New product development for youth ministries to pilot innovative methods
The focus of this design project was around the challenge of re-imagining models for youth ministry, particularly in small to medium-sized churches without a dedicated staff member. Many of these churches face significant challenges due to smaller budgets and smaller staffs. In partnership with the Perkins School of Youth Ministry at Southern Methodist University, I designed a series of meeting guides to lead church teams through the Human-Centered Design process to address this challenge, allowing them to work through the innovative process without a dedicated, professional facilitator in each meeting.
The process included user research with church leaders, pastors, and students in the youth ministry. Using in-depth interviews, we identified the pain points of their ministry and insights to help us create the facilitation guides. I spent hours interviewing 10 users from various churches to better understand what prototype might work for them.
With the support of my client, I developed an 8-part facilitation guide for church leaders to move through the innovative process with their teams.
The checkpoints covered the basics of the Human-Centered Design process by thoroughly outlining the meeting activities, including suggested time for each activity and leader notes to draw special attention or address potential challenges the teams might face. Checkpoints also included several "team pages" for everyone to use during meetings, including templates for good note-taking, prompts for "How might we?" Statements, and a prototyping planner.
The checkpoints were an enormous success with 11/12 churches reporting a significant breakthrough in new ideas and an increase in teenage leadership over the course of the project. The guides are now available for free through the Perkins School of Youth Ministry website for anyone to use.
Checkpoint Guides covered:
Introductory Problem Exploration
Introductory Qualitative Research
Deeper Qualitative Research
Developing Insights/Synthesizing data
Generating "How might we?" Statements
Brainstorming Ideas
Planning a Prototype
Assessing a Prototype
The focus of this design project was around the challenge of re-imagining models for youth ministry, particularly in small to medium-sized churches without a dedicated staff member. Many of these churches face significant challenges due to smaller budgets and smaller staffs. In partnership with the Perkins School of Youth Ministry at Southern Methodist University, I designed a series of meeting guides to lead church teams through the Human-Centered Design process to address this challenge, allowing them to work through the innovative process without a dedicated, professional facilitator in each meeting.
The process included user research with church leaders, pastors, and students in the youth ministry. Using in-depth interviews, we identified the pain points of their ministry and insights to help us create the facilitation guides. I spent hours interviewing 10 users from various churches to better understand what prototype might work for them.
With the support of my client, I developed an 8-part facilitation guide for church leaders to move through the innovative process with their teams.
The checkpoints covered the basics of the Human-Centered Design process by thoroughly outlining the meeting activities, including suggested time for each activity and leader notes to draw special attention or address potential challenges the teams might face. Checkpoints also included several "team pages" for everyone to use during meetings, including templates for good note-taking, prompts for "How might we?" Statements, and a prototyping planner.
The checkpoints were an enormous success with 11/12 churches reporting a significant breakthrough in new ideas and an increase in teenage leadership over the course of the project. The guides are now available for free through the Perkins School of Youth Ministry website for anyone to use.
Checkpoint Guides covered:
Introductory Problem Exploration
Introductory Qualitative Research
Deeper Qualitative Research
Developing Insights/Synthesizing data
Generating "How might we?" Statements
Brainstorming Ideas
Planning a Prototype
Assessing a Prototype
The focus of this design project was around the challenge of re-imagining models for youth ministry, particularly in small to medium-sized churches without a dedicated staff member. Many of these churches face significant challenges due to smaller budgets and smaller staffs. In partnership with the Perkins School of Youth Ministry at Southern Methodist University, I designed a series of meeting guides to lead church teams through the Human-Centered Design process to address this challenge, allowing them to work through the innovative process without a dedicated, professional facilitator in each meeting.
The process included user research with church leaders, pastors, and students in the youth ministry. Using in-depth interviews, we identified the pain points of their ministry and insights to help us create the facilitation guides. I spent hours interviewing 10 users from various churches to better understand what prototype might work for them.
With the support of my client, I developed an 8-part facilitation guide for church leaders to move through the innovative process with their teams.
The checkpoints covered the basics of the Human-Centered Design process by thoroughly outlining the meeting activities, including suggested time for each activity and leader notes to draw special attention or address potential challenges the teams might face. Checkpoints also included several "team pages" for everyone to use during meetings, including templates for good note-taking, prompts for "How might we?" Statements, and a prototyping planner.
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The checkpoints were an enormous success with 11/12 churches reporting a significant breakthrough in new ideas and an increase in teenage leadership over the course of the project. The guides are now available for free through the Perkins School of Youth Ministry website for anyone to use.
Checkpoint Guides covered:
Introductory Problem Exploration
Introductory Qualitative Research
Deeper Qualitative Research
Developing Insights/Synthesizing data
Generating "How might we?" Statements
Brainstorming Ideas
Planning a Prototype
Assessing a Prototype
