Innovation by Design Thinking Project
This Project presents you the tools and approach used to arrive at a Problem Statement for the FMCG industry arising out of the impact of upcoming ban on Single use Plastic in India (FE Online 2019).
Design Thinking tools & techniques and the Stanford/IDEO d.school model are used to Empathize, Define the problem which in the next submission, the solution would be Ideated, Prototyped and Tested. Two end users of FMCG products are interviewed and the findings are captured and worked upon to empathise using ethnographic techniques and define a POV and final problem statement using tools like persona, user journey map, JTBD etc. For each tool, the uses, along with the annotation and insights are presented in following sections.
Eliminating single use plastics in Indian FMCG. Empathizing and Defining the Problem using Design Thinking
Reflection on the brief and project scope
Initially when given the project description, it was overwhelming. The design brief and the project scope helped to articulate the overall objectives, work to be done and the required success criteria to be met. Though we may not be able to estimate or pinpoint the specifics, its always recommended to start with a hypothesis or initial assumption.
Initial design brief and project scope is to find out the impact of single use plastic ban for FMCG sector. As we considered this problem, which is a wicked one (Buchanan 1992) , it will help me understand how to approach such problems in real life and work. In current digital age and disruption, wicked Problems are all over, and believe this Design Thinking module will help in dealing with them. Design brief and project scope can also help in coming up with an opportunity Hypothesis which can be validated initially and with ease before investing further. Kept the design brief and project scope at a high level to accommodate any deviation as per user needs understanding and ethnographic research.
Executive Summary
Upcoming ban on single use plastic will be hitting the FMCG industry in many ways and the end user is an integral part of the change process which. End users of FMCG are interviewed to find out that they are insensitive to the ban at a personal level, which requires some lifestyle changes. Using Design Thinking, we tried to dig deeper to uncover the underlying problems for that mindset.
After extensive research and empathy, we arrived at a conclusion that users are not aware about the options and alternatives available for single use plastic and also they are not aware about the positive impact they can create at individual level. In case if these issues are addressed, the transition can be smooth and two folded.
Some of the other problems identified with ban on single use plastic are increase in prices, increase in packaging weights and increase in turn around times, which can add to the inconvenience. Users lacks sensitivity about the environment issues at hand at personal level, same time has less hope on positive impact of proposed ban (Goel 2021).
Artefact | Justification for Inclusion/Exclusion |
Preliminary Exercise | |
In-class Design Thinking Experience Exercise | The food experience exercise is my first hand shake with Design Thinking application. So far have only theoretical knowledge and with running through all the 5 stages on the d.school model, the approach is much clear now. I quickly did the exercise with my wife and found interesting insights. Will be using Design Thinking wherever possible in my office as well to find the right problems and come up with right solutions. |
Industry Problem | |
Notes/plan for observing the industry problem in the real world using ethnographic techniques | This is added to give the preparation done and approach taken in coming up with the problem statement. |
Stakeholder Map | To understand who all will be impacted and can influence choices w.r.t the single use plastic ban. |
Plan for interview / Notes of interview using empathy techniques | Planned the interviews in a virtual format due to the existing limitations, however created a environment of trust and tried to formulate the questions in such a way to get the best results. |
Empathy Map | We can think from the users point of view without any confirmation bias |
Journey Map | This will help to know the phases through which a user passes through using the product |
User Persona | This helped to specify a target segment and cater to exclusive needs of the persona |
Initial design brief / Project scope + insights and revisions | This is the initial plan around which the problem statement needs to be captured. |
5Y Tool applied to project | This tool helped to go deeper and understand the actual intent of the cause and action. |
RBT tool applied to project | This tool is used to group the good, bad and need to focus items and to cluster them for insights. |
Write a letter to your problem | Wrote only the love letter. Break up letter is not written because its not fitting in use case I have took. |
JTBD analysis | With this tool, I realised why the user actually uses a service or a product, the primary requirements or jobs he is planning to do and if that jobs can be done in a different or efficient way. |
Establish POV | This tool is used to come up with a well researched and clear Point of View. |
HMW exercise (5-10 questions) | Encourages out of box thinking by re framing and re phrasing the challenges |
Artefact | Justification for Inclusion/Exclusion |
Final Design Brief | This is to finalise the project scope and expectations for next module |
Final Problem Definition | This is to finalise the problem statement and identify the key main challenge to work on |
Teamwork | |
Personal SWOB analysis + personal plan for action in teams | To identify personal strengths, worries, opportunities and barriers for the team activity |
Team Charter etc. | To align as a team for the upcoming group activity of finding solutions for the problem |
Reference List | List of references used in the entire research |
Design Thinking Training Workshop
Reflection: The tools helped me to understand from the point of view of others. Design Thinking Helps us to empathies with the User, know the exact problem and Come up with right solutions. While having good together the main problem for my wife was the cleaning and Hygine part. It helped us to think of ways to address The issues which we havent thought of so far. As problems Each of the tools exposes and give a unique Way to get close to the actual problem/solution.
