We reflect on a successful collaboration with students from the Media Design and Illustration programs in the 4th semester of the Design degree at Macromedia University of Applied Sciences in Cologne. Over the past few months, the students took on the challenge of rethinking and further developing our consulting product for strategy development processes—the Living Process Wall.
The Living Process Wall plays a significant role in our engagements, particularly when it comes to visualizing an organization’s value chains. When used in workshops, exploring overarching processes is a complex and often impactful endeavor. This consulting product not only identifies commonalities but also focuses on uncovering gaps and needs that may have previously gone unnoticed. The Living Process Wall is, therefore, a tool for creating a comprehensive view of all the components of a value chain (a term synonymous with a company’s core process). It serves as a crucial foundation for making well-informed and coordinated strategic decisions for the future. We often use this tool as part of comprehensive strategy development processes, where it helps establish a shared starting point for all stakeholders involved.
The task posed to the students was by no means simple and required a certain level of foundational understanding. That’s why we deeply admire the students’ quick and effortless grasp of our objectives. With great skill, they delivered comprehensive solutions and conceptual optimizations, laying the groundwork for taking our product to the next level.
For this, we want to extend our heartfelt thanks to the students.
This semester focused on conceptual development, but we are excited to continue working with the students next year to bring some of their proposals to life. Organizational consulting is always a process of design, though the final decisions rest with those being advised. Accordingly, this semester’s task in the orientation project was about designing the design itself.
A special thanks goes to Christof Breidenich and Frederik Schlechtingen for their coordination and flexibility, enabling this endeavor to be carried out entirely remotely with us.
We wish all participants a wonderful semester break!
