Stroisch Patterns of agile and creative methods for Solo-Entrepreneurs - an empirical research

1. Auflage 2021
ISBN: 978-3-7534-8767-0
Verlag: BoD - Books on Demand
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 180 Seiten

Design Thinking and other agile methods are firmly established frameworks in innovation and project management for teams, and many studies deal with their use in companies. Solo-Entre-preneurs as the quasi smallest possible unit of a company are seldom in view when applying these ideas. Their situation also differs significantly from that of larger corporate entities, as evidenced, for example, by the fact that personal challenges can also affect general economic success much more quickly. This master thesis used a qualitative method mix of qualitative interviews, feedback grids and, most importantly, practical workshops based on the Design-based research approach to investigate the extent to which the use of agile methods is beneficial and meaningful in addressing business cases of Solo-Entrepreneurs.

örg Stroisch has been a Solo-Entrepreneur for almost 20 years. He works as a freelance journalist, especially on the topics of real estate, insurance and pension provision. He is also involved in innovation management and agile methods.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Stroisch, Jörg

Leseproben

Chapter 3 Research Environment 3.1 Introduction
This master thesis combines different scientific methods to answer the research question: ”Are agile, creative methods, especially Design Thinking, useful and meaningful to address and solve hard and/or soft problem cases and business cases of Solo-Entrepreneurs in the knowledge domain? Why?” This chapter describes the scientific background, the specific design, and the requirements for the methods used; all methods are qualitative research methods (as opposed to quantitative research methods, which claim a general representative value of their evaluations): Literature Review: In the introductory chapters of this master thesis, a broad view of different scientific and popular literature has been taken to describe the field of research. However, the author has focused on the literature on Design Thinking methods and tools for the evaluation process. The purpose is to get an overview for a later selection of useful tools and methods for the evaluation process. Qualitative unstructured interviews: The qualitative unstructured interview is a classical research technique. This master thesis is used to draw the situation, opportunities, and challenges of Solo-Entrepreneurs in the knowledge sector. Workshop as Design-based research approach: The focus of this master thesis is on the development and evaluation of agile and creative methods for Solo-Entrepreneurs; for this purpose, the method of Design-based research is used in combination with workshops. Design Thinking and the Design-based research approach are very similar: Design Thinking often works with workshops and in an iterative way. Probands can produce artifacts during the workshops; this analysis is used as a control mechanism to the authors’ assumptions about agile and creative methods. Furthermore, it is the same with the scientific Design-based research approach. This subsection provides a brief overview of these methods to describe the challenges, opportunities, and limitations of this scientific inquiry. It attempts to embed them within the research approach of this master’s thesis. 3.1.1 Brief Thoughts on the Quality of Data
In total, the author interviewed six probands. That is more than enough for such a qualitative approach as this master thesis, according to the arguments of Jakob Nielsen (Nielsen, 2020): ”The most striking truth [...] is, that zero users give zero insights. [...] After the fifth user, you are wasting your time by observing the same findings repeatedly but not learning much new. [...] You need to test with at least 15 users to discover all the usability problems in the design.” As mentioned earlier, Jakob Nielsen focused on usability issues, sometimes a stringent framework of design elements. In a more open situation, this rule may not apply.10 On the other hand, this master thesis proposes to evaluate the use of prepared materials such as method cards and templates - and thus, Nielsen’s arguments might apply. 3.2 Literature Review on Design Thinking Methods and Tools
There is a wide range of practical books on Design Thinking, often offering a toolbox or process for applying Design Thinking. However, as described in the chapters before, there is no universal way to use Design Thinking as a method toolbox. And indeed, not every tool or method works well in a general context or only in the context of Solo-Entrepreneurs. For this master thesis, the author red many such books; the depth is very different (from really terribly adapted to very well described and analyzed), the practical relevance (from pointless to highly interesting), not to mention the writing style was from terrible to excellent. But all these attributes are perhaps not relevant for a scientific consideration of methods and tools. In order to get an overview of all the tools, the author had not only worked intuitively but had tried in a kind of template to summarize, order, and fairly arrange the contents in two phases: Step 1: Sounds interesting and usable on its own? Write down on a template Step 2: Selection of methods 3.2.1 Step 1 of the Literature Review
