Loughborough University - School of Business and Economics approached us to design a start up challenge as part of the induction week for their world leading international MBA.
As one of the Top 10 business schools in the UK Loughborough attracts global leaders, looking to make a career shift, from across a range of sectors including agriculture, biotechnology, finance and IT.
We worked with the programme directors and our partners at Snook to design and facilitate an intensive workshop, that took teams from a brief to pitch, over two days.
The content offered early exposure to the MBA curriculum, with a focus on identifying and developing the skills needed for future business leaders. For example Leading Strategic Change and Managing Innovation.
The workshop gave these future industry change makers hands on experience with human centred design methods embedded within the Double Diamond framework.
"Coming to the MBA from different geographies and cultures was daunting at first. Changemakers offered a safe platform where people could express themselves. I used the storyboarding technique in my interview presentation for a Business Analyst role with Deloitte. It was one of the things that set me apart from other candidates and got me the job."
- Sourirajan Ramesh, MBA, Loughborough University
Changemaker Briefs
We developed four 'Changemaker Briefs'. The briefs focussed on the cohort's industry backgrounds and offered a mix of possible product and service outcomes.
- Health and Social Care
- Finance and Banking
- Technology and Engineering
- Consumer Behaviour
The briefs used story and scenarios to frame the problem and context from perspective of people who would use the product or service.
We matched up teams based on the participants' responses to a survey mixing skills, industry backgrounds and cultures to create T-Shaped teams.
Reading Changemaker Briefs
Developing personas
Mapping problems and barriers for the personas from the brief
Sketching and evaluating possible solutions
Storyboarding the user journey
Prototyping the product / service experience through touchpoints from the storyboards
Speed pitching and demo
Over the two days, the teams developed, prototyped and pitched impressive ideas: from a healthy takeaway business connecting world food lovers with local networks of home cooks; to a sustainable energy company and credit union for developing economies.
"Loughborough's MBA has international appeal. A typical intake attracts experienced professionals from business and managerial roles, across 15 different countries and cultures, many of whom are studying in the UK for the first time. With the Changemakers induction, we were keen to encourage a problem solving and creative mind-set right from the start of the programme. Working with Near Now was a resounding success: we were delighted with how the group 'gelled', a positive, motivating and challenging start to the programme."
- Dr Andrew Rothwell, Director of MBA Programmes, Loughborough University
"We are really excited to meet the 2016 intake and look forward to working with the Loughborough MBA programmes team in the future to give their global leaders methods to pioneer innovation in their industries."