Assignment submission for DESIGN THINKING ACTION LAB by Stanford University

1. Course: Design Thinking Action Lab By Leticia Britos Cavagnaro, Stanford University
Assignment Submission by : Sushma Nair
DESIGN CHALLENGE ASSIGNMENT – EMPATHIZE AND DEFINE
This week’s assignment is about developing empathy for someone who has a stake in the school-to-work transition, and defining a
problem or need (*) he/she has related to the challenge.

2. STAKEHOLDER -EMPLOYER
Mr. X is a business owner of a company supplying Automobile Spare Parts. He has been running the business for the past 20 years. He is a
busy, goal oriented and focused business man who is expanding the business to international arena. He works 14 to 16 hours a day, 6 days
a week and sometimes on weekends as well. Ends up spending precious business time to review work done by admin personnel’s and
rework on it.
SAY (ALL THE QUOTES FROM MR.X THAT CAUGHT MY ATTENTION WHILE REVIEWING MY NOTES)
 I need people for Admin roles as well as operations
 Admin role candidates are difficult to get
 I need people who don't waste my time
 It's important that the candidate can think on his feet
 Give me solutions not problems
 Good English and communication skills is a must
 I need people who can follow instructions
 Computer knowledge and capability to work using the internet another must
 Candidate with no experience is what I prefer, that's a clean slate to work
 Challenging to find candidates
 Right now need an engineer who can do CAD drawings, can you help?
 Handwritten letter is my process to gauge their communication capability
 I don't hire people to rework, I pay them to work.
 What I need is where I can send my requirement to someone, and that person can then sift through candidates and give me only
relevant people
 It is a time consuming exercise
 I want people who smile, not grumpy souls, they bring negativity to the work environment
 Initial interview only helps me gauge their communication ability, the others I have to figure out within the first 2 weeks on the
job
 Some of my recruits don't even last a week

3. THINK (MY INFERENCES (EDUCATED GUESSES) ABOUT MR. X'S THOUGHTS)
 Needs a mechanism to identify potential candidates without too much investment of his time
 Needs an interview process which helps him to identify the most promising candidate
 Prefers a fresher over an experienced individual
FEEL (MY INFERENCES ABOUT MR. X'S FEELING)
 Gets irritated with incompetency in candidates
 Values smart candidates who seem to be capable of getting work done
 Values a positive work environment
 Is desperate to find good candidates for admin roles
 Feels there are no gaps in his interview process
 Considers his method of recruitment is best
 Has high expectations with low pay scale for candidates
INSIGHTS (THINGS THAT SURPRISED ME IN THE INTERVIEW AND THINGS THAT CHALLENGED MY ASSUMPTION)
Things that surprised me:
 to see the dearth of good candidates for an admin role
 that there are employers who prefer a fresher over an experienced individual
 that the process of identifying the right candidate in this company gets completed in under 10 minutes
Things that challenged my assumption:
 I thought that the obvious thing employers did was contacting a recruitment agency with the vacancy

4. PROBLEM STATEMENT
MY PROBLEM STATEMENT:
Mr. X, a busy and goal oriented business man needs a mechanism to identify prospective employees (right candidates) before actually
getting to interviewing and hiring them
STAKEHOLDER NEED INSIGHT