Reflection

At the beginning of this project we were told not to make assumptions right away about our personas. It was hard for us to be unbiased, put our own beliefs and theories aside while researching. But in the end, this definitely worked to our advantage as our brainstorming session was not held back by any preconceived notions so we had to rely on the insights we gained.

This was my first time doing rapid prototyping and I had a great experience. I was surprised by how quickly everything came together when we just focused and brainstormed. Everyone loved the hands-on aspect of it and we feel like there should be more classes like this in business school that would encourage us to explore our creative side.

The least useful part of the project was the pictures taken. While it was a great way to document our research and we definitely liked seeing how happy the owners are with their dogs, we couldn’t gleam any particular insights from these pictures alone.

I loved my group. It was dynamic and interactive. It was my first time working in a group with MBA students; they had a lot to bring to the table. Our group was so diverse that when we had our brainstorming session, there was no difficulty for everyone to throw out 3 or 4 different solutions to the problem statement. We were on the same wavelength throughout the semester. In the past, most of my group projects were done with MPA student in accounting classes. Those projects were so very limited in prompt and scope that every deliverable was just another chore to complete. A lot of accounting students I’ve encountered would just say at the beginning “I am not creative at all, why did you think I chose accounting?” I hate hearing that self-deprecation because it’s simply not true. I never chose accounting because I thought I was uncreative. I chose accounting so I could have a job upon graduation! Anyway, this project gave us so much room to use interdisciplinary skills learned throughout business school. I even got to work on something that I was personally very passionate about because my group was so awesome and open-minded. This project is special to me because for once it’s something that I actually care about. Everyone in the group was fired up making the prototype because we genuinely believed and saw its feasibility, that was a great feeling.