CUMMINS

Using HCD to build a better service model for Sans Souci

Toured the high horsepower (30 and 95 li

BACKGROUND

Why were we working with Sans Souci?

Cummins is trying to build a culture of bottom-up innovation. To do that they are working on institutionalizing human-centered design throughout the organization. My task was prove out the utility of HCD and complete an impactful project, in 3 months, that could be showcased throughout the company. Because Cummins' projects typicaly span years we needed something that I could do over the summer. We found a perfect fit with Sans Souci.

OBJECTIVE

Use HCD to find a way to help help Sans Souci have the greatest impact on the most lives.

Sans Souci is a local non-profit thrift shop that is part of the United Way network. Sans Souci provides aide to the community in three core ways: 1. Low cost assistance through their thrift shop. 2. No-cost assistance to those in need. 3. Providing employment and training to otherwise unemployable people and getting them on to better employment.

Management knew they needed help but they weren't sure where to focus their efforts or which initiatives would have the greatest impact. That's where I came in.

THE PROCESS

Human-Centered Design

Human-Centered Design is a framework for immersing ourselves in the perspectives and behaviors of those we’re designing for, reframing problems and uncovering opportunities in order to develop strategies and solutions tailored to meet their unobvious needs.

To make sure we provided a long-lasting, sustainable, and impactful solution we needed to gain an intimate understanding of Sans Souci and those who had a stake in their success.

DISCOVER

STAKEHOLDER MAPPING

Satisfaction Guaranteed

The first step was to understand the human landscape. We needed to know who the stakeholders were and how they fit in to, influenced, or benefitted from Sans Souci's success. We set about getting to know management, board members, customers, employees, and other community groups that were involved in Sans Souci.

ETHNOGRAPHY

Interview, Observe, Question

To understand the dynamics at Sans Souci's and it's impact on the community we began:
▪ Attending meetings, trainings, and events
▪ Observing operations
▪ Interviewing customers and employees

DEFINE

EXTRACTING INSIGHTS

Rose-Thorn-Budd Affinity Clusters

After completing our first round of interviews we identified postive comments, areas of improvement, and pain points as we transferred interview comments to sticky notes. We then organized the comments into common themes to bring clarity to our research. We found out that most employees really enjoyed working at Sans Souci, so much so that they didn't want to move on to better employment. We also found out that although employee development was having an impact, it was very unstructured and heavily reliant on specific individuals.

FINDING CLARITY

Choosing employee development as our focus

We presented our findings to a group of management and board members. After completing an Importance/Difficulty Matrix (a tool to help prioritize opportunities) we settled on employee development as the focus for our project. This was an area that the board was proud of and that was really impacting lives, but that had very little formal structure.

DEVELOP

2ND ROUND OF INTERVIEWS

Focusing on Employee Development

With employee development as our focus we began a 2nd round of interviews. We spoke with employees about their origins, difficulties, and hopes and dreams. We also spoke with other non-profits in the area that were working with the same demographics to see how they were approaching how to lift people out of poverty. This helped us gain a better understanding of what these people face on a daily basis and how they see the world.

PERSONAS

Enter Brooklyn, Bradley, Susan and Stewart.

After completing our interviews we realized that there were four groups of people who directly benefitted from Sans Souci's employee development program. We represented these as Stewart (has work experience but has fallen on hard times, he just needs to get back on his feet and then on to better work), Brooklyn (she has little to no work experience, is a high school drop out, and needs to gain the education, confidence, and work experience needed to find a better job and take care of herself), Bradley (nearing the end of his career but is having a hard time finding work due to physical limitations), and Susan (she manages Sans Souci, is well educated, but has limited career growth opportunities at Sans Souci).

THE AIRPORT

A framework people can relate to

To help explain how these different people fit into the Sans Souci ecosystem I created the analogy of Sans Souci as an airport. Here we have people that are preparing for takeoff (Brooklyn), those who need to refuel, refit, and redeploy (Stewart), those who are looking for a soft place to land (Bradley), and mission control who manages the operations (Susan). The analogy was an instant success and quickly caught on not only with Sans Souci but also other non-profits in the area.

“The Airport analogy provides a great context for discussing the interaction of the four client groups in terms that are both balanced and positive for each.” -Al Degner Executive Director

Housing Authority of Columbus

ITERATE

IDEATING

To ensure we were coming up with a broad array of ideas we brought together 20 individuals with experience working in or involved with the local non-profit community and . These individuals work regularly with the different groups of people that Sans Souci helps. These community partners and brought valuable insight to this project. The researchers used their collective experience to come up with different ideas to help our personas.

PROTOTYPING

Groups of participants gathered their insights and ideas and came up with development plans tailored to assigned personas. Then, after each group presented their ideas individuals voted on which elements they believed would be most impactful.

DELIVER

SYTHESIS

After gathering the results from our stakeholder workshop we began assembling the best ideas. For continuous improvement, and to make sure we were on the right track we tested our solutions with stakeholders. With the help of Taco Bell we made it through some late nights in the office.

DELIVERY

With tremendous buy in from Sans Souci's management and board we set up a plan to make sure the new system would be implemented. Sans Souci has assigned support within Cummins as well as a board-appointed champion to keep the project moving forwward.