Redesigning my personal habits

Since 17 March, I have been staying at home throughout the MCO period (Malaysia's version of lockdown acronyms). I did not step outside my condo until 15 May for a lunch date with my son at One Mont Kiara. On that first day outside, I was struggling to ensure that my hands were not contaminating my items stored in my handbag while handling payment at the cashier with eWallet and credit card. I was so stressed after lunch and shopping at the mall, and hence I decided not to go out after that experience.

The second trip furthest from home was to my client's office in the city center on 11 June post-CMCO. It was an adventure to me as I was pivoting my habits throughout the journey to the client's office. I was not wearing a face mask in my car, and I was surprised to discover that there was a security guard at the parking entrance requiring me to wind down my car window to take my body temperature. I struggled to put on my face mask quickly.

When I entered the office building lift, I used a pen to press the lift button. I thought that I was very prepared to keep myself safe from staining my finger. I was startled to find that I could not press the lift button with the pen because the button was not flat. I ended up using my figure to press the button.

When I stepped out from the lift, I found myself having to make a detour using a path that I have not traveled before to get to the client's office itself. On arrival at the client's office meeting room, I tried to figure out where I should sit and where I should put my stuff (without me having to sanitize my stuff when I got home).

I wore my face mask throughout the meeting in the office, but I forgot about it when chatting with the client throughout the lunch meeting. I continued to have a meeting with the client without wearing the mask after lunch. When I got home, I reflected on the situations for change in my next outing.

In conclusion, I felt that I need to redesign my habits that will make me feel peace of mind at all times. Besides regular hand washing and social distancing, I need to create a personal SOP (a commonly used term by our Government in the approval of business opening) that can assure a safe environment for myself when I am outdoor. I am pivoting this SOP on the fly now.

Design Thinking meets Science

When one first hears about the human-centered design (HCD) approach of Design Thinking, they generally perceive it to be a methodology that is skewed towards being qualitative, subjective and heavily intuition-based. So you may ask exactly how might we make the HCD methodology be more scientific?

Inspired by the Stanford Social Innovation Review’s article on “Behavioural Design” and theories behind Behavioural Economics, we would like to share how you can use Design Thinking to encourage desired outcomes when approaching a problem challenge by taking these few steps into consideration when using the HCD approach.

To provide some context, Behavioural Economics theories state that human behaviours are non-rational due to social, environmental, emotional and psychological factors that impact a user’s decision making process. If we look around us, we find many applications of Behavioural Economics in our daily lives - from product marketing, consumption decisions, government policies to the route that we choose to use to get to work everyday.

Laying this out in the chronological (yet still, iterative) order of the HCD approach,

1. Let’s first look at the framing of the problem statement. In the standard HCD approach, we try to frame a problem statement that is specific, targeted and yet broad enough to not limit the potential of ideas. In the behavioural design approach, we should also be including the types of desired user behaviours we are trying to encourage in our problem statement. An example could be: How might we re-design healthcare accessibility in developing countries such that parents will ensure that their child obtains all required vaccinations?

2. Next, to understand our user persona, under the HCD approach, an in-depth analysis will be conducted to gather insights about the user’s motivations in decisions that they make. The way questions are asked are focused on the “Why”, as we try to probe into the root of the reasons. In the behavioural design approach, we can consider also asking the “How” when interviewing users to understand their rationale behind the decisions they make. This will allow us to gain additional insights into the 3Cs - conditions, circumstances, constraints during a user’s journey or decision making process. This gives us a more enriched picture of the social or environmental conditions, physical or mental circumstances and other constraints that the user is in at that point in time of their journey. With a behavioural design approach, we want to aim for the user to always choose the desired outcome regardless of the 3Cs that they face. An example could be asking the user: How were you feeling when carrying out this banking transaction using the mobile app?

3. Having gathered the additional insights from the 3Cs, the next stage of ideation will also factor in these information when we are brainstorming for ideas. However, this does not mean that we need to limit the quantity of our ideas based on the 3Cs. We should still aim to diverge in our thinking, and then converging subsequently. However, gathering these insights upfront could save us some time when deciding to converge on specific ideas and also ensure that we have considered how to successfully implement potential solutions with our targeted users.

4. In the prototype and test stages, we could adopt a randomised controlled trial approach to test the prototypes of our ideas. We can experiment on how to run them in shorter time frames to quickly and accurately obtain results. We should think about the quantifiable metrics to use to objectively measure the impact of our ideas when testing them with our users. This will allow a more robust approach when comparing our results between the groups in our trials and obtain quantifiable data using our defined metrics. Think about metrics beyond directly measuring the end outcome displayed by the user, and also the journey that they have taken to arrive at the desired outcome. Example metrics could be: The time taken before making the desired outcome decision or the number of queries asked before arriving at the desired end outcome.

We hope that these tips have given you some ideas on how you can make your Design Thinking approach more quantifiable. Let us know if you have any other thoughts on this!

Join our community of Innothinkers here to stay updated on all things Design Thinking and share your journey of Design Thinking with us :)

My ExO personal journey

I like to share my ExO personal journey which started when I first met Salim Ismail, the author of Exponential Organizations (ExO), virtually in 2012. On behalf of the government agency, I invited Salim to the launch of the Genovasi initiative in Malaysia.

Unfortunately, I did not meet Salim on his arrival at Kuala Lumpur and I was not able to make it to the launch as well. I went off on a planned family holiday and I could not request the VVIP to change the launch date for my sake.

At that time, Salim was the founding Executive Director of Singularity University, and he represented Singularity University for the event in 2012. About 2 years later, I had the opportunity to meet with Dr. Clarence Tan, the Global Ambassador of Singularity University.

Dr. Clarence introduced ExO to me and we were looking for opportunities to collaborate to promote ExO to Malaysian corporates back then in 2014. I started to learn the ingredients from reading the book, ExO. To learn how to cook, I would need to find at least one fee-paying client so that I can bring the chefs led by Salim. It was not easy and I was also focussing my energy to promote Design Thinking programs as the priority programs.

Although I did not have the opportunity to learn to apply ExO, I have not stopped promoting to companies and friends in getting the book. Especially those who are looking at digital transformation.

After my tenure with Genovasi in 2016, I had the opportunity to work with a group of executive leadership that has a lot of passion for digital transformation. Together with them, we embarked on our online learning journey on applying ExO.

We then worked together to apply ExO in the organization. I even tried leading one session on defining the organization’s Massive Transformative Purpose. It was surely not easy and perhaps we all were too obsessed with getting the right wordings.

Given my Design Thinking background, I conducted the session using the tools and techniques of Design Thinking. I also conducted another workshop combining both Design Thinking and ExO for a state government organization.

I was amazed by how I have improvised both methodologies to impart my knowledge and make them relevant to the participants. I felt that I could have done more in creating more awareness of ExO by bringing Salim to Malaysia again, as a way to awaken Malaysian corporates undergoing digital transformation.

Therefore, in April 2019, while on vacation in Seoul, I managed to have a chat with Salim on my idea. I was then introduced to join the OpenExO platform. OpenExO, a global community network of consultants, coaches, and advisors of ExO. OpenExO is like a Kitchen where I can find any chef to assist in the cooking.

I was thrilled with this opportunity and I subsequently embarked on a series of certifications to equip myself with a deeper knowledge of ExO (the ingredients) and the methodology to transform exponentially, Exponential Transformation (the recipe).

I have since become more active in propagating ExO and exponential transformation. I like to believe that I have managed to influence a few close associates to join me on this exciting journey of ExO. I will continue to integrate Design Thinking with ExO: Design for Exponentials.

Stay tuned...