WEEK 1
18/03/2019
“In the first day of LAPASSION project we had a meeting with authorities of IFMA and secretaries of state. There was a presentation about IFMA and LAPASSION project. But, before that, we had a breakfast and it was a great opportunity to talk to the participants of the project. We were informed about our schedule and how LAPASSION works.
After that, we knew the Innovation Factory, a room where all participants are allowed to use it during the period of activities. It’s fitted with tech devices which will help the students in developing their projects. Also, there’s a extension of Innovation Factory in a container in the parking, with more tech devices.
After the break time, we went to Black Swan, a partnership of IFMA, where we’ll have some meetings and workshops. In that day, we knew who they are and how they work. It was a day for us being aware of the major challenges to faced in the coming weeks.”
Gustavo Espindola
19/03/2019
On the second day, we had a meeting at 10:00 a.m. feeding us with more details about the project, where they told us our obligations, such as budget report, weekly activities report (that has to be done in PDF format and in blog format), and about the breakfast we have to organize. That’s right, each team must organize a breakfast to everybody else in specified dates, however the food to be offered have to be the ones people usually eat in their respective regions, as a way of letting us know the culture from where the students come.
They also presented us the tools we’ll have to use, such as Google Drive, Trello, Slack, etc. What’s more, they told us that project LaPassion São Luís edition’s site is lapassion.ifma.edu.br.
In the afternoon, around 4:00 p.m., we had a presentation from the assistant secretariat for HDI’s (Human Development Index) rising of Maranhão’s state. In this presentation, he talked about the main reason we’re taking part in this project: we have to propose innovative solutions to raise Maranhão’s HDI, which unfortunately is the Brazil’s lowest one. He showed us varoius indicators that influence the IDH calculation and several measures that were taken, but need help to become effective. At the end, we could ask some brief questions, although he had to go out for some minutes, for a meeting at IFMA. Meanwhile, the coaches presented us the teams division. They were six, and the sub challenges for each one were:Team 1: to improve tourism experience for increasing economic growth in Santo Amaro;
Team 1: to improve tourism experience for increasing economic growth in Santo Amaro;
Team 2: to improve tourism experience for increasing economic growth in São Luís;
Team 3: to improve the access to basic needs in São Luís;
Team 4: to propose digital services for helping women at risk situations in São Luís;
Team 5: to propose services for helping women at risk situations in Santo Amaro;
Team 6: to improve potable water quality for people in Santo Amaro.
I’m in Team 5 with 4 other colleagues: Petteri (Business – Finland), Gustavo (Civil Eng. – IFMA), Jhonatas (Electrical Eng. – IFMA) and Ana (Information Systems- IFMA). Our coach is professor Maycon.
When the secretariat came back, we could ask him questions directly related to our sub challenges. After taking notes and discussing in group, we listed some ideas and actions to get our job started. One of the actions to be done is to pay a visit at Casa da Mulher Brasileira (Brazillian Woman’s House) to get more information.
Evandro Mendonça
20/03/2019
“On Wednesday we had a meeting in the morning to research and plan visits and interviews to the organs that can help us know more about the reality of the women here.
During the afternoon we participated in a dynamic to get to know each other better, we formed different groups and we made a drawing that represented our preference of food, music and place. It was really fun working with creativity. Then we watch at a presentation about the trip to the city of Santo Amaro, we organize groups to share lodging, and we clarify doubts about it.
At night we had a meeting with all the participants in a pizzeria, a time of much conversation and relaxation.”
Ana Torres
21/03/2019
“On this day we developed our activities in the Blackswan space. The goal was to learn about Design Thinking and as such can help us succeed in solving the subchalanges.
Some techniques and tips have been presented. For example, in order to be successful and empathize with the target audience, we must observe their world, appreciate them as human beings, understand their feelings, and communicate comprehensively. The convergence of Design Thinking takes place through desire and viability.
We should also worry about only collecting information initially. We should not worry about a final product or specific questions about the end of the project. In the opportunity, we elaborated many pertinent questions to be questioned in the Casa da Mulher Brasileira and in the Delegacia da Mulher that are institutions that will give us informative support before we develop work in the field.