For Step 1, a short self-developed DIN A5 template was developed (see 3.1 on page ?) that contains the following information: Book: an abbreviation for the book title. Author: an abbreviation for the author. Title: an abbreviation for the title of the method. Page: where it is placed in the book. Date: date of reading. Interesting content: a brief description of the tool, how it works exactly. FIGURE 3.1: Examples for DINA5-templates, used to collect the different methods from several books. Comments: try to analyze the categories, describe thoughts about challenges and opportunities. Short comment/summary: try to highlight and give a statement if it is usable for the Master Thesis. Other ideas: Think about a specific use/adaptation, perhaps in a different (personal) context. Links: When possible, additional identical content from other books have been linked. In line with the idea of finding categories ”along the way” while reading the (practitioner-oriented) literature, the process of forming decision categories was itself a process. For SMEs, something similar was offered by Lingannavar/Yammiyavar (Lingannavar and Yammiyavar, 2016), who offered a total of 11 categories to compare different agile tools and methods for their use in SMEs: Idea generator, idea pattern, usability/user-centricity, knowledge base requirement, relevance/ for SMEs, efficiency of the tool, innovation competence, operating/ solution time, quality of the innovation idea, implemented on, applicability/ idea into reality (practice), 3.2.2 Step 2 of the Literature Review
The selection process of step 2 is intended to reduce the number of methods and tools since it might not be possible to test hundreds of tools in a master thesis and with only six probands. The selection process itself is described in chapter 4 (4 on 51). 3.3 Qualitative Untructured Interviews
The qualitative research method of qualitative interviews is used in two stages of the evaluation work. At the beginning of phase 1 (with workshops) and the end of phase 3 (the work’s interpretative stage). This technique is widely used and accepted by the scientific community. 3.3.1 Method of Qualitative Unstructured Interviews
Thus, Punch stated, ”qualitative data can [...] be defined as practical information about the world, not in the form of numbers. [...] In differentiation to quantitative data ”of the structured continuum”, qualitative data are ”anywhere along the continuum”. (Punch, 2013, page 52) In this sense, the unstructured interview is far from quantitative surveys. ”There is a wide range indeed when it comes to unstructured interviewing.” (Punch, 2013, page 13), with one kind of traditional type being the ”non-standardized, open-ended, in-depth interview” (Punch, 2013, page 113) (”ethnographic interview”) - and it is not denied, but established as a principle of the method, that the interviewer, with his or her specific background, is an active part of the process (e.g., Punch, 2013, page 118ff), transforming interviewers and probands into equals having a conversation” (Punch, 2013, page 148). Accordingly, the qualitative interviewer does not deny that he or she selects the interviewees according to a selection process; in contrast to quantitative studies, which attempt to create a random sample from the so-called ”Grundgesamtheit,” that is an image of the (entire) population. The interviewer decides/researches possible interviewees, the place where the interview is to be conducted, the time frame of an interview, etc. (see Punch, 2013, page 115). All these points affect the chances of gaining deep insights. Due to the Corona pandemic circumstances, the particular problem is that all interviews and workshops were conducted via the Zoom video conferencing tool rather than in face-to-face situations. 3.3.2 Organization of the Interviews
For qualitative interviews, for example, there are several ideas about how to ask questions. For example, Oates has summarized the types of questions (Oates, 2005, page 192): Open-ended questions: These are questions in which the proband has the opportunity to describe something. In German, these W-questions are well known from the german Sesame Street song: ”Who, how, what, why, why (- who does not ask, stays stupid)”. These questions are a good orientation to go deeper into a topic. E.g. ”What do you think of the weather?” - ”Nice.” - ”Why?” - ”Because the sun is shining.” - ”What do you like about the sun.” - ”That it is warm.” - ”What don’t you like?” - ”That it burns.” - ”Where did you have at least one really nice sunny vacation? Describe!” - ”...” One can easily imagine that this proband is very complicated because he answers the questions very briefly and not in...