New Models and Tools for Future Practice
This week’s lecture we hear from Dan and Nana Parry. Metier Digital, founded by Nana Parry, is “an information and communication technology based company with desirable and suitable delivery of more proficient services.”
COLLABORATION IS KEY
Dan states that collaboration it is the key to the success of any product because collaboration brings out the best in people. Ideas become stronger, you learn better, everything is quicker. It’s just a better thing for everyone when you have a collaborative process that combines lots of different skills and unique points of views together. You end up with something greater than the whole.
Given that Metier is a global agency, working and collaborating with people all over the world, having tools that enables and empowers their work is essential. Metier utilizes collaboration tools such as InVision and communication tools like Slack to stay connected to all of their contributors and clients worldwide. Nana states that it is important for team members to align on the goals of the chosen tools so that you’re making the most of them and maximizing productivity and responsivity.
WHAT’S THE PROBLEM?
The Parry brothers believe that there are two ways to go when looking to create or enhance a produce or service: start with the problem or the audience. When beginning with focusing on the audience, you can determine what the needs of the product, tool, or service are before creating solutions to problems that may or may not exist or actually create a better way to collaborate.
There is also the idea of “perceived problem” wherein a product, service, or tool is desired to solve a problem a user believes exists when upon discovery, research, and collaboration reveals that the real problem is something else entirely. All the more reason to conduct appropriate research and intake at the beginning with as many stakeholders and audience members as possible.
They believe in listing out all the possible problems associated with the primary challenge. Why does the audience need this? What problems are they facing. Then pick three on the list that stand out as the most significant or worthy of exploring further.
COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE AND MVP
In conducting research on behalf of your client or organization, it’s important to investigate whether alternative solutions to the problem you are trying to solve already exist. And if so, do they work well? Is there an opportunity to merely improve upon a preexisting technology revealed through user testing of an existing product or service? Other things to think about is how costly would it be to start? How much effort would it take to start these things?
The Parry brothers emphasize the importance of identifying what the smallest possible thing that brings the most amount of value to your audience or what is known as the minimum viable product.
“The more you understand your audience, the more you understand your problem, the quicker you get your product and service out there, the easier it will be to iterate your product and pivots.”
REFERENCE:
HATO, Crowd-sourcing an identity,[online]. Available at: https://www.hato.co/casestudy/pick-me-up
made open https://weare.madeopen.co.uk/
Johnson Banks (2017)Mozilla: Re-branding the Internet champion, https://www.johnsonbanks.co.uk/work/mozilla (
Dezeen, Morby, A. (2016): Johnson Banks edges close to completing Mozilla rebrand using open design process
Margaret Rhodes Design (2017) Introducing Mozilla’s New Logo, moz://a. Get it? [online]. https://www.wired.com/2017/01/introducing-mozillas-new-logo-moza-get/
Commons Platform: https://commonsplatform.org/
Falmouth University (2020). Building New Models and Tools for Future Practice | Lecture. Studio and Entrepreneurship GDE730 20/21 Part-Time Study Block S2 (Falmouth, UK: Falmouth University)