At the end of the meeting, we gave a presentation of our ideas, difficulties and information.”
Jhonatas Gutierrez
Week 2
In the second week, Team 5 started really working on the questionnaire to the trip of Santo Amaro. Also, we started developing a plan to the trip. What we were going to do, when we were going to do it, where we wanted to visit and what we wanted to get out of it. We had a workshop of ethnography and field research. We had useful feedback to our questionnaire from the workshop and with that feedback we managed to get the questions done. In addition, we made a special visit to Palácio dos Leões (Lions’ Palace, in a free translation), which is the state government facility. They took us on a tour and later we met the governor himself. Some other authorities were there too, and they talked about LaPassion’s project and the expectations they had about our work.
On Tuesday we completed our plan for the trip. We informed all the places where we want access and decided what kind of people we want to talk to get the information we need.
On Wednesday we had a mutual information giving hour at Fabrica. We had the information about when we would leave to Santo Amaro, what could we expect, etc. Then we had a small presentation to the insights of our progress. What had we done and what we still need to do. On Wednesday our questionnaire evolved a little bit. We simplified the questions to the different parties. Like some of the questions to the police, some of the to the hospital and schools etc. From women we asked very simple questions about their life. During the afternoon we visited the ‘Casa da Mulher Brasileira’ – House of Brazilian Women, we interviewed the director we know more about the procedure of accompanying the woman who needs help.
Thursday we left to Santo Amaro. All day went traveling to there. When we got close to Santo Amaro the reality hit us. We needed to go to the riverside by Toyota Hilux. Because roads are so bad that you can’t go there by bus. Then we loaded ourselves onto the boats which we went across the river on. So it is very difficult to get in Santo Amaro. First impression of the town was that they don’t have sewers there. All the water from the rain just flooded the streets. Also they don’t keep their animals fenced. Horses, cows and chickens just are running in the streets.
We didn’t have the time to do anything at Thursday. So we where half a day behind our schedule. On Friday we started our research. First we went to the City Council to introduce our program and our teams. They, in the City Council, also introduced themselves. Then we went to do our interviews. We had the chance to talk to social workers, police officers, teachers, students, hospital workers and women of Santo Amaro. We managed to get over 20 interviews in one day. We wanted to be proficient so that we could enjoy our stay on Saturday. We got to our goal and the Saturday was an off duty-day for us. On Sunday we spent almost all day travelling back to São Luís.
Week 3
Monday – First day after the trip. Lots of work to do and little time to work. That’s basically what week 3 was. Back in Sao Luis, our team had to be together for hours to figure out what we’d do with the information we got in Santo Amaro. Monday was a day to read and try to come up with ideas to the first GD (Gran Deliverable).
Tuesday – at Black Swan, we had a workshop about how to find out our personas and how they would help us to develop our project. Based on the gathered data, we built one persona (Úrsula, Informal Worker), her timeline, her channels of interaction and her emotions in each moment of the timeline. It was good to learn about that process because our service must be developed taking into account the needs of the users, and our personas are supposed to represent our users. But it would be much more useful if we had learned about that before the trip to Santo Amaro, as we noticed we should have asked questions a little bit different to the interviewees. By the way, we were informed about a little presentation we would have on the next day, just to explain what we’ve done in the last couple of weeks.
Wednesday – in the morning, our team met at the Innovation Factory and we spent the whole morning talking about our sub-challenge and what we would present in the afternoon. That was the perfect time to start building our GD1 presentation and we even started to do so, however, with the presentation in the afternoon, we didn’t have much time to focus on that. The most part of the afternoon was dedicated to the presentations and the feedbacks.
Thursday – on this day we had the Team 1’s breakfast, with a little group dynamic before it, and it was the day before the GD1. So we had to hurry up and get things ready as fast as we could. We were supposed to deliver the slides of DG1 until midnight. So, the whole day was dedicated to build our personas, to analyze the charts we made, and we started to develop the presentation itself. As we wouldn’t be able to finish everything in time, we decided to go through the night awaken to get things ready to the Grand Deliverable. And so it was. Fortunately, in the end, we could finish it. It took us a lot of time. Some of us just took a quick nap, but it was worth it.
