Design Thinking at the Wrocław University of Econo...

Former Member · ‎2013 Apr 10

First of all we would like to thank the organizers of SAP InnoJam in Hannover for providing us with the experience of a lifetime and inspiration! It's truly difficult to describe how amazed we were! :wink:

Inspired by the event, we decided to strike while the iron is hot and share our wonderful experiences with colleagues at our university. Not to mention that universities from Wrocław (Poland) were strongly represented in Hannover – a total of 11 students from Wrocław University of Economics and Wrocław University of Technology :cool: Neither pictures nor descriptions will be able to describe the atmosphere that prevailed at InnoJam.

We came up that the best option would be to organize our own mini-version of InnoJam. Our Idea really hit the bull’s eye and our announcement was met with a great enthusiasm from the students. Within 3 days we gathered up a group of 45 students who were willing to participate in our project. Which took place on 26th March at the Wrocław University of Economics.

Owing to lack of time, uncertainty (It was the first time, after all, we didn’t have the foggiest idea what the outcome would be) and limited logistical capabilities, we only decided to introduce the first part of the InnoJam – Design Thinking. So we finished during presentations of prototypes.

Warm thanks to Vitaliy Rudnytskiy from SAP Developers Center, who visited us and introduced all to the concept of Design Thinking. And also showed us how SAP is evolving in a very innovative way! :cool:

While participants were divided into 6 groups, team mentors were people who took part in InnoJam in Hanover. The problems were created by our professors who were also embodied in the customers related to the problems. As a potential customers, who introduced their problems to the groups, they were interviewed during Research phase.

Here are the topics with which participants had to cope with:

1. The problem of copycat sportswear

2. Football ticket distribution

3. Project management in an advertising agency.

In the opinion of the jury the most innovative solutions were related to the first problem. The Idea of the winning team received 9 points (on a scale from 0 to 10). It is worth noting that teams, which were addressing the first problem took 1st and 2nd place!

By organizing this event, we were afraid of a lack of participants commitment and too fast pace of Design Thinking. At the end of the day, it turned out that there were nothing to worry about! From the very beginning, we saw the full commitment of the participants elaborated on the problem. Even students who, on a daily basis, are less engaged and shy, were eager to participate and came up with tons of ideas! It’s impossible to explain how delighted and surprised we were. Undeniably there is something in this Design Thinking approach, which makes it amazing!

The feedback from both participants and teaching staff was very positive. Everyone really liked the whole idea very much. We are so pleased that we did it in such a short time. Almost everything went smoothly.

We all hope that this is just the beginning and soon we will organize another one. And in the near future, we will add a coding part too. 