Funny SNL sketch to motivate client-identification and establishing clear objectives

In this activity, we use a funny sketch from Saturday Night Live, to motivate the following lessons: Recognition of the right clients, stakeholders and stakeholder needs is critical for the success of any product design. With the right stakeholder and customer identification, we can better establish 'objectives' and design a 'testing/evaluation plan' that allows us to assess how well the objective was met. A disconnect between the objective and testing plan can make the design process irrelevant. 
At the end of this section, I elaborate on how the 3C's can be reinforced through this activity.

ACTIVITY DESCRIPTION: 

The full activity is broken into three parts: 
1. In-class case study (25 - 30 minutes) 
2. Out-of-class research and assignment (2 - 4 hours) 
3. In-class gallery walk (30 - 45 minutes)

Setting: 
Case study: Classroom setting with Audio/Video capabilities
This involves watching an online video two times and answering questions. The video can be assigned as a homework such that the students come to class after having watched the video.one time, but watch it together as a class for the second time. The initial questions can be posed in the following ways: 

• open discussion 
• online platform such as Top Hat or Poll Everywhere

The worksheet can be assigned as a homework assignment ('Video deconstruction homework') or be done in class. See instructor tips section for the 'common mistakes'

Research and assignment : out-of-class
For this, you can provide students with large poster sheets, some arts and crafts material(s) to make a fun poster. Most of this work is conducted outside the class. 

Gallery-walk: Classroom setting with enough wall space
Students will bring their completed posters to class (whenever you make it due), so this should be conducted in a classroom where students can put posters on the wall and be able to walk around to see others' posters as well. 

Audience:
Activity is most suitable during the early exposure to engineering design. Depending on the college/department, this may fall in the Freshman or Sophomore year. This module fits well when teaching the first two phases of Engineering Design ('Problem Definition and Conceptual Design'); it is the most suitable as an introduction to any course content related to identifying design needs and establishing objectives and evaluation criteria (e.g. engineering specifications). 

I. In-class case study: 

1. With minimal instruction beforehand, watch the following video with the students. The instruction may be limited to 'Let's all watch a video together'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ok8maeQl0o8 

Summary of the video: Keith attends a Christmas party as his friends' house. Despite historically cold holiday seasons, this year it seems to be warmer on Christmas. However Keith has purchased and is wearing a 100% woolen, turtleneck sweater. His intentions for this were to impress his new girlfriend 'Carrie'. Due to the indoor party and the warm weather, Keith very quickly becomes uncomfortable in the sweater and suffers from sweating and itchiness. The comedic part of the video comes from him trying many ways to, unsuccessfully, comfort himself. He admits to the sweater being a bad solution, about half-way, but does not agree to changing out of it, because he is determined it will impress Carrie. When Carrie arrives to the party, at the end of the video, she clearly expresses her dislike towards the turtleneck, making all Keith's efforts a fail.

2. After watching the video, have students share their initial reactions with the class. 
What jumps out to you from that video? Anything at all
Option: You may also consider using tools such as PollEverywhere or TopHat to collect and display responses from students. 

The discussion about the video generally leads to the following take-away: 
He should not be wearing that sweater 

3. Re-watch the video with the class, and this time allow the students to take notes. 
Option: you may guide the students with some questions like those attached to this card 
See file: Questions for Deconstruction 
It is not critical for the students to have answers to these questions by the end of the video. The goal is to get them thinking about those questions. 

4. Have a structured discussion in class about the video. 
In light of developing a product or designing something ... (then address the questions on the attached document) 

5. Summarize the main take-aways and discuss the assignment. 

II. Group assignment:
For the group assignment, have the students research a product mishap similar to the turtle neck sweater. Remind the students that the goal is to find an example or case where a product failed because the needs of the customer segment were overlooked or misunderstood. This is different from a technical failure like a laptop breaking. 

Deliverable: The students will develop a graphical abstract on a poster sheet and bring it to class the following week. The goal of the graphical abstract is to covey the story of the product failure. The students will have complete freedom and creative control over how they present the story. 
A graphical abstract is a single schematic image that visually represents the primary findings of a  scenario, allowing audience to easily identify the scenario's main message. The graphical abstract should have minimal words and give the audience a quick snapshot of the main message. Limit the students from using too much text (get their creative juices flowing!)
Some examples are attached.

III. In-class gallery walk:
The students will display their posters on the walls. Each team will get 60 seconds to give a short summary of the mishap. The students will then do a gallery walk (rotate from poster to poster) viewing their peers' posters. 
Option: You can add a voting system and a competition, and award the following prizes: 
a. Best aesthetic appeal 
b. Clearest communication 
At the beginning of the gallery walk, you can give each student 5 (or any number) or stickers that they can use to vote (red for aesthetic appeal, blue for clearest communication). The students can vote for their favorite posters. If they really like a poster, they can use all their 5 stickers and give it all their votes. 
You can offer prizes for the winning posters. Mechanical pencils or candy works great.

INTEGRATION WITH THE 3 C's:
 
1. Curiosity: Explore a contrarian view of accepted solution
Video: The accepted solution in the video is the expensive turtleneck sweater. As soon as the students observe the sweater being uncomfortable; they are likely to begin thinking 'what could he have done differently to avoid the discomfort but still meet his goal of impressing his girlfriend?'
Design education: In engineering design, we encourage students to break comfort zones and use creative brainstorming techniques to come up with novel ideas.

2. Connections: Integrate information from many sources to gain insight
Video: In the video, Keith comes up with a solution - the sweater. As he begins realizing that the sweater is not the ideal solution, he begins to source temporary solutions from various angles - blowing through straws, using ice to cool himself down, scratching his back, dragging his back on the floor etc. He uses all potential sources in his vicinity to provide any relief. 
Design education: In engineering design, we tend to encourage students to explore solutions to problems from various point of views as well.

3. Creating value: Persist through and learn from failure
Video: In the video, within seconds, Keith realizes the sweater has made him very warm and uncomfortable. It is the wrong solution for the weather. He is also making a big assumption that the sweater will impress Carrie. Keeping his assumption, he persists through failure (i.e. discomfort) by temporarily comforting himself using the sources available around him.
Design education: For engineering design we can use this video to highlight that in the situation of a failure, it is important to remind yourself of the objective, critically think if you made assumptions, and then learn from the failure. We can discuss the following reasons for the failure in the video: 
(a) Keith did not check the weather forecast for the day
(b) Keith did not consider that the party was indoors (and therefore will be warm)
(c) Keith did not take any advice despite multiple friends pointing out and giving him alternatives
(d) Keith did not take the time to identify Carrie's interests and needs before making the investment in the sweater. Does Carrie like turtlenecks? Is this the only way to impress Carrie? Does she have any interests and hobbies?
By looking at Keith's failed solution, we can highlight the importance of the 3C's in engineering design. In the end, Keith realizes that Carrie does not like turtleneck sweaters - so all the temporary solutions he thought of were ultimately not potential solutions for the main objective (which was to impress Carrie). This video can be used in the early stages of introducing the design process to emphasize: 
1) Importance of identifying customer needs and bench-marking needs before investing into designing a solution.
2) Establishing a clear objective and a plan to evaluate and troubleshoot the proposed solutions.