Create value for others – Engage Resources

Create value for others

Creativity, Stakeholders, Sustainability, Value Creation

creating value 01

By Sigrid Westad Brandshaug, Elli Verhulst, Mette Mari Wold Johnsenin, Engage NTNU

Purpose

Pave the way for the team to explore (diverge) and concretize which actors might have an interest in the team’s idea, and what value the project could provide for these actors. This may later help the teams to choose an idea and to consider how they might involve the actors in the project development.

Time: Part 1: 20 minutes for evaluating one project idea (add another 10 minutes for each idea to be evaluated). Part 2: 10 minutes for evaluating one project idea

When: In the start-up phase

Preparations: Print the document “Create value for others” in A3 format – one form for each project idea to be assessed, about 3 forms for each team. Choose whether to use PowerPoint to present the exercise (a presentation suggestion is available on Blackboard). Read the points on this page and the next two pages so that you are prepared for the exercise and for questions from the students.

Your role: You are the process leader and keep track of the time. The facilitator team should feel free to distribute the student teams among them, so that they can observe the different teams and possibly provide spontaneous facilitation to them.

Creating value for others

In this context, value creation means creating value for others, beyond the value that the project has for learning in the team. It is important to point out that value creation in this context may involve several types of values:

Value for individuals: health, safety, quality of life, well-being, freedom, engagement, self-realization, development, and other benefits.
Intellectual value: improving competence, developing new skills, ability to innovate, knowledge, intellectual property rights, and others.
Economic value: economic capital, infrastructure, market position, ownership of infrastructure, market price of products and services, and others.
Social value: relationships are established, strengthened or maintained, networks and communities are created, etc.
Value for the environment: helping to reduce pollution or emissions, tackling climate challenges, reducing the use of resources, protecting nature, etc.

Implementation – Part 1:

Ask the teams to choose several ideas (2–4) that they want to explore further. Emphasize that this is a phase in which it is desirable for the teams to open their horizons (diverge) to see what potential value the ideas have, and who might be interested in the ideas. Feel free to present the document “Creating value for others – example”, so that the students gain an understanding of the exercise (5 minutes).
Hand out the exercise sheet “Create value for others” to the student teams (one sheet for each idea that they are to work further with and evaluate) and ask them to complete the three inner circles (project idea/problem, actors, and value creation). They can wait to complete the outer circle (involve in the project). (10 minutes per project to be assessed). NB: The keywords on values are intended as examples to help the team to see the diversity of potential values. The teams can be encouraged to use their own words for values that their idea may have for others.
Ask the students to evaluate what has emerged so far. What do they now think about the project ideas?

Based on an assessment of where the teams are in the process and what will be most useful to them, there are three possibilities based on point 3:

Give the students freedom to manage their own time for work on the project. This gives them an opportunity to process their thoughts and the new perspectives they have gained through the exercise.
Allocate time for joint reflection writing. It may be useful to start with personal reflection writing as mentioned in the tip. This may be relevant if you have made observations during the exercise that you think the team would benefit from reflecting on.
Continue immediately with Part 2 of the exercise. This is suitable for teams that have decided on an idea.

Creating value for others

Implementation – Part 2:

Part 2 of the exercise is about how relevant actors can be involved in the project work, and is highly suitable when the students have chosen an idea and are going to plan the implementation of the project work. Ask the students to complete the outer circle on the exercise sheet “Create value for others” where they already have filled in the inner-most circles (10 minutes).

Tip

The exercise can provide some good connections between the project work and the process work in EiT. Therefore, it may be useful to ask the students to write personal reflections after the exercise. As they write, they may want to start with the following questions:

How did the group dynamics influence the discussion while the team was doing the exercise?
How did the group dynamics influence the assessments and decisions that were made in the team?

Questions related to interdisciplinarity in the team may be relevant for team reflection, such as:

Did the team members think in different ways about which values were essential to the idea?
If so, what role did their academic background play in these differences?

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