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Assessment # 3 Individual Paper from course guide

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Until now, I have spent approximately one month studying the design thinking course and
received a myriad of valuable lessons. Design thinking is the course to help students find
creative and effective solutions to solve problems and apply them in real - world situations.
This course also enables students to learn more about open-mindedness and related methods
for unleashing creativity. By participating in Design Thinking, I have found the 5-step
process of Stanford University's standards or IDEO model useful for me in solving practical
wicked problems and have a more well-rounded horizon about problem solving. Thus, in this
essay, I seek to reflect on my development progress on attending this course in terms of skills
in planning, problem solving and compiling and organising information.

To start with, design thinking refers to 

“an iterative process in which we seek to understand the user, challenge assumptions,
and redefine problems in an attempt to identify alternative strategies and solutions that
might not be instantly apparent with our initial level of understanding. At the same
time, Design Thinking provides a solution-based approach to solving problems. It is a
way of thinking and working as well as a collection of hands-on methods”
(Rikkei and Teo, 2020)
On attending this course, I have found that the IDEO model is substantially useful for me in
solving practical issues. This model is developed by Hasso-Plattner Institute of Design based
at Stanford University, commonly known as d.school. There are 5 steps of this model,
including Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype and Test. The first step is Empathize in which
planners need to research customers' needs to gain understanding and empathy. This is a very
important step to let go of personal assumptions as well as get practical insight into customers
and their expectations for specific products/services. It is important to build a detailed
customer persona in this step.  The second step is Define. Based on information gathered
from customers' research, we are supposed to analyze our observations and synthesize them
to identify core issues that need adjusting. Ideate is the third step in which it is ready to build
ideas. The information collected from the first two steps will enable planners to contemplate,
seek for alternative and creative solutions to the problems identified in the second step. This
is when brainstorming skills come into play. The fourth step is Prototype. The purpose of this

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phase is to determine the best possible solution to a particular problem. It is necessary to
launch several prototype versions of a product/service to evaluate the effectiveness of the
proposed ideas. Depending on specific cases, the testing process can take place in practice or
just on paper analysis. One of the most important steps in design thinking is testing proposed
prototypes. The results of the assessment will be used to redefine one or more issues that will
arise next. It is possible to repeat the previous steps, make further changes and improvements.

So far, this paper has focused on the general information and knowledge about design
thinking. The following section will discuss my growth and improvement over a month of the
course, especially in terms of skills in planning, problem solving and compiling and
organising information. As mentioned before in my Task 2.1 Preliminary Research using
Design Thinking Approaches, I have applied applied Design Thinking to deal with the
problems facing Kul Express’ target audience including ended-users, B2B and B2C
companies. Ended-users and suppliers in Vietnam find it difficult to keep track with the
package along the journey. Hence, they feel uncertain and worry that the protection and
delivery time may fail to meet their expectations. During the COVID-19 period, this tension
has escalated with severe problems affecting their daily life, especially their financial status.
Thus, it is important for the express shipping service like Kul Express to deal with the
problems and gain confidence in their customers. After researching and applying design
thinking, more specifically the IDEO model, I found that there are a variety of factors
contributing to Kul Express problems. Thus, me and the marketing team of Kul Express have
collaborated to find the best solution to attract loyal as well as new customers. In the first step
of empathy, it is important to build an empathy mapping to get further insight into its
customers. Kul Express target audience is those at the age of 23 – 35 (Gen Y + Millennials)
who are commonly using e-commerce.

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 Figure 1: Empathy Map
With regard to customer journey, it is “the complete experience a customer has with an
organization. It encompasses all customer interactions across all channels, devices and
touchpoints throughout every stage of the customer lifecycle – from awareness to loyalty”
(MacDonald, 2021). On building the customer journey for Kul Express, we invited a
customer to make a shipping order in its website. We finally came up with a customer
journey as follows:

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Figure 2: Customer journey

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From the customer journey map, it can be seen that a majority of customers start to be
frustrated and dissatisfied in the last 2 steps of the process which are tracking and receive
payments

Turning to step 2 of Define, it's time we identified important issues, expectations and
priorities of customers. The issues are grouped as follows:
 Group 1: Courier delay and lost (some due to the COVID-19 pandemic) with
unsupported services.
 Group 2: In adequate care of courier’s protection
 Group 3: Limited point of shipping, receiving package and uncoordinated technology
provided

Every customer wants to ensure their packages are carried and delivered carefully within the
given time. However, as aforementioned, they can feel frustrated from the fourth step of
tracking. This is because the shipping service fail to provide sufficient and adequate
information about the condition of the packages, leading customers to confusion. Therefore,
it is important for Kul Express to deal with these problems first with respective technology
and throughout solution design. In the next 3 steps, we will collaborate to find the most
suitable solutions to Kul Express’ problems.

In step 3 of Ideate, we brainstormed the problems of Kul Express to find out the most suitable
solutions. At first, we thought that Kul Express had problem with its brand positioning and
focused on changing its positioning and identity through brand essence.

