Research
Identifying obstacles through conversation
As a design group, our first order of business was to speak to the people who knew this space. We didn't start with a direction or even an idea of what we would be designing in this project. In this first step, we simply wanted to listen, ask questions, and get a lay of the land. We talked with students, teachers, non-profit leaders, activists, and more. One concept that we noticed was a common point of emphasis across several of these sessions was the role of mentors in the development of young professionals, and the lack of those that came from diverse backgrounds. We jumped on this as the direction for our project.
Testing
Finding what works through rapid prototyping
From these interview, quotes, secondary research, and brainstorming sessions, we decided to create a prototype of a mentorship facilitation experience. This included workbooks and topic cards that would help facilitate a discussion between a potential mentor and mentee, aimed at key topics that would maximally help young students gain life skills and knowledge toward a sustainability profession. We took these materials to several sessions of mock meetings between mentors and mentees, and then developed the prototype further based on what we learned.
Ment: A mentorship experience crafted to bring people together
In our final presentation to Ecorise and the rest of our design cohort, we unveiled 'Ment.' This included mentor and mentee specific work booklets, a getting started booklet, meeting instructions, discussion topic cards, and a box to fit everything in. This was developed to make conversations between mentors and mentees more efficient, deep, and helpful. We included a few other concepts as well, such as the potential bonus decks, in this case for sustainability for Ecorise. Another was the 'building block method' which was aimed at escalating card topics over meetings from general to specific as the pair got to know each other.
Result
One idea to grow the next generation of sustainability professionals
We hoped that Ecorise would see the Ment method as a way to connect young students into sustainability fields in a way that would create a lasting positive impact. Even more than that, our group felt that we had developed something that could have applications across many different spaces, and that the model could be adapted to help employees and managers facilitate growth discussions, or for an apprentice learning a new trade and a corresponding seasoned expert, or any number of other situations that would be enriched with a facilitated mentorship experience.
