To tackle the problem of making the engineering industry more globally responsible, we chose to look from the perspective of Reshaping Practice. Our concept is UNITE, a card game to improve the current practices in the workplace. Our goal is to unite people in a company so they can value and appreciate the skills of their colleagues and develop responsible solutions.
From our user research, we felt that teams within these corporate companies did not communicate well with one another, nor were aware of or appreciated each other’s skillsets. For engineering, this can be detrimental of not harnessing the full knowledge in the workforce. E.g., a computer engineer would lack knowledge of the skills of employees in the sustainability department in the same company.
Our plan is to hold workshops with UNITE, which is divided into Icebreakers and Problem Solving. Both parts of the workshop hold key importance in achieving the goal. Icebreakers remove pre-determined barriers and allow conversations to flow between colleagues. Simple light-hearted questions can help people understand each other on a personal level. The Problem-Solving Questions allow for an individual’s cognitive and academic abilities to come out. By giving off-beat questions such as Cleaning up oil spills or Sending pizzas to space, every employee displays their skill set and their importance to the company.
Having a diverse and interdisciplinary team allows you to creatively attack a problem using different perspectives, reducing the chance of errors, and developing more impactful, purposeful, inclusive, and regenerative solutions.
Responsible – We believe UNITE will support those in an engineering corporate job to be able to make more responsible decisions and solutions that meet the needs of all the people within the limits of our plant. Having a diverse group of people in the workforce from interdisciplinary backgrounds can positively impact the solutions developed since you have diverse backgrounds and skillsets working together.
Purposeful - We envision this game to be presented to employees of a company in a workshop style, by taking a few hours out of their day to interact with other people in the company. Through UNITE we allow employees to feel like they have a purpose and impact in their roles in the company. An infographic published by Work.com indicated that “69% of employees would work harder if they were better recognized,” Google researchers carried out a research project Code-named Project Aristotle, where they tried to discover ‘what makes an effective team.’ Two of the four factors states that when you appreciate the work done by colleagues, they have a newfound meaning and purpose in their work and strive to make an impact.
Inclusive – UNITE supports people in communicating with one another and allows everyone the chance to speak. The problem-solving questions are designed so that anyone from any background has an opinion and value to add. This should improve psychological stability within teams, which is a factor that was highlighted in Google’s Code-named Project Aristotle. When designing the cards, we ensured that they were colour blind-friendly, having clear contrast between font and background to improve readability.
Regenerative – UNITE brings people together to form stronger and more effective teams that we hope will improve the solutions that they develop are more responsible. We anticipate that those working on regenerative projects will be able to tackle the problems more creatively and with a stronger purpose and desire to improve the planet that we live in today for tomorrow.
Please see below a plan of how we envision the workshop to run, some of the cards and our 3-minute video
What I like about this idea is that you've suggested a diverse range of people to help solve these issues and turning problem solving into a fun activity, in my experience you've got a higher degree of finding the novel solution if people are able to relax and have fun. I like the idea of the icebreaker with some of the ideas you've listed as problems, for example "clean an oil spill in the ocean" could be moved to the icebreaker section, and the problems left blanked to fit the issue that is being resolved.
What would be even better for me is to reference to your research that states there is a problem in the corporate world. Is this a real world problem or a perceived problem? The idea presented comes across as standard facilitation process employed when a group of people are solving complex problems.
Where I see the value in your proposal is that this would be a useful tool to engage younger people who are trying to decide on what careers to progress, STEM students, to understand how the power of diversity can solve real problems.
3 Personable Actions
Ankita Sharma
1) In my volunteer work in teaching primary school children more about STEM and robotics, I will try to promote the different disciplines of engineering and the importance of teamwork.
2) As a woman, I will endeavour to be a role model to other girls in my community and give talks to schools to inspire more girls to take on STEM subjects at University, to try and bridge the gap in the industry and improve inclusivity
3) I will continue to read and research into Sustainability practices in the industry
Aditya Munot
1) I will continue to do further research into responsible practices in the industry
2) I will try to implement all that I have learnt in this Designathon in my future project works to develop responsible solutions
3) I will try and volunteer in my University to promote STEM to under-represented communites
Ria Dhoptakar
1) More research into how I can be more sustainable in everyday life, such as reducing waste and buying more eco-friendly products. I will also endeavour to make sure future design projects always consider the impact on the environment.
2) Gain a better understanding on the groups that tend to be underrepresented in the engineering community and why. In my design projects, I will be sure to obtain the viewpoints and needs of a large variety of groups to ensure inclusivity and make sure the end product can benefit as many as possible.
3) Continue to expand my knowledge on globally responsible engineering through research and taking part in more projects, aiming to implement this into my work at university and beyond.
Justin Keung
1) I will conduct research for average and extreme users in all my project works
2) I will identify relevant stakeholders through my user research to clarify assumptions to ensure I solve a true problem
3) I will join the EWB chapter in my University