Month: May 2023

Ending is the New Beginning: How to End Gracefully

According to the National Center for Educational Statistics, over 7.5 million Americans will be graduating from high school or with a post-secondary degree this year. That is 7.5 million Americans transitioning into the next step in their personal and professional lives! And that’s just in a formal educational setting. The end of one journey can be just as confusing and challenging as beginning a new one, but hopefully with some thoughtful actions the process becomes one of enthusiasm and not anxiety. Here are some thoughts on graceful endings.

    1. Take a deep breath, you’ve earned it! Relax for a moment and reflect on what you have accomplished without having to consider next steps. At this moment you have reached a peak, and that’s worth recognizing.
    2. Take stock in the current you. Let’s flip the classic interview question and change it to, “Where did you see yourself five years ago?” How did you define yourself when the journey began, and what has changed?
    3. Take-Aways. Now that you’ve reached this ending, what are you taking with you? Whether it’s physical, emotional or intellectual, you’ve got a whole new set of tools and experiences for the next step.

Every year millions of people find themselves at the end of one journey, but not everyone knows how to handle that. Once you’ve reached an ending, it’s natural to want to start the next step, even if that next step is to not start something new at all! Taking the time to find a graceful ending can help the transition process and make you feel even more prepared for your future endeavors. So, the next time you wrap up that project, complete that class, or decide it’s time to move on to your next adventure, make the ending just as good as your new beginning!

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UW-Green Bay’s Continuing Education and Community Engagement Division (CECE) is continuously looking for ways to stay on the cutting edge of professional development for its clients. Be sure to check out the CECE website below, and reach out if you have ideas for new content you want to see! https://www.uwgb.edu/continuing-education/

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Writing/Research Credit: Christopher Ledvina, UW-Green Bay Business Development Specialist

Design Your Solution

Using Design Thinking for Just About Anything

The idea of “design thinking” isn’t a new one, but the process can be used in a much larger scheme of situations than most people give it credit for. People in marketing, research, training and development, and other similar positions might be more familiar with the term, but why stop there? What if we stopped looking for solutions and started designing them in general? Here is a simple way of looking at the “Design Thinking Process” that can be applied to just about any situation:

Step One: Discover – One of the keys of design thinking is to put the end-user first. Whether that is your team of HR professionals or your children, look for information you can use to better understand the situation. Some ways to do this include conducting interviews, checking out the competition, and gathering data for analysis.

Step Two: Define – This is where you determine what the pieces of the solution might look like. Once all of that information from step one is gathered, now you can get creative and determine how to approach the situation. This step could include creating problem statements or experience maps, writing out examples of what the final solution could and should include.

Step Three: Ideate – Now that we know what we want, let’s take the next step and look for ways to achieve it. This step is when specific ways to solve the problem or address the situation are decided. Think about brainstorming sessions, creating blueprints, or even storyboards.

Step Four: Prototype – This is where we get our hands dirty. Most people want to jump to a possible solution right away, but without steps one through three, we’re letting intuition and guesswork control the process. Having a well-crafted way for people to practice or simulate the final solution is what makes this step critical, before they ever see it. Examples include mockups, test webpages and interactive presentations.

Step Five: Test – Here is the trick to step five: You should be asking for feedback throughout the whole process from your stakeholders. Include them in the process from the beginning, so that by this point you are validating what others have said before, not identifying critical elements this late in the process. Testing your design can look a lot like step one with interviews and observations, data analytics and metrics.

Whether you are designing a new performance review process or trying to decide where to go on vacation next, design thinking can be a useful tool for people to keep in mind. Following the process can increase confidence in your work and among those most impacted by the results. So, stop searching for solutions and start designing them!

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UW-Green Bay’s Continuing Education and Community Engagement Division is continuously looking for ways to stay on the cutting edge of professional development for its clients. Be sure to check out the CECE website below, and reach out if you have ideas for new content you want to see! https://www.uwgb.edu/continuing-education/

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Writing/Research Credit: Christopher Ledvina, UW-Green Bay Business Development Specialist
User Experience Learning at https://uxhints.com/.