Product Innovation, Project Management
Empower Edu: Explore a collaborative project that evaluates a problem statement, identifies the root cause, and proposes a technological solution.
Project completed for Analysis of Information Systems under the guidance of Leona Mitchell. Completed with Zoey H, Nathan J, Lexi S, Alex C.
Background
Analysis of Information Systems is a course that develops industry-required skills for the analysis of information systems. It includes all phases of Life Cycle Management from analysis, design, implementation, management, and all project management activities.
Its biggest piece is a semester-long group project where students build real-time technology solutions to address a specific user need. Empower Edu is our solution, but I’ll run it back from the beginning so you can see how we got there, including building out our problem statement, a concept design presentation, a requirements document, and a final solution design presentation.
Problem Statement and Root Cause
Our team first identified some of the ongoing problems in the country. Of course, there are many, but we were looking for something narrow enough to build a solution for, and also something that felt relatable and meaningful to us. We decided on sexual education in America, after reflecting on our own less than adequate experience with it in high school.
We honed in on our problem statement in the following weeks, but our first iteration became this:
Comprehensive sexual education and healthcare is inaccessible to young adults.
From there, we examined the why, using a fishbone diagram and the “five whys” framework. Without investigating the why, it would be impossible to propose a solution.
In our fishbone diagram, we explore the different factors that sexual education and healthcare inaccessible to adolescents and young adults, including environment, access, safety, discomfort, and education.
In one of our five whys pictured here, we break down the education cause, continuing to ask “why?” until we get at the root cause of our problem statement
From this investigation and class feedback, we altered our problem statement to include the issues the problem creates:
Our societal neglect of young adult sexual health and education leads to an underdeveloped view of sexuality, dangerous, uninformed choices about sexuality and sexual health, and a lack of healthy relationships.
Concept Design
We jumped further into the research as we prepared to present our concept design. This was an opportunity to evaluate our problem and brainstorm our way to a concept that explains what the solution will do and how users will interact with it. As team lead, I planned weekly meetings where we conceptualized our product, divided up tasks, and helped each other meet our goals.
Below are the slides we presented as a group in our 7-minute presentation to the class, simulating a pitch to stakeholders. We then took questions, concerns, and comments for 5 minutes. A SWOT analysis and sources are included at the end for our professor to review, although not presented.
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Sources
SWOT Analysis
Requirements Document
With our concept design completed, we began to establish our requirements for a requirements document, ranging from functional user requirements, to sustainability requirements, to availability and performance requirements.
Again, we spent a lot of time together debating and revising- what’s most important? What’s essential and what’s non-essential? And maybe most importantly, how could we explain frame our problem and its solution in a way that entices readers to want to buy-in on the concept?
To address these needs, we used a template adapted from Stanford University, which helped us systematically tackle and articulate our project's requirements.
Final Solution Design
We’ve learned from our first presentation. We’ve enriched our solution through the requirements document, which allowed us to ideate and improve on our solution.
In a final 7-10 minute presentation, our professor listened as the role of an important investor who is interested in funding someone to develop a solution to the problem we’ve been studying. Our goal: to get my approval to move forward and obtaining funding from our professor.
This meant including a background summary that proves this is a problem worth solving, a proposed solution, and finally the benefits to both our users and stakeholders. As one of the three members of our group presenting, I focused on showcasing our proposed solution in the presentation slides below.
Our project received a perfect score for information presented in a logical fashion, and strong credible data points with a solution conclusion that tied back to that data and problem statement.
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Sources