Crowdfunding for UVS

Hi guys, we are the team 7 and we are very determinate to realize our idea!
Between the three prototype we developed: Charity kit, Forum and Find a Sponsor the one that in our opinion met more the UVS’s needs (being economically sustainable, managing the heterogeneity and improving the communication) was the Charity kit, but significantly changed.
After many brainstorming sessions and endless discussions we concluded the Charity Kit was the more creative idea 😉 But something was missing in this prototype, so we decided to add to the Charity Kit some aspects of the other two prototypes, like a communication tool (“Forum” prototype) and the possibility to collect a lot of money (“Find a Sponsor” prototype).
We also added some new elements like “the use of Storytelling” to make people conscious of what benefits UVS’ activities bring to people with disabilities and social distress.
As if by magic, the Charity Kit evolved in a Crowdfunding Campaign 😉

But what is Crowdfunding?

It’s a an online fund raising that involves people and allows to finance projects or initiatives promoted both from people and organizations. There are different platform online that could be used for this aim, after a research we chose “Produzioni dal Basso” platform because of the number of users, the number of financed projects and the nice design.
On these platform you have the possibility to chose the crowdfunding modality and for our specific case we chose “ALL OR NOTHING” mode; it means that if you reach the target the projects is financed otherwise nothing happens. For people who contributes economically to sustain the initiative are provided some rewards.

We also decided to include into the solution the creation of a Facebook group, restricted to UVS members, in order to improve the internal communication that is quite lacking and facilitate the exchange of information, projects, contact, etc..

Moving from theory to practice is a big issue, but we believe our solution could really meet their needs!
We’re determined to provide them THE SOLUTION and we hope they’ll implement it.
In these days we worked super hard for the final deliverable and yesterday there was the final presentation! We presented our solution to UVS president and many other people, so we hope to have been more effective as possible and have transmitted all the passion and the engagement we put in this challenge.

Good luck to everybody our classmates for the exam!  🙂

Team 7

 

2nd deliverable.. Interview after interview…

Hi guys!
What was our second deliverable about? Needfinding.

In our second presentation we showed what UVS does and what are its needs.
In order to do so, we did about 14 hours of interviews. A lot of work but this allowed us to understand what kind of problems a non-profit association, which brings together other associations spread throughout Italy, faces daily.
We interviewed almost all the UVS board members (someone more times) and they generally accepted well our research, they looked happy to talk with us about their organization. This phase wasn’t easy because UVS is a national association that assembles local associations, the headquarter is located in Rome and its members are spread all over Italy, so we had to do all the interviews on Skype without meeting anyone in person.
Despite this fact, we were able to capture a general picture of UVS and to understand what are its major issues. The main problems we found are:

• Heterogeneity: UVS is composed by 25 associations, very different from each other. There are both small voluntary associations and very big non-profit cooperatives, one with 90 employees. This obviously generates different interests and expectations among UVS members.

• Lack of financial resources

• Communication problems between the associates

A mistake we did during this phase was probably focusing immediately on a particular kind problem, leaving aside the others. For example we thought the point was the number of projects they achieved being too low and we ignored a little the heterogeneity problem and the lack of communication. Luckily then we realized we were over focusing and we got back on the right track 😉

 

A new design instrument we used in this phase was the Infographic.

It’s a visual tool that shows clearly and concisely what you want to state or present.
In our case we’ve tried to represent the UVS changing phase. Here it is!

 

Team 7

BPE like the High Jump

THE METAPHOR

Hi everybody!

For me Bpe class is like the high jump! Maybe you’re asking why…now I tell you.

As probably you know the execution of a high jump can be divided into some phases:

firstly you have to prepare for running, then you start to run straight to gain speed until you need to change the trajectory and you have to get ready for the jump and then……..you’re suspended in the air hoping to overcome the rod….and yeah finally you did it!

The preparation phase is learning the theoretical concepts and what instruments you have for doing your project, the run is the brainstorming session because you have to feel energized to generate as many ideas as possible, the changing trajectory is the convergence on a shared opinion into the group, just before the takeoff that represents the most “under pressure” phase in which is necessary working hard to complete your assignment and deliver it.

Then the jump can be done in different ways as well as there are different solution for one single problem.
..Finally if you pass the rod it’s a satisfaction!

