MAKATI CITY, Philippines- To kick-start the year, School of Design Sprint launched its half-day Innovation Design Thinking v2.0 Fundamentals program. Last February 2, The Sprint King trained 20+ Filipino professionals to generate industry-disrupting ideas in a way that is fast, practical, and appealing to customers via #InnovationThatWorks.

Also on that day, The Philippines gets its very first, Certified Product Development Innovator in the form of Ms. Josephine Ortiz. She was able to discuss her project to the class and inspired the current wave to be an advocate of innovation.

Of course, we wanted to share what we learned from Ms. Ortiz! We asked her a few questions about her journey to becoming the very first to receive an innovation certification and here's what we found out:

Q. How did you become acquainted with the Innovation Workshop?
A. It was part of my Black Belt Six Sigma Program.

Q. What Prompted you to start your project?
A. Our project “Careerhub.Ph” was actually developed a year before I took the Innovation Workshop. The registration of the applicant is high in number but they never proceed to application stage. We were wondering why? What was the cause the problem? Where did we go wrong?

Q. What was your project about?
A. The project is an on-line recruitment website where applicants and employers converge. Employers can post their job vacancies, and applicants can apply online.

Q. What were the results of your project?
A. We realized that our job portal was very strict and that we had so many required fields. Not only that, you needed plenty of clicks before you can begin your job application. What we did was just limited the required fields and lessened the clicks needed.

Q. How was it like for you, starting up and executing your own project?
A. Happy, the months and years of research was cut down to only 5 days.

Q. Among/Aside the Action Items that were done, what were the key elements that led to the success of your project?
A. Our keys to success are our ability to listen, understand and identify the realistic solution to the problem of our customer.
Before, we tried to predict what they wanted, but the truth is we have to ask their needs and hear their voice for the project to be successful.

Q. What was the impact of your project to your company?
A. The project is not meant to create financial impact or profits directly. We developed it to give hope to those we are not able to hire that somewhere out there, there is a bunch of employers waiting for you. At the same time, it serves as a value-added service for our existing customers as part of our customer service.

Q. What was the impact of attending the Innovation workshop to you as an individual / professional?
A. I realized that experts are rightful to their expertise and ignore the customer needs. The voice of the customer should be the backbone of any innovation project.

Q. What would be your message to those who are currently taking / planning to take the Innovation Program or those who are currently conducting their own projects?
A. Put your customer at the center of your project. Because if there’s no customer to serve we have no business to make.
The purpose of this Innovation Program certificate is not to add value to your resume, but to add value to the people who you wish to serve

Q. Is there anything else that you'd like to share about your experience?
A. Never underestimate your customer. They are best solutions to your problem.

There you have it! We hope this story inspired you to be an advocate of innovation.
If you are interested to join our next programs, you may email us at ask@schoolofdesignsprint.com

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For similar stories, you may click the stories section of our website or click here.

​Try it this February to have one extraordinary Febibig! Apply it to your work or your love life. You’ll save time. You’ll save cost. Most importantly, you'll do #InnovationThatWorks.

​Create a seamless customer experience. Create products your customers would crave for. Boost your career.

Oops!

I think I should say create a seamless dating experience. Create unique gifts she would crave for. Boost your love life. :)

Did it help me? DEFINITELY!

Applying Design Sprint can have two different results:

1. To create or improve a product or service
2. To improve your customer’s experience

Whatever your purpose, the result are always useful ideas, happier customers, higher profit.

Let me first focus on talking how Design Sprint can help you improve customer experience and skyrocket your customer satisfaction rating.

I took calls, answered complaints, and guided agents most of my time in the BPO. I wish I knew Design Sprint back then so I could have increased our Customer Satisfaction rating smoothly, quickly, drastically.

Let us see a specific example of my former student. She used Design Sprint and experienced the excitement it brings in solving their 1-year customer problem in just matter of days.

Ms. Jo Ortiz applied Design Sprint into their CareerHub website to increase traffic and utilization. Their Design Sprint adventure can be summarized in 3 major steps:
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​1. Customer Journey Mapping – Problems were quickly spotted by drawing a very simple map of their applicant’s online experience 

2. Ideation – Their team wrote and sketched many creative solutions using a tool called Creative Matrix. Then they formed a single concept on how to build a seamless online application experience by using Sprint’s remix and improve method.

3. Testing their Prototype – This is now where they saw patterns through the Sprint’s structured testing and interview. Testing the prototype with real applicants easily connected what is working. They even discovered the secret in making their customers feel more comfortable in using the site.

CareerHub’s Design Sprint is a great example of how to have a Design-Led Customer Experience. Design-Led CX (Customer Experience) is how you transform your customer service to be a profit generator.
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Now let’s have some numbers to back that up.

Design is a proven secret to success of most wealthy companies. They reap the benefits of more market share, more business advantage, more loyal customers.

You too can reap the benefits using the same 3 major steps.

You can discover how to consistently get 5-star review in forums or Facebook. You can discover how to create a seamless customer experience. You can turn customer service to a profit generator.

Learn how to create seamless customer experience. Learn how to create services that customers would crave for. Learn how to boost your career.