Plan for Observing the Industry Problem in the Real World Using Ethnographic Techniques
The reason I chose one colleague and one friend is because they are the actual users of FMCG products and also a majority number. I wanted to understand the impact of the single use Plastic ban on their purchase decisions and Lifestyle in general.
Field based – Understood the actual context of the users In making the decisions and purchasing FMCG products
Personalised – Directly connected with the end users to Understand their pain points and point of view
Multifactorial – Included direct interviews, secondary research and other Design Thinking techniques
Inductive – Tried to go in details by series of interviews at different stages and immersive discussions
Dialogic – Capturing the actual observations without coming to conclusions
Holistic – Plan to have a 360 degree view while approaching the problem.
Note: It would be more effective if we observe the user in the actual environment than capturing his words in interview. It would take time to make the connect and get into a realistic discussion before the user opens up.
Knowing the right problem is 50 % job done. Will interact more with end users, keep them engaged throughtout the development process to build the right solutions in the future.
Stakeholder Map
Reflection: Design Thinking helped to take a holistic view of everyone involved who can be impacted due to the ban on single use plastic. A learning is that instead of internal and external Segregation, it will be more effective to segregate as per the influence one can exert.
Of the many stakeholders identified, the direct users I believe can play a crucial role. It helps to give a visual representation of all the associated stakeholders at one place.
This can be a useful artifact throughout the project which need to be updated as and when anyone gets added or gets removed. It also helped in grouping the stakeholders and Generating personas for each.
Plan for Interviews or Notes of Interviews Using Empathy Techniques:
Some of the questions are formulated as below:
What do think about plastic ban?
Do you think it is important?
How can you support?
What are the problems you foresee?
What impact will you have personally?
Alternatives? Etc.
The reason to choose these questions is to understand the point of view of the actual user for the proposed ban and his reactions of it.
Some of the guiding rules are taken from the guidance provided in the study modules of Upgrad.
To pay attention to detail include, ng non verbal cues. Active listening like rephrasing, repeating etc
Avoid any confirmation bias and deferring any jundement and Respond appropriately as and when required
In the virtual set up, it had it limitations. Would have been better if was a face to face communication.
Empathy Map
Reflection: Empathy map assist you in better understanding your users' wants as you have a better knowledge of the people you're designing for. It's crucial to condense all of your findings into a few key takeaways.
This empathy mapping will be really helpful when taking requirements from clients, where we can clearly understand the driving factors for any asks and can clearly suggest alternatives. By empathy map understood that the users are hardly bothered about the upcoming ban.
To come up with the right understanding of the customers and help with right solutions, empathy needs to be an essential part of the Whole engagement.
Journey Map
Reflection: Journey map helped to understand the phase Through which a user will be taking decicions
- Stage 1, purchase
- Stage 2, usage
- Stage 3, Disposal
Of the single use plastics containers used in FMCG It helped to think from each stage where the Customer passes and what might be his needs. Journey Map helped to chart out the complete plan, See the big picture and have a holistic view.
Each phase has its opportunities which are Highlighted by plotting the journey using this map. This would be very helpful in app development projects we have in our company, where we can plan releases of software as per the journey.
User Persona
Reflection: This design thinking tool helped to understand and categorize user motivations and needs. Understood both the positive and negative drivers
Keeps the user at the center and whenever we think of ideating, we cn be more specific to the persona, it helped in being target specific. This persona also helped in role playing and focused reasoning while taking decisions.
As there will be many personas involved, I believe we need to be specific, to know which persona are we catering to. Wherever product are being built, it will be helpful
if they are addressing a specific persona needs.
Reflection: Its very effective and simple technique to uncover the root cause of the problem. We need to Make sure your response is based on facts, and then rephrase the inquiry. It is both iterrative and interactive in nature.
Previously used this in the six sigma framwork projects in an other company. The advantages and Applications must be many its found a mention In design thinking methodologies as well. This can be used in any disgnostic use cases.
What went wrong here? It's a reasonable question, but there's no one way to answer it. We can use the 5 Whys method to figure out what's causing your problem.
Rose Bud Thorn Technique
Reflection: This will be more useful in a group setting, where we will be considering inputs from everyone. Helped to identify common issues and patterns among the inputs given for ease of decision making.
It aids in the codification of research data by Gamification and visualization. Due to its adaptability and ease of use, Rose, Bud, Thorn can be the most commonly used Design Thinking activity in project contexts.
It easily highlighted the wins, challenges and pain points. It can be used in Agile Scrum Retrospective meetings as well which we conduct at end of every sprint.
Love Letter
Reflection: Useful to determine which aspects/ elements/ features of your brand, product, company, or event are favourable and which are negative. This tool is predicated on the assumption that our connections with companies and apps are quite similar to our interactions with people.
Thi helped to uncover how big a problem FMCG Single use plastic is. It highlighted all we liked about the ban from various facets of impact usecases.This is the firt time I am using such an approach. A radical design thinking learning from me.
JTBD Analysis
Reflection: JTBD provides a more straightforward solution that focuses on concrete notions like success criteria or end goals. To the point. This design thinking tool can assist us in better
aligning what you'recreating with what your users truly desire.
