Design Thinking in Kigali

Mwaramutse! Good morning!

At 8am on Thursday morning, we found ourselves sitting and anxiously waiting in a large room with no participants in sight. We waited and slowly were giving up hope... But then maybe half hour later, one participant arrived. Another half hour later, two officers in uniform appeared. They were from the Ministry of Defense. We waited for some more time, and soon enough, we had a room full of participants! We had a turnout of 22 participants. That's not including our key advisors from RDB and DOT, and ourselves. We couldn't have been happier :) We decided that we'd divide the participants into 3 groups. We had prepped for up to 4.

Francine, our main collaborator from Rwanda Development Board (RDB) kicked off the workshop to explain the high-level vision. Many of the participants were in our Monday kick-off, but many weren't. Then I went over our work plan quickly, to stress that we were here for only 3 more weeks, and that our work during the workshop would help narrow the scope. Then I briefly introduced Design Thinking. It was high level without going into details, so that we could rather spend the time doing the hands-on exercises and understanding Design Thinking through them.

(We are going to leave soon for our weekend outing... so I'll be brief ;))

We took turns facilitating the activities. I kicked off with a single Stakeholder map for all participants. Then, Kiran (from India) covered Empathy maps. We did 3 for the top stakeholders, who are users who would actually use the Smart Rwanda dashboard. Then Alain, our local intern, facilitated the Pain points. Rodrigo (from Brazil) took us through Ideation and prioritization. Bhuvana (from India) guided us through Who, What, Wow for hills. Because we started an hour late and had a packed agenda, we then skipped to To-be Scenario. This particular activity was a bit more challenging than the others. Wilson, our local advisor, helped clarify. It was still a tricky one. Then Wilson explained the Hopes + Fears in Kinyarwanda. We also used the Parking Lot for future or other considerations.

Initially, the participants were shy or tentative. They all sat at the tables and wrote their thoughts on sticky pads with the markers. Then they would go to the walls and post their stickies. They had great comments and ideas. They voted. Some of those folks are very technical. They head ICT (Information & Communication Technology) for their respective ministries or institutions. Among their hopes and fears is the fear that the project becomes another shelf liner, as have many others in the past - the hope being that this project would not endure a similar fate. That's our hope too. We hope that it can become a model for East Africa and beyond.