Friday – our Grand Deliverable could have been better, but we did a great job with the information we had. All the GD1 of the other groups were excellent. They did a great a job, too. About our presentation, we exceeded the time stipulated and the coaches gave to us their feedbacks. Some of the things said during the feedback we already knew, because as we were in a hurry, we had in mind it wouldn’t be perfect. Some other things we also could notice during the presentations, like, “Oh, we should have done this differently”. Other things that were pointed out we hadn’t realized until they said, and it was important for us to improve for the next presentations. It was good, though. The crucial parts were correct and the work we’ve been doing is coherent. Now is time to rest, get ready for next week and work hard on the improvements.
Week 4
Monday – In the afternoon, we went to Black Swan for one more workshop. This time it was still about (Web)ethnography. We received another paperboard onto which we were supposed to affix some post its. We had to write on the post its our personas and, related to each one of them: their tribes; the dynamics of these tribes; the classification of the actions that the tribes do to solve their problems; and the qualifications of each one of those actions. Based on all this, we should think in the main pain the personas have and their hope. This process is very useful to find the opportunities for the design thinking methodology. The problem was that we had this workshop only after presenting our three opportunities in the last week. So this workshop was, at the same time, useless for GD1 and very terrifying for our expectations about GD2, because as we didn’t have that kind of information in our data. We had to start to think about strategies to get more data without necessarily being back to Santo Amaro.
Tuesday – We had a presentation from IFMA’s students that were in LaPassion Chile edition. They presented us their GD2, so we could understand what it is about. They showed us their mistakes, good and bad points of their work, gave us some tips, etc. The coaches asked a lot of questions during the presentations. After the presentations, the students had a very serious talk with the coaches. Many points were mentioned, such as: the students are confused with the dynamics of the project, because sometimes we have workshops only after the time we were supposed to use it (for instance, the web ethnography workshop, that should have been given before GD1 or even before the trip to Santo Amaro); the feedbacks from the coaches are not so constructive as it should be; the communication between students and coaches should be improved; among others.
Wednesday – In the morning, we had the Team 2 breakfast. The same way as Team 1 did, they made a little dynamic with us, in which we had to give them suggestions of solutions for their opportunities. After the breakfast, we had a meeting with our coach Maycon about the next steps we must follow to continue the project. In the afternoon, around 3 p.m., we had a special visit. Tiina, an incredibly amazing coach from TAMK, Finland, came to help us with our projects. She asked us 3 basic questions: “1 – What went well?”; “2 – What do we need to improve?”; “3 – What do they need to improve?”. Those questions helped us think of the overall status of LaPassion project and gave us the opportunity to tell our problems. After discussing all the topics and giving us some advices, we all ended the day more motivated. She was able to show us why we came here for. It was great!
Thursday – The whole day we had a workshop about many Apple’s tools that can help us during the project. We used iPads to make creative videos with all that we have learned. Apart from that, some integrants of our team were working on the sub-challenge.
Friday – From 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. we had another incredible meeting with Tiina. She taught us some very useful tools. One of them was the NABC (Needs, Approach, Benefits and Competition), which is extremely helpful when you have to create rapidly a presentation. She asked us to present her, in 3 minutes, what we’ve done until now in our sub-challenges. We did so, and then she asked us what we’ve learned. Then she gave us feedback. It was amazing, because while she was giving advices to one team, we could take notes and apply it to our cases in particular. She said she’s really looking forward to seeing the results we’re going to achieve. In addition, we could solve our doubts with her. In the afternoon, our team had a meeting to decide what to do next and everybody went to work in each one’s tasks. The clock is ticking and we’ve got to get more data, analyse it, enhance our personas and get things ready, because the GD2 is waiting for us next week.
TEAM5 LAPASSION@SLZ 