While items come and go, the job-to-be-done for the consumer remains consistent over time. Focus is on customer jobs/needs. This can be useful in any scenario where we want to understand the basic motto of any user, why he wants top use an applications, what is he trying to achieve Fundamentally. Very hand to build product roadmaps in Agile.
Establish a POV
Reflection: The POV tool helped in coming up with multiple user needs and the actual insights behind them. The design thinking tool can be user in agile team settings where we have fixed point of views to convert into user stories.
Understanding the impact of single use plastic ban from the users point of view uncovered many oppurtunities to explore. It was initially challenging to come up with a POV but after the interviews and having data articulated through other tools, it was simpler.
Establishing a POV can be used in all requirement gathering phases as a pre condition.
How Might We? - HMW Exercise
Reflection: The How Might We technique looked at challenges as oppurtunitie in disguise and tried to come up with 360 degree kind of thought wheel for the problem. It implies that a solution is feasible, and it provides you with the opportunity to respond to them in a variety of ways.
How Might we questions can be the best way to start the group discussions and ideating phases. Can use this in our team meetings, to be able to think in many ways like the 6 thinking hats.
As we keep expanding the how might we questions, felt that the gamification method, indeed can open up avenues and thought process, which otherwise. Is not possible. Couldn't find any other tools similar to this for divergent thinking.
Final Design Brief
Project Description: To some up with solutions to address customer awareness and social responsibility issues.
Scope: To use design thinking tools and techniques from 2nd module and come up with innovative solutions
Constraints: Limited direct user interaction due to ongoing pandemic and limited to virtual interviews.
Users: Mirnal Singh a friend and Rahul Yadav a colleague
Expected Outcome: An Innovative solution to address the problem statement from Module 1.
Reflection: When started initially the objective was different to find out what are the problems of the FMCG companies, but later when interviewed with end users, identified real problems. This process is similar to project and product scoping where we revisit and refine our initial assumptions, to keep it up to date.
Design Thinking helped me to keep users at the center, think from their perspective and identify their actual needs and requirements. The practical interview sessions are very useful to tackle real time use cases where we can apply the learnings. We had a recent Innovation day challenge, where I used the tools and techniques learned here. We couldn't win the challenge, but the process we followed is much appreciated.
Design Thinking helps it identifying the right problems and coming with right solutions by having customer at the center throughout the process.
Final Problem Definition
Reflection: The initial problem definition is the impact on FMCG companies, which when analyzed and researched in detail, have shown evidence that the major problem lies with users needs, user awareness, intent to adapt, etc. A key takeaway for me is that, what we initially think of as a problem, need not necessarily be the exact problem, we need to spend time, emphasize, research and wherever can use design thinking techniques to identify the right problem, to find right solutions for.
Conclusions About The Industry Problem
The impact of banning single use plastic is manifold where the FMCG industry will be hit along with millions of FMCG users. The FMCG industry is gearing up to tackle this change, however the end users are hardly even Aware that such a ban is in the pipeline and that's the area we which to address.
As understood by the interviews and using ethnographic techniques, the problem will not end by just banning the use, but also educating the user about the sensitivity of the ban. Impact of non compliance needs to be made aware to the users How can users shift to eco friendly substitutes need to be educated. Resistance from the FMCG industries and price hikes which will surely take place once the ban is in place can be handled rightly by the users itself.
Companies manufacture the products for users and in case if there is demand from users side
As well to use alternatives for single use plastic, the transition can be much smoother. The core problem of User Awareness on Alternatives and Sensitivity are the key problem areas We wish to address as part of the whole Single Use plastic Ban issue as we believe its a key and primary success factor in the whole campaign.
Reference List:
Lewrick, M., Link, P., & Leifer, L. (2020). ‘Empathy map’. In: ‘The Design Thinking Toolbox: a Guide to Mastering the Most Popular and Valuable Innovation Methods’. Newark, United States: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Reference list FE Online 2019, Single-use plastic ban may hike costs for FMCG companies; 15-20% raise likely, The Financial Express, viewed 17 January 2022,
Goel, S 2021, India will ban single-use plastics next year to cut pollution — experts say that’s not enough, CNBC
Christensen, C. M., Hall, T., Dillon, K., & Duncan, D. S. (2016). Know your customers' 'jobs to be done': is innovation inherently a hit-or-miss endeavour? Not if you understand why customers make the choices they do. Harvard Business Review(9), 54. Retrieved from
Berger, W. (2012). The Secret Phrase Top Innovators Use. Harvard Business Review Digital Articles, 2-4.
Miro | Online Whiteboard for Visual Collaboration 2022, https://miro.com/, viewed 17 January 2022, .
Bland DJ, Osterwalder, A, Papadakos, T & Smith (2020), Testing business ideas, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Section 1.1 Design the Team
Richard Buchanan,Wicked Problems in Design Thinking, Design Issues 8, no. 2 (Spring 1992): 5–21.
UXPressia - Customer Journey Tool 2022, uxpressia.com.
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