Sample paper
Word Count: approximately 1,150 words
Reflection on Design Thinking Processes
Empathy-phase interviews with bank members revealed the coastal lending challenge extended beyond financial metrics into genuine concern about insurance affordability and long-term financial vulnerability -- an emotional and functional dimension the team had not initially anticipated. This insight shaped a problem statement addressing how to transform coastal lending to manage climate risk while meeting member needs, with empathy mapping and persona creation helping humanise the problem for the team and stakeholders. SCAMPER-based ideation produced promising concepts (climate-friendly building incentives, risk-based interest rates), but a compressed timeframe limited feasibility analysis and left some concepts underdeveloped, highlighting a time-management challenge for design sprints on complex issues. Future sprints would benefit from more structured iteration and testing, deeper and more frequent stakeholder engagement, and time-blocked ideation to balance creativity with rigour.
Reflection on Prototype
The Climate Ready Loan Package prototype combined risk-adjusted lending terms, resilience measures, and ongoing member support, including transitional support provisions for members with at-risk properties, aligning with the bank's dual financial-security and community-resilience goals. Prototyping progressed cyclically from a low-fidelity outline to a high-fidelity digital prototype including a member experience flowchart. Identified weaknesses included unclear digital interface design (traced to insufficient early documentation) and inadequate differentiation between moderate- and high-risk scenarios. Stakeholder feedback praised the practicality of risk-adjusted terms and ongoing support while flagging aesthetics and risk-tier handling for improvement, prompting commitments to more structured paper-prototype documentation and earlier stakeholder feedback integration.
Reflection on Teamwork
Quickly recognising complementary team skills (climate risk modelling alongside interface design) produced an innovative, efficient prototype, with brainstorming and modelling identified as the most rewarding collaborative phases. The presentation phase revealed weaknesses in task definition and preparation that reduced delivery cohesion, alongside friction between creative and practical problem-solving approaches. Identified personal strengths include idea integration and keeping discussions engaged; identified development needs include greater leadership exposure during strategic decision-making, with commitments to improved communication, planning, and pressure-decision leadership in future projects.
References
No formal reference list was provided in the source document.