This document describes two pretotypes for helping students transition from school to work. The first, Job Genie, is an online application that helps students explore career options related to their course of study by providing information on job roles, skills requirements, salaries, and alumni connections. The second pretotype, M.E.E.Ts, incorporates cross-curricular collaboration projects into the curriculum to help students develop workplace skills like project management, marketing, and using common software. Student feedback indicated support for approaches that integrate career exploration and skills development into academic experiences.

1. +
School To Work Transition
Pretotypes
Wendy Elman
08.19.13
Design Thinking Action Lab
Stanford Venture Lab

2. + Initial Stakeholder Profile
 Meet Sean L., age 22
 Attended University of Connecticut to major in Physics with intention of pursuing
a related career once he got his degree.
 Realized after two semesters he did not actually like his chosen field.
 Emerging interest in product design and music
 He switched to math because he was proficient at it and was required to choose an
alternative in the college he originally applied to
 Attempted (unsuccessfully) to minor in marketing, a subject which he thought
would to support his growing interest in a more creative field
 Dropped out after 2 years.
 Passion: collaborative work with designers and manufacturers to develop new
products.
 Current Work
 Production of technical drawings and product visualizations via 3D Modeling
software
 Reverse-engineering of products to improve upon existing designs
 Teaching Assistant for High School Marching Band

3. + Problem Statement
 Student needs a better way to explore and develop skills related to
subjects and/or areas of interest in a learning environment in order
to better inform and prepare for a career.

4. + PRETOTYPE #1 – JOB GENIE
What it is
Online application for students to discover careers, job skill
requirements, and salary range related to their specific curriculum and
course of study. Also included are links to resources, peer
rated/reviewed company profiles, blog posts from recent grads, and
integration of a alumni networking database. Customizable for each
College/University.
Contributors
Students, alumni professionals, hiring managers (recruiting talent),
faculty, grad students, career coaches and experts.

5. + Job Genie Home Page Survey App
LEARN ABOUT JOBS OPPORTUNITIES & SKILLS RELATED TO YOUR CURRICULUM
Step 1: Select College and Course
Step 2: Choose a Related Industry
Step 3: Select Employment Options
Step 4: Results Page
View Roles & Responsibilities
Skills Required
Salary Range
Sample Job Description(s)
Link to Job Sites
Link to Alumni Network

6. + Job Genie - Results Page
Related Links
 Job Resources
 Check Out famous people who
majored in [Economics]
 Alumni Network
Results Detail
• Role
• Responsibilities
• Skills Required
• Salary Range
• Sample Job Descriptions
LEARN ABOUT JOBS OPPORTUNITIES & SKILLS RELATED TO YOUR CURRICULUM

7. + Pretotype Review –Student Liberal Arts
College
 “I think this would be really interesting. My school has a career services
website with but its general information and assumes you already know what
career you are interested in, which I don’t.”
 “The career services websites I have looked at always start with what we
students interested in NOT what they are actually majoring in.”
 “As I really have no idea yet what I want to do this would be really helpful.”
 “Not sure yet what my career goals are related to my major because I am in the
humanities and other than obvious choices like art historian or social worker I
don’t know enough about all related options. “
 “Helps me understand range of options.”
 “Having access to active alumni’s and this all in one place would be really
useful. There is a lot of information but its not all in one place. “
 “My school encourages me to go and talk with alumni about career
opportunities but I rely on them to help facilitate connecting. “
 “Peer review Company Profiles would be better than general Company info as
I can get that anywhere. “

8. + Pretotype #2: M.E.E.Ts
Mock Employment Education Training (MEETS)
Description: Cross curriculum collaboration module
Cross curriculum collaboration projects with students from different disciplines. Built into the actual curriculum,
this module is intended for students to learn from each other, take on real world jobs and roles, and learn how
to use tools needed for employment (e.g. excel, PowerPoint, website builders, Google analytics,).
The goal is for teams to work together in teams to solve and/or present finding based on a real world
example from an existing company. Students take different roles and responsibilities and utilizing available
tools to develop real world skills.
Example: Physics team discovers a signature breakthrough which could have major consequences for several
industries. In order to gain recognition they must clearly articulate findings, make a business case, generate
supporters, and get their researched published in Nature Publishing Journal.
Roles:
 Researcher
 Marketing Manager
 Project Manager
 Analyst
 Product Designer