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MY EXPERIENCE

During these months I’ve learned a lot about what means work in a team, discover and face with the problems of a real organization and even lunch at home just one time in two weeks!
The game becomes harder and stressful, but it’s not the time to give up!

In my group, the team 7, we are very different and we think in different ways, so it was not easy to find a common opinion at the start; I believe that’s important each of us is opened to the other ideas, because who may know if from different cues could spring up something creative? 😉

 

 

It’s really what I hope for the next weeks and even what I expect when I will be out of the university, in the real world. 😉

Giorgia

Luca Fontanili

Hi!!! my name is Luca Fontanili, i’m 23 and i live in San Bartolomeo, a small village in the municipality of Reggio Emilia. In April 2013 i’ve got a bachelor degree in Managment Engineering at the university of Modena and Reggio.

I’m a sociable person even if i’m shy a bit. I love 3 things in particular: sports, travel and nature. My favourite sports are football and rugby, but also i like very much basket, ski and fishing. I love travelling becouse i love see, learn, know always new things, new person, new cultures, new life styles, new stories. The world is very very big, various and amazing.
I really enjoy being in contact with nature, maybe because I’ve always lived and worked in the countryside, but be immersed in nature makes me feel really me.

I really like the work of the management engineer because it is a very interdisciplinary work: is a very flexible figure within the company that can cover many different roles and expecially is a job that can be applied in any type of business of any size. I think this will always be more important for companies. I am very optimistic about the prospects of working of us management engineers.

One of my concerns about my professional life is to fall outside the practice too, to build a training too closely tied to the theory on the books and not so much to the concreteness of reality. What I expect from this class is just something that goes to touch this point: I expect to learn more to be an engineer in the field and not just an engineer on the books. In addition, I expect to be able to get a little more ‘creative’ and learn to recognize and define problems or the opportunities for improvement.

I think that all challenges are very interesting. That has been assigned to my team (Team 7) is that one with the association Unione Vela Solisale and I like it. It will not be easy and the fact that the association hasn’t its headquarters in Reggio but in Rome and the various members are scattered throughout Italy certainly does not help, but I’m very confident and optimistic. I hope lead us to make some output in the boat!

Design Brief, Molding Marble

The art of molding marble

In this post We would like to convey to you our point of view about the design brief.

Beyond the formal definition a design brief is a short document needed, at the beginning of a design route, to define the setting for further researches. Being the organizations huge systems, without a piece of paper setting the problem boundaries, it would be impossible to focus the design resources.

The marble block of each design brief is the customer point of view on the purposes of the project. As a real marble block it lacks an individual shape, it’s squared and simple. The first objective of the designer is to transfigure the original stone into something more refined. The process of refinement is needed to transform a general idea of profitability, efficiency or customer service into a well-defined map of the capabilities of the project.

Obviously the first draft is hardly similar to a problem setting as a hit marble block is hardly similar to a human form. The first paper gives the designer a path and what is being discovered following that path molds the design brief. Following this self-defining route the designer details his problem and achieves a deep knowledge of its edges.

This process has no ending. Any new piece of information redefines the brief and, sometimes, changes completely the original shape. That is what happened to our project.

 

Design Brief

Organization: Unione Italiana Vela Solidale

Project Name: How can I grow up? Searching for favorable winds

Team: 7

Scenario

Unione Italiana Vela Solidale bases his organization strategy primarily on self-financed training for the associated, norms management and brand management.

The well-known brand name UVS represents the greatest asset of this organization and the main source of value for its associates. Leveraging on this name overtime UVS developed two important wide agreements with:

• Ministero della Giustizia, Dipartimento di Giustizia Minorile
• Comando Generale delle Capitanerie di Porto

The context in which it operates is about the use of sailing to help and rehabilitate mentally and physically challenged people, teenagers at risk and other people with social distress.

Innovation Intent

Improve the network efficiency in order to create the conditions for growth.

Aspiations, What will be nice to have?

UVS is a professional association including bureaucratically different organizations, such as social cooperatives, sailing schools and voluntary organizations, working on the solidarity field. They all focus on the use of sailing to help disabled and socially disadvantaged people improving their life quality.

