Art Institute
Dallas
UNT
SMU
Art Institute
Houston-North
& TCU
Team Creativity - SPDA3320
This fourth Connections class, Team Creativity, elevates previous experiences to allow students to manage self-directed groups to solve real-world issues with our partner company.
The final project assembles all of the research, innovations, rough and finished ideas, storyboards and metrics for success culminating with a portfolio project that demonstrates the wide range of talents each student brings to the partner project and UNT's PDA program.
Spring 2022
Students were challenged to interact with our project partner, Jonathan Saffian, Product Manager of Innovation at Sam's Club, in and out of the classroom setting to develop the right questions to push projects and solutions forward.
Design Thinking Tasks & Activities for Sam's Club project
In addition to studying the Balanced Scorecard, students decided which Design Thinking Framework activities needed to be explored to help their group create solutions for the midpoint review and final presentations.
Class Activities
In Week 1, students were led on tours of the club by our partner, Jonathan Saffian, for their initial research and question opportunity for the project.
This Week 2 exercise was like a design inspection, to examine the environment designed for with different "lenses" or mindsets.
This Week 2 exercise was to help students think about researching innovation in other industries to help create new ways of thinking for our partner's challenges.
Group Activities
These online workspaces allowed the teams to use the Design Thinking framework to work together through the various exercises that create their solutions. Student groups had expansive, self-directed exercises in Mural boards that explored Journey Maps, Personas and Impact/Feasability for their many ideas.
Final Portfolio Case Studies
Students activities included rapid ideation and weekly group reviews using the Six Thinking Hats to get feedback to constantly review and improve their individual ideas.
Simonne Cudmore: Members Bark
Brandon Williams: Paw Pack
Sophia Richardson: Sam's Pets Club
Kush Aggarwal: Pets Membership
Shyla Oommen: Pets Membership
Steven Judson: All-in-One Pet Service
Final Presentations to Sam's Club
This class connected with SPDA3221, a workshop class taught by Dr. Clinton Purtell taught in tandem with SPDA3220 to explore outside resources through guest speakers and our partner. Students presented to the Sam's Club C-suite partners and their faculty at the end of the program.
Jonathan Saffian, Product Manager of Innovation at Sam's Club and our project partner, introduced the participants before the presentations started. Along with members of Sam's Club, UNT faculty also asked follow-up questions specific to their classes demonstrating how all classes interact with and support the Connections courses for the Project, Design and Analysis degree.