Challenge
The non-profit PYXERA Global came to SCAD and asked us to assist in the research and development of concepts to define the key success factors of integrated community development programs and create concepts for a universal replication model. As a case study, we used their Joint Initiative for Village Advancement (JIVA) program in rural India.
Solution
We created 16 key success factors of PYXERA Global in the form of cards that contain the description of the success factor, an example from JIVA, and questions PYXERA Global can ask before, during, and after projects they have in the future in order to scale and replicate success.
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Within Service Design there are three overarching perspectives; understanding stakeholder context, institutional transitions, and innovation dynamics. These three perspectives bring a logical light to the design process itself. As a team, we explored each perspective within our project with PYXERA Global.
Understanding stakeholders’ contexts relies on the application of qualitative and quantitative research methodologies, methods and tools, coupled with advanced design and co-creation practices, to make sense of social contexts.
To begin with we wanted a holistic understanding of JIVA which means identifying every stakeholder involved. Every stakeholder is connected to the success of any given project. We had to zoom out to better understand PYXERA Global. The three main stakeholder groups consist of PYXERA Global, John Deere (the sponsor), and the communities in which JIVA has been implemented into.
With a more holistic understanding of PYXERA Global and JIVA in a whole, we conducted secondary research. PYXERA Global gave us over 300 pages of documents about JIVA and the company itself. We analyzed these documents and wrote down over 500 data points. We started to put these data points in a timeline of JIVA all the way before implementation till now.
We separated these data points on different channels such as agriculture, education and infrastructure all while comparing them to other programs such as JIVA. We started to narrow down these insights and see particular instances of project success emerge.
Understanding innovation dynamics implies seeing innovation as an evolutionary and cyclical process, reiterating if needed. This means adjusting how you get to the solution through ideation, prototyping, and testing.
An example of project success would be that instead of invading a rural city in India and telling the local farmers to stop farming in an inefficient way, the PYXERA Global team came on site, got on their hands and knees, and showed them a more innovative way to farm in which the local farmers started to do. This inspired us to to write down “Show, Don’t Tell” as one of their success factors.
When PYXERA Global gave us their initial presentation they kept mentioning that they want us to find the “secret sauce” to the PYXERA Global way and to find the “secret recipe”. This inspired us on our initial prototypes on how the success factors are displayed.
We presented our key success factors we had thus far and our initial prototypes to PYXERA Global. We held a co-creation session to review the success factors. Both Deirdre and Amanda added their input and also new factors for us to research such as “Community Buy Ins”, which is how PYXERA Global has a no handouts policy to ensure the community stable results.
Understanding institutional transition means having a broad socio-historic perspective and requires the development and communication of a constantly-updated understanding of possible effective actions that can support organizations and social contexts to adopt and implement innovative opportunities. In other words, how we got to this solution.
The Three Overarching Perspectives of Service Design is a nonlinear process. Throughout this project we had to go back and forth between each perspective and continually reiterate our concepts.
Through this design process we approached a solution that met PYXERA Global’s needs. We understood the stakeholders throughly, co-created with them, listened to their feedback, and used that context to detach from the ordinary. We as service designers made design decision that we thought was best in the long run. Together we created the Seeds for Success.
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OUR SOLUTION
seeds for success
We provided PYXERA Global with 16 different key success factors based off of the JIVA case study. Each success factor comes in a packet with 6 different cards. Each packet contains:
the success factor title
a definition of the success factor
an example of the success factor from JIVA
questions they can ask before they start a project
questions they can ask during the duration of a project
questions they can ask after a project
The questions provide PYXERA Global a talking point between employees. With these questions they can plan, change, and reflect on each project in order to have continuous successes.
More success factors
packaging
We gave PYXERA Global both digital and physical versions of the Seeds for Success. The physical prototype was made made out of recycled material and folded into the shape of a seed packet. Each packet contains the cards in which PYXERA Global can use them however they please.
THANK YOU!
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MY CONTRIBUTIONS
Data analysis, stakeholder map, insight development, concept development, content editing, and low fi prototypes.
TEAM
Lillian Hubbell, Brooke Garlin, Rachel Tarulli, Macie Whitbeck
TIMEFRAME
10 Weeks