The aim is achieving a higher level of efficiency in activities management, working on a higher number of projects relying on a stronger economic sustainability.

Intentions, What should be the goals?

We identified some issues on which we can work:

• Improving UVS’ projects management
• Improving the research of new project opportunities
• Making sustainable the way UVS provides training to its associates
• Improving the internal communication between associates

Limitations, What are the constraints?

• All the activities have to focus on sailing and disability
• Few experience on projects brokered by UVS
• Projects limitation:
• The announcements cover only for the direct costs of the projects
• The announcements don’t cover all the direct costs of the projects. The coverage range varies between 50% and 80%.
• Internal resources limitations:
• UVS has no internal human resources except the board whose members work for free
• Financial resources limitations:
• The majority of UVS financial resources come from the membership fees given by the associates once a year
• It has recently been approved that a little percentage on associates’ projects related to the belonging to UVS have to be paid to UVS, but it’s still a work in progress

Assumptions, What is given for granted?

• Potential economic sustainability of projects brokered by UVS
• Potential economic sustainability of training provided from UVS to its associates

Performances, What can we measure?

We can specialize the wide objectives of economic sustainability and efficiency for each wide area.

• On the project management theme:
• Revenue per project brokered by UVS
• Total UVS revenue coming from the brokered projects
• On the new opportunities theme:
• Number of projects organized by UVS
• Total funding from sponsors
• On the training theme:
• Number of training programs provided by UVS to its associated
• About internal communication:
• Members satisfaction in the use of communication tools
• Response times to emails and requests

These are some assumptions of what could be measured relatively to each macro area.

 

Our artistic experience

Following our point of view about the design brief we created several versions of this document, the words you saw above are just the latest refinement we developed after two weeks of UVS informants interviews.

To hit the stone and develop the first shape, as apprentices, we followed the words of our textbook. We did some ground research to reach a better understanding of a topic completely unknown. Unfortunately we found a little information on the internet, the topic of no-profit sailing for disabled people is not popular enough and the details are spread as news all over the web. We selected some promising data, developed a fair amount of assumptions and sculptured them our of our white paper.

After a week our professor gave us a feedback, the brief was not defined enough. Nothing bad, that was what we were expecting and we have been working since then to collect more information through interviews. Then everything collapsed.

We met to refine the brief and we found the consensus has faded. We have been working from the beginning on the project management side of UVS: the way they start from an announcement, create an experience and deliver it to their users, then we found out we were not all cool about that. New information from the interviews hit hard our believes and some of us now wanted to explore the training management, some others the information management, someone else feared the time pressure and just wanted to keep working on the original plan.

During that meeting we couldn’t find consensus over a single theme, so we choose a couple of them: project management and advertising. Then we promised ourselves to continue the interviews and try to find out how hard the stone really was.

As usually happens in social settings a simple decision may hide a deeper meaning, a secret topic that underlies the spoken arguments and prevents the group from reaching a common point of view. Some interviews after the meeting day we found out what the real question was not about the topic but about the entire idea of choosing a single topic or a couple of topics to work on.

Then we met on Whatsapp and talked together about what the right path was. After hundreds of messages full of bargaining and an hard fight between different points of view we finally decided to expand the original topics and work on a wider area, we expanded our focus without completely losing the original path.

Now we are performing some final interviews, the final tour of dance, and the new strategy starts paying. Our better knowledge of the whole organization will give us a wider range of opportunities in the design part of our work, when you have a good scale model even the steps to build a masterpiece look easier.

Elia Balugani

Hi, my name is Elia Balugani and I’m a Management Engineer. I achieved my bachelor degree in the University of Modena e Reggio Emilia and I’m currently studying to achieve a second degree in the same field. This objective is what bring me to attend the Business Process Engineering course and face the UVS challenge I’m going to talk about later.

My main interests are TV series and movies which I usually watch at the movie theatre while eating lots of popcorn. Among TV series I recently watched The Game of Thrones and I’m looking for some spare time to see more episodes of Breaking Bad, that looks really cool. I also follow some Youtube channels related to videogames and movies even if I lack that kind of time needed to watch all the proposed videos.

