Taking the Next Best Step

In the first few meetings with our client, our team focused on asking about our final deliverable so we could plan out our roadmap. We were confused when our client shared his values and his expectations for us to integrate these values into their systems map. I realized our initial approach was not the best approach for this client. It is important to have a vision as shown through our project plan and a scope to make sure we are on the same page. However, he expects us not to have all the answers yet, which means we need to accept that we don’t have all the answers, including how the final deliverable will shape up exactly. 

We resorted to taking the next best step, and this best step depends on our client’s feedback. His recurring feedback in the first few meetings highlighted what he cared about, not what the final deliverable should look like. Observing this, we shifted our approach to understanding what he cares about and identifying the next best step in this direction. In our case, our client cares about creating system change toward lifestyles in harmony with nature, utilizing technology as a catalyst for change. This means our input for technology should focus on how it can catalyze change toward a harmonic lifestyle with nature. This suggests the impact he hopes to see would be beyond the app, dismantling barriers against the purpose of living in harmony with nature. 

My teammates and I identified several themes, such as consumer impact, farmer impact, and technology. We each led one theme, identifying the next best steps based on our client’s feedback. Taking on the producer theme, I identified problems in the agricultural sector, considering our client’s work on utilizing regenerative agriculture to sequester carbon. Taking into consideration technology and the youth, we found that farming as a profession is undesirable for the youth because of its reputation for poor living conditions and low wages, which ultimately forms the bottleneck to agricultural innovation. To create system change, we need to shift societal mindsets to change the reputation of farming and make it more desirable for youth. With these insights, we provided an in-depth engagement strategy for the farm apprenticeship program. Farmers would be able to share their farming practices and culture with young apprentices. In return, apprentices can assist farmers in farming, integrating technology, and marketing their impactful work on cultivating the land and their lifestyle among nature. In reaction to this idea, our client responded with, “Brilliant.” He praised us for sharing innovative ideas to tackle system challenges and acknowledged that our growth has been exponential. With his positive feedback, he asked us to move forward with this idea by making an implementation proposal. While we did not initially expect to propose an apprenticeship program, our next best steps guided us toward it and paved the path for future next steps.

It might not seem clear how each pathway trajectory connects because his feedback guides our theme in different directions. However, because they have a similar starting point – what our client cares about and the scope we identified – we have since found a way to tie it all together toward a more cohesive and detailed final deliverable outline. I appreciated his honest feedback because it reflected his priorities. Each of my teammates also shared different interpretations of his feedback, which helped us understand the feedback more in-depth. It might seem like our client has been leading us toward this path, but the leadership is mutual: the next best steps we choose and the ideas we generate reflect our leadership.