9. + PROTOTYPE #2: MEETS
What it is
Cross discipline collaboration projects
Built into the course curriculum, this module is intended to foster collaboration and
teamwork while building everyday workplace skills.
Example: physics, marketing, and economic students collaborate on developing a
business plan and promoting results of new research breakthrough to be published in
an academic Journal in order to gain funding for bringing a product to market.
Goals:
 For teams to collaborate and learn how different roles and responsibilities intersect
in order to achieve results in a timeframe.
 To introduce Agile project management methodology currently deployed in many
workplace settings.
 To gain hands on experience and basic knowledge of common software and
applications being used in the workplace environment (Excel, Website builders,
Google Analytics, DropBox, Google Docs).
Mock Employment Education Training (M.E.E.Ts]

10. + Pretotype: ME.E.T. s
Structure
Faculty selects companies and/or non-profit organizations to develop mock
challenges based on actual case studies. Two classes from different
disciplines are identified. Class participants are split into self organizing
/governing teams and are expected to define specific tasks to be completed
within 2 week increments over a period of 2 months.
Tasks are defined and may include activity related to:
 Define Vision & Mission – team
 Marketing – e.g. create marketing plan, build a “mock” website using web
tool application such as Weebly
 Market Research –e.g. identify competitors with similar offerings, market
size, feature set
 Define Key Performance Indicators –e.g. define how success will be
measured and how KPI’s will be tracked e.g. Google Analytics

11. +
Key Requirements
• Three artifacts
 Project Requirements (“Backlog’)
 Task “Sprint” Backlog (what still needs to be completed)
 Potentially shippable incremental Product, Service or Result
• Four Activities
 Planning Meeting (beginning of initial 2 week period)
 Daily Meeting (can be 15 min.)
 Demo (End of 2 weeks)
 Retrospective (review accomplishments and challenges)
•Primary roles
 Project Team members
 “Sprint” Manager – should rotate for each new 2 week period
 Product Owner – owns product vision
 Marketing Manager – defines communication strategy and related tasks

12. + Step 1- Define the Vision
Class Exercise: Define the Vision
Each person takes a blank post-it / sticky note and writes the 15
word vision for assigned Company and/or product (word-for-
word)
 Each person does this on their own
 No discussion between team members
 Put all of the Vision statements up on wall under a post-it note
labeled “Vision”

13. + Step 2 - Teams Self Organize
 Choose team member roles
 Link to Vision
 Link to Strategy
 Fill-in the details
 Who, what, when, where and why

14. + Create Task “Backlog”
 Prioritize / Order the Backlog of items
 If there is time, the Product Owner can prioritize / order the items
based on Business Value / Priority
 Teams can also use an ordering methodology based on
Must haves
Should haves
Could haves
Won’t haves

15. + Step 3 – Deliver defined tasks
 A maximum two (2) week project iterations (i.e. “Sprint”)
 At the end of the two weeks, the goal of the project team is to have
produced a potentially shippable (incremental) product, service or
result
 The cross-functional, self-organizing and self-governing teams will be
required to have, manage and maintain an “ordered product backlog”
for the duration of the project and own the results for the iteration
 Teams get to choose how to get their work done and what available
tools and applications they will use to do so.
Requirements are to have a) a backlog of upcoming tasks defined and
b) to have a potentially shippable (incremental) product, service or
result

16. + Weekly Update [each team member]
 Last weeks
Accomplishments
 Blockers/Obstacles
 Today’s Objectives
 Resources that can help
remove obstacles

17. + Stakeholder Interview Comments
 “We talk a lot about needing to collaborate more at my school
so this could be great”
 “I feel like I really need to learn how to do basic things you
would do in a job, like HTML or use Excel.”
 “I like that this would be part of the curriculum. My school has
something like this but it’s a separate course and its focused on
hoe to be an entrepreneur. Not everyone gets a chance to take
it.”

18. + Reflections
 I had a lot of ideas but had to think hard about what would actually fill an
unmet need and be different than what already exists.
 Some of my ideas overlapped.
 Designing one aspect of the pretotype was really challenging as
integration of other features were important to the overall offering.
 My student interviews went pretty well in that both pretotypes proved to be
deliver on an unmet need. One interviewee had ideas for enhancing the
experience which I took to be a good sign.
 I learned from my interviews about features which exist already elsewhere
which meant I needed further iteration in order to be worth the cost and
effort.
 I am actually considering building Pretotype #1 out further.