Now is the best time to learn Design methodology because more and more companies are realizing the benefits of including design in their strategies.

Don't get left behind.  Learn what matters.

Learn the unique mixture of the classic Design Thinking and Google’s Design Sprint. Only at School of Design Sprint.
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Enroll now! Take control of your career! Go to https://www.schoolofdesignsprint.com/enroll-now.html
 
​​See you!
 
-The Sprint King

Design became related to Innovation because it’s the proven secret of leading companies to succeed in their initiatives. Feel free to discover their secret in our Innovation Certificate workshop.

Now, mainly in the west, the word Design is being connected with Innovation. - and there’s a good reason why.

Design-driven companies result’s last 2015 has exceeded the S&P 500 (a list of top companies) by over 200% (Design Management Institute).  The same reason why 13 of “2014 Fortune 125” companies have executive-level positions or CEO support for design (Harmer).

• Mark Parker, Nike’s CEO is a designer.
• Jonathan Ive is Apple's Chief Design Officer and a member of Apple's executive leadership team.
• Phil Gilbert is the GM and at the same time, the head of design at IBM.

Design’s core meaning refers to one’s function. Meaning, when you talk to your friend and you say, “Friend, ang ganda ng pagkakadesign mo dyan”. You should not only refer to the facade and decorations. You should also take note of how it feels and how it works when you start using it. 

“Design is not just what it looks like and feels like, Design is how it works.” - Steve Jobs

While Innovation is the process of translating an idea into a product or service that creates value or for which customers will pay. (Business Dictionary)
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Let us put the two meanings into a simple image to further understand.

​As seen in the visual perspective:

• Innovation is an idea translated into a product/service for you to sell
• However, a product doesn’t sell unless the “Design” specification matches the customer’s needs
• Design then becomes your bridge for your new idea to sell

​Customers will buy your products or avail your services if how it works (functionality) will satisfy their needs.

The same truth behind Samsung’s success despite a lot of Android software mobile phones. Their secret is the phone’s functionality matches the need of mobile users.

The more their phone matches the customers' needs, the more the customers will buy.
Paraphrased, the more your Design matches your customers' needs, the more your customers will buy.

So why do companies still fail despite knowing that design is key to a successful innovation? This question is what gave rise to the methodology most people in the west are very much familiar with.

Design Thinking.

Design Thinking was made famous by Tim Brown in which he describes as “a human-centered approach to innovation that draws from the designer's toolkit to integrate the needs of people, the possibilities of technology, and the requirements for business success.”

The methodology made headlines because of breakthrough successes they had. Design Thinking became the answer of most companies in their quest for innovation.

Discover how in our Innovation workshops. What’s more exciting is we even had it upgraded!

You will be learning a unique mixture of the classic Design Thinking and Google’s Design Sprint. Only at School of Design Sprint.

Don't get left behind. Learn what matters. Enroll now!

​​See you!

-The Sprint King

BSP recently launched the new 5-peso coin after the reveal last November 29, 2017. However, Senator Nancy Binay urged the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) to suspend the release of the new coins; citing the public’s confusion over the new P5 coins released this month which greatly resembles with the current P1 BSP coins that feature the national hero, Dr. Jose Rizal. 

Ideally, nobody does anything with the intention of messing things up. Most -if not all, intends to do a positive change, and same goes for the people in BSP;

"The 5-peso coin is a part of New Generation Coin Series boasting “corrosion resistance” abilities and were reportedly enhanced to prevent forgery." (Amancio, 2017)

In addition, this was thought of as early as 2015 in reference to an article by GMA News "BSP to mint, issue new peso coins by 2019"; which means that the effort and resources invested in order to conceptualize, develop, and launch it was at the very least, a year. 

Now let us simplify the information we gathered into 4 main ideas:

1. It is corrosion resistance = reduce cost
2. It aims to prevent forgery = reduce/eliminate fraudulent activities
3. The public is getting confused by the similarity of 1-peso and 5-peso coin
4. The concept-to-development span at least a year = time and money were invested to do this

It is clear that what BSP has done can be classified as an act of innovation in which the purpose was to benefit their business (reduction of cost) and their customer (reduce/eliminate fraudulent activities). 

Now, if BSP is a business, the act of innovation they’ve done will clearly back fire due to the public’s confusion, making their invested time and money in conceptualizing and developing their product go to waste. Why? Because customers will definitely look for other means to conduct their activity in a less confusing and lesser hassle way. bitcoin anyone?

Innovation is really a double edged sword. If it works, you will really reap the rewards, but any failure in doing so, may turn your customer off.

Design Sprint (Design Thinking v2.0) addresses these issues: It eliminates uncertainties in any of your innovation initiatives, marketing strategies, and product or service development; letting you reap these rewards:

• Lesser development time and cost
• High success rate
• Increase market share

Going back to the scenario of BSP, three simple tools of Design Sprint would have sufficed to prevent it from happening:

1. Customer Journey Mapping – to understand how the general public commonly uses and identify the 5-peso coin in their daily life such as this one:

“pag magbabayad ka sa tricycle at medyo madilim... mahirap kasi titignan mo pa yun nakalagay sa pera.. di tulad dati na malaki at gold yun 5 at medyo maliit at silver ang piso”

(if it's dark, you have to exert extra effort by closely looking at the coins. Unlike before, you can identify by feeling their sizes or by a glance since it's distinguishable by color.) 

