYLXM/view?usp=sharing this simple grid] to capture what worked, what could be improved, as well as questions and ideas that come up for you as people test your prototype.
* Be open to unexpected outcomes and misunderstandings: If the person who is testing your prototype didn't get your idea, embrace that as an opportunity to learn more about the meaning they saw in it. That might inform your next iteration.
* Don't get attached to your prototype: rapid prototyping is a way of quickly and cheaply figuring out what doesn't work. That means that you should be ready to discard your ideas. Think of each prototype as a learning opportunity, and a temporary an intermediate step towards the final a solution.
* Do NOT sell your idea: Yes, we said this at the beginning, but it is super important, so we are saying it again :) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WtsMrkfG1w Be in learning mode, not knowing mode].
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For this deliverable to be considered completed in full, use the Strategic Priorities section at the bottom of Session 4 in the Training Mural to flesh out your plans. <br>
As a University Innovation Fellow, you will become known for being a thought leader about on the I&E ecosystem at your institution. Why? Your landscape canvas research combined with your personal experience gives you a unique perspective. But your thought leadership comes from your ability to take an ecosystem-level view of problems, opportunities and potential solutions. So let's consider two scenarios:<br><br>
'''One strategic priority'''<br>
Imagine your first meeting with the university president. Imagine taking them through your landscape canvas. Now imagine presenting one project you believe will improve the landscape. The President might think to themselves "That's cute, kid."<br><br>
'''Four to five strategic priorities'''<br>
Now imagine you've presented your birds-eye view of your school along with the four to five projects you believe would meaningfully improve your ecosystem. Your President might now say, "OK, this student really gets it." Keep in mind that multifaceted problems require multi-faceted solutions, and not all the projects will be implemented by you; that would be impossible to achieve as any one person (unless you were are superhuman). BUT, you must create a bold two- or three-year vision outlining what needs to change in order to enhance the I&E ecosystem.<br>
* If you're on a team of four, each of you can serve as the point-person to lead a project.
* If you're the only candidate at your school, you may only be leading one project to start, but you should still take the position that the remaining projects need to be assigned to other people at your institution.<br><br>
'''A consulting approach'''<br>
Approach your upcoming meetings with faculty and administration as though you are a set of consultants who your school has hired to recommend four to five projects to address the key issues facing your school's I&E ecosystem. What are those top four to five projects you believe your institution should implement in order to expand I&E?<br><br>{{Fmbox|image=none| style = border:5px solid dimgrey; background-color:lightgrey;|text=Due September 26 end of week 4 at midnight ET: Link to the completed/updated student priorities wiki page.}}<br>
*[[2022:Training/Start Here|''Click here to access your campus's student priorities Wiki page.'']]<br><br>
On your Strategic Priorities wiki page, outline the four to five projects you have identified and refined by prototyping. Include not only the project name, but also the key tactics required to bring this project to life. Be as specific as possible, including assigning names of the team mates who will be in charge of each project. Make sure you review your plans with your uiguide and faculty champion(s) and take into account their feedback.<br><br>{{note2|'''Note:'''}} If you are a new school in the UIF program, you will be the first cohort to add content to the Strategic Priorities wiki page, but if you are a school who already has Fellows, this page already will have content added by previous Fellows, and you should update the page to add your cohort's strategic priorities. Do this in reverse chronological order, so that the most recent set of priorities are at the top of the page, and clearly indicate to which cohort they correspond.<br><br>
Submit the strategic priorities page in Training Updates. Visit the [[2022:Training/Submitting Assignments|Submitting Assignments]] page for more on how to submit this deliverable on the UIF Portal. And be sure to show your work in the Training Mural.
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