One month into the Foster MBA program I found myself at the Toyota and Net Impact Next Generation Mobility Challenge. On my team there was a transportation engineer, industrial engineer, human centered design engineer, a construction manager and me, the MBA. I signed up for the event because it reminded me of the engineering challenges I did as an undergraduate in mechanical engineering. I jumped at the opportunity to work with engineers again, perhaps subconsciously seeking the comfort of the familiar in this whirlwind of an adventure that has been my first month as an MBA student.

Leading up to the event we were given information and materials regarding the current state of mobility and some of the problems Toyota and Net Impact are focusing on – productivity, safety, and happiness in the field of transportation. When I arrived and met my team, we started talking about which of the personas from the reading materials we identified with the most and started throwing out ideas before we had even finished our coffee. Our excitement got a little bit ahead of us as we forgot that the schedule of the day wouldn’t have us even start brainstorming for another couple of hours, after we had discovered and framed. Using a classic human-centered design approach, our process was split into four parts: discover, frame, imagine and prototype.

Discover
This part of the day was focusing on delving deeper into the persona of our choice. The goal was to really the pains and gains our customer faced in regards to transportation. My team picked Reed, a teenager who loves driving, gives his friends rides all the time and doesn’t quite feel comfortable behind the wheel yet.  The materials provided to us included a template of an empathy map and user journey to better help us get inside Reed’s head.

Frame
My favorite quote of the day came from the framing section: “If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on the solution, I would spend the first fifty-five minutes determining the proper question to ask, for once I know the proper question, I could solve the problem in less than five minutes.” – Albert Einstein. The presenter put this quote on the screen and it resonated with me and my team. Even in the Discover portion of the day, my team found it difficult not to get too far ahead of ourselves and skip right to the solution, and it was through this Framing part of the day that we really realized how much we needed to focus on what Reed’s real problem was before we figure out how to solve it.

Imagine
The best part of the day, in my opinion. This is when the creativity really lets loose and you brainstorm for the problem at hand. My team had a ton of ideas jotted down on post-it notes, and I began to worry about being able to narrow it down to one idea. However, once we started organizing the ideas into groups and really focusing on if they addressed the problem at hand, we came to a solution naturally. Having industry professionals in the room as mentors to guide us along significantly helped us in this portion as well.

Prototype
I’m used to prototyping for engineered solutions, I know how to use cardboard and pipe cleaners to illustrate the functionality of the product being pitched. However, in this case our solution was more of an experience that we decided to convey with a story board and role play.

At the end of the prototyping phase, we got to present our idea to the judges and see everyone else’s pitch. I was amazed at the variety and completeness of all the other teams solutions. We had all been given the same material, all gone through the same steps, and yet every team had a completely unique well-thought-out idea. I was amazed and humbled to be included in such an amazing group of individuals working together to solve these very real mobility challenges. I originally signed up to do something familiar, however I ended up completely outside of my comfort zone, and I am a better designer and business leader because of it.