Published on | Prototyping: From UX to Front End — Medium Michael Curtis

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Get the creative team working in a more creative way.

Pre-check

We use design research methodologies for creating products and features. The definition of a product ; a thing or person that is the result of an action or process. So the question is, should we use the same methodologies on our team to establish how it’s process is working. It is the essence of human centred design to empathise and improve peoples life. So applying this to peoples ways of working, not just digital feature architecture. This is an account of the experiment for that.

There are a number of factors which are important needs in play before this research could begin.

Trust, from the team participating
Honesty, from everyone involved
Belief, in design research processes

These factors are important as you will expose personal perceptions of the working balance by people/roles whom you share close quarters with. The findings which you turn up may not be exactly to a everyones liking.

Depending on the work area you will be capable of creating assumptions for each role, I will cover these later in the article.

Areas of assessment

This case was built around a creative mobile digital software team, that designs and builds features and maintains an app for public use. The aim of this team is to produce new and innovative features while maintaining an industry leading product. Our definition of creative thinking is the following:

A way of looking at problems or situations from a fresh perspective that suggests unorthodox solutions.

So hence our team aims to work in a creative thinking way, any team which tries to work this way should aim to have three strong core elements.

Communication – the channels of communication should be open and honest, between all team members, off shore or onshore models.

Interactions – the working behaviours of the team. Does absolutely everyone attend meetings that they may not need to? Is there a strong knowledge sharing base amongst the team?

Environment – the physical space in which the team is based. Does it provide for all of the teams needs? With the best possible manner to promote all the types of work necessary?

The scoring of these are the indicator, for the level at which a team could measure its capacity for creative thinking. This is an important trait for solving problems and developing solutions, in a creative manner.

These indicators should be measured independently of each other.

These three factors all hold equal importance, and are interdependent, but also inter relatable of each other. For example, if the environment is mainly individual office space with no communal areas, it cannot be fully optimised for open lines of communication.

The optimum creative team (not achievable!)

The graphic above represents the ideal creative thinking in a team. Starting from the centre point for each and all are beginning at zero, they go outwards as they are measured independently of each other. The overall creative thinking that they represent, is the interdependent area that they form, (grey fill) as a team this represents how strong the creative thinking is within the overall team.

If this framework is applied to a standard factory line procedure, which is not being considered creative work, it would score considerably lower area space when compared to a team which operates in a creative space. For example, the environment may not encourage communication, due too machinery taking precedence to the interactions between the members of the team.

The closer each scale is to ten, the greater capabilities of a creative workforce.

The aim is to measure each of these branches, assess the role based scores, then team based averages. All roles will be given the same questions no matter what their role. This will allow for a measurable scale which highlights areas to be targeted for a greater improvement.

The middle

Before the assessment can be made, a hypothesis can be drawn up around individual roles, not individual people. The needs of a dev role will be different to a Business analyst, QA, product owner and designer.

To assess the tasks, a survey was drawn up based on statements related to the workings of the office, for example, “I often socialise with my team outside of working hours.” If the reply is strongly agree, the fair assumption is that clear lines of communication & interactions exist.

This was then gauged using a one to ten metric, with the end points phrased as “strongly disagree” at one end and “strongly agree” at the other. This allowed for a gradient measurement into the personal perceptions of interactions into overall the teams behaviour primarily, then the communication second.

Its easy to make an understanding that, a team that often socialises together has a quite honest and open line of communication.

With multiple results such as these they provide valuable insights into what the team sees as working, and what is not. It will not only measure interpersonal skills, but on a whole, the ecosystem.

Synthesising the data

When the information in gathered and the data is extrapolated, it provides us with what is working well and what areas can be improved.

Does it highlight that interactions are an area that can be improved. For example, the Business analyst can’t check designs because the internal measures system won’t allow them to, do they need a laptop instead? Can this improve interactions and communications of the UX and business analyst? These are the questions to be asked after the information has been gathered.

It provides a gauge on the entire ecosystem not just how people work together but highlights if the environment needs physical artefacts to improve the overall behaviours of the team.

These are the individual model areas in relation to the teams individual roles. It highlights the physical and emotional relationships that occur between the work environment and the workers. Its aim is to highlight what areas need to be addressed.

These are the three measurable areas (environment, interactions, communication), mapped against the aspirational levels of creative thinking space with the teams. These results will give a more macro level look at individuals tasks depending on the significance of the roles.

The next step is to then take an average of the overall teams outputs. This is done using a simple average over all of the results at hand. It may then be used to address what is the overall area to address.

Left: individual team comparisons, Right: Overall team average

Above, on the right, is the average the whole team, which can be argued as the most important as a team produces an output as a collective and therefore needs to function as one. The dark grey triangle represents the team average, large light grey the aspirational one.

The image on the left indicates the variation amongst roles perceptions and understandings the workspace to them and their individual understanding.

Actions

So every role has different strength and weaknesses. Some of these weak role areas may be capable of joining together to come up with a single solution for both.

For example if communication equipment is something affecting designers and business analysts, is there something that can be acquired for both?

Also if you look at areas of strength it may be important to see if methods such as these can be implemented in to weaker areas.

For example are there tools that certain roles have and are working well. Could these be implemented into an area that has scored poorly?

When it comes to the environment scoring poorly it may require major works and expertise from external parties. This may be a costly expense but if done correctly will not require many phases of iteration.

Conclusion

Once the information has been processed it is up to the team as a whole to begin the discussions on what solutions may best address the areas.

It may require buy in from higher level stakeholders of the company to believe in and implement these changes.

The lowest scoring areas should naturally become the primary areas to address. For example, if the office environment is not set up for fulfilling the maximum potential from the workforce, it may require a longer timespan to implement changes in this area. This may be due to external factors outside of the teams control.

Another method of approach is to address the problems on a role base, iteratively, taking into account the tasks of the role and how it will affect those in the team which they operate at a much closer level. Generally these areas are within a locally controlled capacity and may be easier to implement.

One of the most important needs are buy in from management, as these are who can cement the change for improving the overall team. As this method can measure increments it allows for the same test to be replicated and continuously monitored.

This approach should provide a measurable approach to an intangible output of teamwork behaviours.

There is an old saying; “If you look after your staff your staff look after you”, and this is the mantra that modern enterprises have taken. We can all see this with global multi nationals and what appear to be wonderfully aesthetically built offices.

There is a lot more happening than it looks like. By creating inviting spaces to be in, it creates the best ecosystem for creative thinking to operate. This is the method for any business big or small, to try approach, build and measure it for themselves.

The work environment should be an a place people want to be in, not just a place to work. Great ideas come from unorthodox situations.

If you have any questions or wish to know more, hit me up on twitter @sitrucmik

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Creative thinking by design. was originally published in prototypr on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Creative thinking by design.

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