As much as possible.
It would be important to know the basics: who are the participants? how many participants will there be? where are the program activities happening? if it is a training, at how many different sites? What is available at the training site--power? internet? white boards? movable chairs?
Is this the first activity or part of a series of events? What happened before with these participants or are they totally new?
Why is this program happening? Is there a strategy document written somewhere? A brainstorm? Did the idea come from a particular meeting or piece of feedback? What are the priorities? Is there a donor agreement or any other relevant requirements? What is the budget? Is it pre-approved or do you need to make a proposal?
Call up a few!! Have some "moles" or participants you are constantly in contact with to stay up-to-date on the issues and concerns of your participants.
Talk to the field team who works most closely with them.
Look up past BMLs, monitoring reports, and any other feedback forms.
Research them online.
If it is a government employee, look up their job description or relevant policies.
Design thinking is 99% easier once you have identified a clear enough question to actually make an answer. So here are some additional resources on how to ask great questions within the discovery step of the design process:
Here are some great pointers for managers on how to ask the people you are leading good questions
This is a great questioning resource for teaching and facilitating in the classroom.
Great video on asking questions related to product development and experimentation!
1. You have a couple conversations with the field team. The field team tells you that the teachers do not understand the importance of portfolios so you must "train them on it". The teachers they are referring to have been in the E! program for 2 years and were previously trained on portfolios. But...you didn't ask anymore questions and go to Angelica with a 'great idea' to train the teachers on the importance of portfolios. She tells you she is disappointed in your strategy and tells you to go back to the drawing board.
1. After 2 years of training, the field team tells you that the teachers do not "understand the importance of portfolios". You inquire as to whether the teachers were previously trained in portfolios. They were! So, you inquire further, why, if teachers have been trained on portfolios, does the field team thinks the problem is that teachers do not "understand the importance of portfolios". The field team responds "because teachers do not make time to grade portfolios". You ask "Why not?". "Because they have 40 students and 5 classes to grade so it is a lot of work".
Voila!! Now you have the real "good" problem: "Teachers do not have a way to grade 40 student portfolios every day given they teach 5 classes." You then go create a design solution to solve that! For example, you might give them a way to grade portfolios quickly. That is very different, and deeper, and more effective of a solution than you would have had if you only focused on "awareness of portfolio's importance". Angelica is so impressed with your design skills!
A lot of designers would look at the objective below and say "great" that is clear:
"Teachers will support learners in creating business model canvasses for their club projects"
But, at Educate!, we would ask A LOT of follow up questions to this to make the objective more "refined", for example:
Only after the above four questions are answered at the start, do we get closer to a Refined Vision of impact.
Assessment #4: Question-Storming:
Write 25 questions for each of the three problems/challenges below (75 questions total):
Submit your discovery questions to designacademy@experienceeducate.org