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 Figure 3: Brand Essence Brainstorm

However, we then realized that brand positioning is not the top problem facing Kul Express
and thus eliminated this solution and focused on those above 3 groups of problems.
Regarding the first group of problems. It can be seen that courier delay and lost, except for
some objective reasons such as the COVID-19 pandemic, is mainly due to unsupported
service. The other 2 groups of problems, to some extent, also relate to the problem of
technology and tracking methods. Hence, me and the marketing team of Kul Express decided
to deal with them by the solution of an ecommerce driven by technology. It is necessary, if
not compulsory for the ecommerce system of Kul Express to attach the real-time tracking
system with the confirmation photos of the package in each step of the shipping process. Both
parties need notifying of this action and ensure they received the information on-time.
Moreover, further design thinking stages should have made to deliver benefits-focused to
customers before and after the order is finished.

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We also sketch out the potential ideas for Kul Express as follows:

Figure 4: Brainstorm of an ecommerce driven by technology

Turning to step 4 of prototype, we decided to carry out secondary research and ethnography
market research method via qualitative research designs. In this step, the solution is
interpreted as “How might we" as follows:
 How might we create a trouble-free system for customers to minimize the current
problems which they are facing?
 How might we make it convenient for the customers to use?
 How might we ensure the customers the ability to keep track and receive the payment
instantly?
 How might we ensure the company can easily know the current condition of each
package from customers?
 How might we differentiate our main services to top players?
Kul Express will carry out research based on HMWs to test customers’ response. The final
step is to test if the solution come up to the expectations of our team and customers. As
mentioned above, me and the marketing team of Kun Express decided to carry out secondary
research and ethnography market research method via qualitative research designs. The

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former is conducted to find out the possible target segments and assumption of their insights
to deeply confirm in the qualitative research. Here is when the hypothesis will be made to
identify whether the current and potential stakeholders of Kul Express meet problems that
can be solved by the solution of an ecommerce driven by technology
The former will be carried out in focus group and in-home visiting to understand the
problems from both the suppliers and ended-users’ perspective

Regarding the secondary research, we found that Vietnamese customers required and adapted
new technology very fast. This is mainly because Vietnam is now one of the fastest growing
e-commerce among APAC. Thus, it seems that the solution of an ecommerce driven by
technology is reasonable and applicable. When it comes to qualitative research in a focus
group, more specifically for B2B and B2C companies, it is observed that Kul Express’ B2B
and B2C clients are quite young, aging from 23 – 35. This group of people are more than
familiar with technology, expecting a shipping service that apply technology and innovation.
This group requires to keep track of their orders to ended-customers in details.

When it comes to focus group of young ended-customers in the age of 15-35 (Gen Y,
Millennials, Gen Z), they tend to use e-commerce regularly. However, this group gets
frustrated easily when receiving products not carefully packed inside the box. The delivery
service of Kul Express to this group is also less professional and slower.

Besides, in-depth interviews are also required if these above methods fail to collect or get
further insight. The experiment is still in progress after being delayed by the COVID-19
pandemic. We are currently collecting the data and looking forward to the final results.
However, the overall adjustment for this experiment is significantly positive, which indicates
the effectiveness of design thinking. 

With regard to the effectiveness of design thinking tools in organisational context, based on
the case of Kul Express, I believe that it is a key to help organisations/businesses understand
their target audience through constantly questioning current problems, working methods, and
future assumptions. This is an extremely useful way of thinking when it comes to solving
wicked problems – by studying things from customers' point of view, brainstorming ideas
and applying them in practical situations. The testing of ideas through sketching and
prototyping will assist businesses in evaluating and choosing the most suitable direction in

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the future. The main purpose of Design Thinking is to improve a product/service by
analyzing customer or end-user behavior and the causes behind it. Once questioning and
investigating the causes of a problem, the process of finding solutions can help us to generate
ideas that reflect the limitations and aspects of the problem. In the case of Kul Express,
design thinking helps me and its marketing team delve deeper into the problems, challenge
stereotypes, and test products/services to discover new ways of enhancing the situation. In
general, 6 benefits of design thinking that I have concluded from this course and from
practical cases are as follows: 
(1). Helping to see problems from multiple perspectives.
(2). Enabling planners to delve deeper into a problem and identify its roots.
(3). Encouraging innovative thinking and creative problem solving.
(4). Ensuring that the end result meets the client's goals and requirements.
(5). Delivering a more useful and memorable customers' experience.
(6). Facilitating continuous learning and expanding knowledge.

In brief, participating in the course of Design Thinking is a great opportunity for me. Thanks
to the dedication of my lecturers, thanks to the knowledge that I have obtained and thanks to
my efforts, I can partly succeed in applying design thinking in my real-world case of Kul
Express and come up with some innovative solutions. I am now more confident in problem
solving strategy. What I have learnt from this course will certainly be helpful for my career in
the future. 

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References
MacDonald, S., 2021. Customer journey: How a holistic strategy drives profitable business growth.
[online] Super Office. Available at: https://www.superoffice.com/blog/customer-
journey/[Accessed 1 December 2021].

Rikkei, D. and Teo, S., 2020. What is Design Thinking and Why Is It So Popular?. [online]
Interaction Design. Available at: <https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/what-
is-design-thinking-and-why-is-it-so-popular> [Accessed 23 November 2021].

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