2. Storyboarding – Using the Customer Map, they can now merge the general public’s perception and their idea into a single visual concept for the BSP to easily evaluate and identify any loopholes in their initiatives while still considering their customer’s sentiments; 

3. Prototyping - without producing a single coin, the BSP could have done a makeshift 5-peso coin using materials that may look and feel real on the façade. This way, a customer input could have been gathered using a very small crowd saving them time and resources from correcting any mistakes while still embedding the features they desire.

Just imagine, using only these three tools, the flaws in BSP initiative could have been prevented making their invested time and effort worth it. Using the Design Sprint methodology makes any innovation initiatives faster while bringing in the guarantee of a higher success rate.  

If you want to know more how Design Sprint can help you become the game changer in your company and industry, you can contact us via email: ask@schoolofdesignsprint.com , we offer public classes for Filipino professionals to learn the methodologies.

We also welcome in giving assistance to corporation's innovation initiatives. 

ask@schoolofdesignsprint.com / 632-357-6830
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Quezon City, Philippines-  School of Design Sprint partners with Six Sigma PH to help make Christmas of the kids at the Philippine Orthopedic Center merrier with the help of  Filipino professionals. 

Early this year, The Teams launched a line of Premium Hoodies as part of their Corporate Service Responsibility. The teams have chosen Kythe, a foundation dedicated to help youngsters with special needs, to be the recipient of the hoodies’ proceed; particularly, their center at the Philippine Orthopedic Center.

It was very fortunate that the teams were able to raise enough funds from the hoodies. Last Wednesday, 6th of December, we dropped of the fruits of our CSR, and we were able to provide new sets of electric fans,  several medical and comfort equipment that the kids need, and a few toys and entertainment items for the kids to enjoy.

Our project would not have been possible if not for the trust that our former students have given us. To the professionals that availed our hoodies, you made this generous occurrence happen.

You must be thinking that you’ve read the last of it, but we would like to ask more of your help: If you know a charity that is in great need of donations and assistance, kindly recommend them to us (contact details below). We still have more than enough funds left and we’re aiming to donate to two more foundations in the early 2018.

God Bless everyone, and happy holidays!

email: ask@schoolofdesignsprint.com
wireless: 632-357-6830
or PM us at Facebook: School of Design Sprint

-by: CG. J. Villegas

PASAY CITY, PHILIPPINES- The Sprint King, Mr. Arthur Flores Jr, gave his insights and recommendations as a panelist in the recently concluded event “The Journey to Digital Quality” hosted by The Information Technology and Business Process Association of the Philippines (IBPAP) Quality Council.

The discussion mainly revolved in the possible role of Quality in the Digital Age. Being both the Program Director of Innovation Certification Programs and a Certified Six Sigma Black Belt Consultant, Arthur's insights are rooted at how quality and digitization- which can be a form of innovation, interlocks with one another. 

According to The Sprint King: "The role of the BPO industry is already shifting, from a company who mainly accepts outsourced task and do it as it is agreed upon, and get income on a per head basis; into companies who are expected to also act as consultants to see how they can add value to the process entrusted to them....

"And no one else is in the forefront of this paradigm shift other than the Quality Department. With this shift, the role of quality has shifted from a cost center into a profit center department. Why? Because clients no longer looks for who offers the cheapest service, rather they are now looking for who can provide additional value to them. And Lean Six Sigma specifically address this need. “

Before the discussion reaches its end, The Sprint King left the audience with three critical points to ensure that quality is embedded in their digital initiatives:

Know your business goal and objectives
     Are you aiming to increase productivity, reducing errors or defects, or controllership? 

Know your customers.
     Either External or Internal, at this point in time, the customers are more powerful than ever, they are the ones who dictate the value of things. A clear example of this is bitcoin, bitcoin is not backed up by anything aside from the perception of the consumers that it is something that they need. Same goes for quality, your customers or clients are the ones who are going to dictate what is are going to dictate what is valuable to them.

Optimize your process first
     Not because digital is in, and other companies are already doing it, you should do it now as well. Because if you implement digitization without improving your process then you can risk automating defect-generating steps in your process as well.


A friendly tip for companies eyeing digitization in the near future:

The common practice in digitization is that companies will find a digital product, and then plugs it in to their organization, where the whole organization will be forced to undergo an enormous amount of change.

This is what makes your partnership of the Six Sigma Guy and the Sprint King unique; our clients are guided using disruption transformation models. This ensures that they do not carry over unhealthy and unnecessary process steps in their transition to digital, plus, it predicts whether your innovation initiative will be feasible even before implementing it- both by using Six Sigma and Design Sprint (Design Thinking v2.0) respectively.

This approach have already lead to thousands of concept-to-development hours being saved and millions of cost and efforts being wasted.
 

Going digital? contact us at ask@schoolofdesignsprint.com  

by: CG.J. Villegas