{"id":1498,"date":"2016-06-13T21:15:00","date_gmt":"2016-06-13T20:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/mba\/?p=1498"},"modified":"2023-04-04T02:04:09","modified_gmt":"2023-04-04T01:04:09","slug":"design-thinking-bootcamp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/mba\/design-thinking-bootcamp\/","title":{"rendered":"Design Thinking Bootcamp"},"content":{"rendered":"

I recently participated in a Design Thinking <\/em>bootcamp event organized by IESE\u2019s Innovation & Design Club in conjunction with bootcamp leaders Paula Vega<\/a> and Roc\u00edo Garc\u00eda Ramos<\/a> and our host company Ayre Hoteles Caspe<\/a>. Over the course of two days, grouped into teams of four, participants sought solutions to Ayre\u2019s Challenge Brief utilizing a design-thinking framework that included a five-module process: Empathy, Definition, Ideation, Prototyping and Testing.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Ayre\u2019s Challenge: <\/strong>How can a hotel improve the services it provides for business guests?<\/p>\n

Beginning with the Empathy <\/strong>module, teams set out to discover the underlying needs and motivations of the hotel and their potential clientele.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"bootcamp<\/a><\/p>\n

Ayre representatives gave us an introduction of current and slated strategic programs<\/a>, as well as the available service offered. They then led a tour of the hotel and allowed us to observe the facilities first hand. Afterwards, a series of empathetic interviews<\/em> with potential hotel guests were conducted.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In the Definition <\/strong>module, each team clustered together similar comments and observations from the interviews and distilled insights from them. After interviewing a handful of young professionals from different countries and business sectors with various work-related travel experiences, our team gained the following key insight:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The length of stay is a strong determinant of the needs of business guests: <\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Short-Term Stay<\/em> preoccupations revolved around the ephemeral and tangible. Comments included \u201cBreakfast is important\u201d and \u201cThere is an iron in my room, but I don\u2019t know how to use it.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Long-Term Stay<\/em> preoccupations tended to be more personal and emotional. People worried about \u201cEating healthily\u201d and \u201cdepressing hotel rooms.\u201d In general, comments tended to pertain to living a \u201cparallel life during long projects,\u201d working away from home, family, office and routine.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Focusing on the Long-Term Stay <\/em>preoccupations, my team used tools such as the \u201cHow Might We\u201d exercise to identify several areas of opportunity:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

How Might We<\/em>\u2026.\u201chelp guests socialize, adapt services to provide personalized customer experiences, offer guests a personalized work environment.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"bootcamp<\/a>This module was followed by the Ideation <\/strong>phase of brainstorming sessions and concept refinement exercises such as SCAMPER. These techniques foment the rapid synthesis of unique possible solutions in large quantity.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SCAMPER: S<\/strong>ubstitution, C<\/strong>ombination, A<\/strong>daptation, M<\/strong>odification, P<\/strong>utting-to-use, E<\/strong>limination, R<\/strong>eversal<\/h2>\n

 <\/p>\n

Of the five or so concepts synthesized, we set about Prototyping<\/strong> three: \u201cEmpty Rooms,\u201d \u201cModular Rooms\u201d and the \u201c13th<\/sup> Floor,\u201d, mocking-up modular hotel rooms and furniture floor plans using A4 paper and sticky notes and running through different user and hotel staff scenarios.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This internal testing helped further define the \u201cwhat\u201d and \u201chow\u201d of our concepts. It also fleshed out weak points and redundancies, which led us to dispense with the \u201c13th<\/sup> Floor\u201d concept. After some re-tuning and consolidation, we put the final concept to some external testing.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Final Concept:<\/strong> Our team developed a two-pronged strategies to re-utilize and add value to existing, but underused, hotel assets: their unbooked rooms, public spaces, guests, and location in the heart of Barcelona. Our Modular Rooms Program<\/em> unlocks the potential of unbooked rooms by allowing them to be temporarily reconfigured for other uses, such as workspaces, office spaces and gallery spaces. This repurposing of the rooms led us to the second strategy prong: converting various spaces in the hotel into rentable Co-Working Spaces. <\/em>These two strategies aim to foster a vibrant and trendy business community within the hotel among its (primarily business-oriented) guests and the entrepreneurial community of Barcelona,whilst also boosting the hotel\u2019s revenue and public profile.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/a>In the Testing<\/strong> module, we invited other participants to role-play as guests whilst we played the role of the hotel staff and ran through room selection, booking and physical configuration processes. We then simulated our guests\u2019 stay.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What did we learn?<\/strong><\/p>\n