Talking about the professional side of my life I picture myself as a squared kind of engineer, meaning that I usually prefer math-related subjects and whatever comes with a strong theoretical approach. During my bachelor degree I focused on the logistic field, I learned about some advanced forecasting tools during my training and the related thesis. As you may suspect I support an extensive use of statistics to collect refined data, useful as a basis for modelling purposes. Aside logistics and statistics I’m also strongly interested in the use of economic tools to control and lead organizations, which I believe may become really useful in any managerial scenario I will face in the future. In the future I would like to become an expert of my field through hard work, which I believe always pays.

I’m looking at this class as an opportunity to grow professionally, I’m excited at the idea of working on a real context and learning about specific tools to understand the internal processes of the organizations. Talking specifically about my challenge I’m working on the UVS project, with the support of my group we are going to help an organization that works with mentally and physically challenged people guiding them across a social rehab project involving the use of sailing. Working on this field in my opinion is going to be really challenging.

The other proposed projects were also really interesting, in particular the presentation of the Casina dei bimbi challenge, involving an organization that helps hill children to psychologically accept medical operations, hit me deeply. On another, completely different, side the DISMI project interested me too. I believe that the idea of a know-how transfer web among companies in need thrilled my managerial/economical side.

Team 7 on board! – UVS Searching for favorable winds

The challenge is interesting but quite hard considering the kind of problem we’re going to face; reorganize a no-profit organization promoting activities for socially disadvantaged people represents a huge responsibility. The boundaries of the challenge aren’t well defined and we should work on the field to better define these edges, this will take a considerable amount of time while we have to observe firm deadlines.
Another challenging characteristic of our project is the actors we’re supposed to contact are spread among different locations, so we’re forced to contact them via Skype.
We have already contacted the president of UVS and he seemed willing to help us through our path.
Beyond these concerns, we will try to work as well as possible to provide them a real value, knowing this will have an impact on people in need.

may the wind always be at OUR back! 😉

Alex Legnani

Hi, I’m Alex, i’m 24 years old i live in Modena.
After secondary school i initially choose technical high school but ater a year i decided to change because that school was not enough rewarding and then i went to lyceum, this was an important decision because probably i would not have done university if i continued technical school, i’m really proud of my decision i like so much Management Engineering.

“The three good things in life are 2: the bike”: i really appassionated about it. My other interest are sports (Soccer, American Football, Tennis) end music. I have an atypical idea of travel, i prefer do it for job instead on vacation, when i was child i travel a lot with my parent and i spent all my wanderlust.

I expect from this course of thinking about problem in a different way, i want to develop creativity that usually it isn’t a peculiarity of engineers and learn more tools to solving problem. I really like the automotive sector, i don’t see my self working behind a computer though i understand the importance of some IT tools.

I’m really interested about our challenge Unione Italiana Vela Solidale beacuse a dear friend of mine is physically challenged so i hope to find a good solution that allows them to help more people. DISMI, MERCATO DELLA TERRA and UNINDUSTRIA are the most interesting challenges in my opinion, in particular the last one because i work six mounth in CNA Reggio Emilia until last February and i met the topic “business networks” many times.

Giorgia Bonaretti

Hi! I’m Giorgia, I’m 23 years old and I graduated in management engineering last year. It’s a little funny how I decided to enroll to this faculty, because when I finished the high school I was confused about what I wanted to do, so I tried to pass the admission test for Physiotherapy; now I could say “fortunately” I wasn’t admitted because after choosing Management Engineering I realized that I really like it.
In the future I hope to find a job related to my studies, in particular I’m interested in Logistics and IT systems, so I’d like to work in these fields; however, I’m ready to learn new things and I can still discover new interests.
I like sports and in the past I attended a modern dance class for almost 7 years; I also like to travel and I’d like to visit different countries, but on vacation, not for job.
I expect that at the end of the class I will be able to face problems in a more creative way and to look at anything from different perspectives more easily; I even think it could be a good training to learn how working in a group.
I think that our challenge Unione Vela Solidale deals with a delicate issue and actually, I didn’t know this association existed. If I had had the possibility of choosing, I don’t know if I would choose this one, but I hope to understand what are their real problems and to find a good solution with my team!
About the other challenges I think DISMI, UNINDUSTRIA and MERCATO DELLA TERRA are the most interesting.