Agroecological Communities
Project Overview
My Contributions
Skills
Context
Client: Confidential
Duration: 6-month project
Year: 2022
Local: Brazil
Initially, my role involved continuing the recruitment process and conducting 10 interviews designed by a service design team member. Upon joining the project, I realized there were challenges in organizing information. To address this, I reestablished the project structures, focusing on user-centered design. I realigned interview deadlines with the Project Manager and commenced the interviews the following week.
Working alongside two other designers, we analyzed the gathered information, synthesizing it using a clustering methodology. Over two weeks, we transformed the data into a presentation that served as a proposal for redesigning the agroecological communities project. Recognizing the need to involve the community in a second phase, we redesigned the initial proposal accordingly.
We conducted a collaborative workshop, where I took on the role of organizer and facilitator. After this phase, we refined the previous content into a new proposal that considered the project’s most pressing needs, the real pain points of those involved, and their desired features in both communication and product aspects. This approach aimed to secure immediate funding to sustain the project, ensuring its continued growth and success.
Our adventure began with a series of engaging interviews. We connected with active participants in the Communities, farming families, and those directly involved in the social project. Each conversation, each story, each insight gathered, served to illuminate our path.
Next, we dove into the data. Using an octopus clustering technique, we organized, analyzed, and interpreted the information we collected. What emerged from this analysis were central themes: internal organization, communication, relations, processes, and financial resource acquisition. These identified problems served as our compass, guiding our next steps.
With a deep understanding at hand, we presented an initial proposal and moved on to the workshops. The first gathering was strategic, where we sought to understand the project’s current and future realities and sketched out the actions needed to build this desirable future. The second workshop focused on the operational aspect, where we detailed the actions and prioritized them, using an effort versus impact matrix.
Our internal team then gathered the information from the workshops and built the necessary materials to support the implementation of the actions and materialize the future vision of the Communities. These materials included a support manual for constructing essential guides, a marketing manual, and a list of prioritized actions beyond the annual plan.
Every step of our journey was undertaken with a single aim in mind – to understand to better serve. And it is with this same goal that we continue to move forward, always ready to learn, adapt, and innovate.
