Description of the course
The course provides students with an in-depth look at what is an information system and how today’s business firms use information technologies and systems to achieve corporate objectives. The course emphasizes the importance of total business process reengineering to achieve dramatic improvements in productivity and quality. By the end of the course, students are able to explain the importance of business process management and the role of people in information systems. This course has been updated to include design thinking principles. Students practice design thinking to bring innovative solutions that can address the needs of target customers.
Description of the participants
This is an obligatory course conducted for undergraduate students from the Department of Information Systems, Faculty of Information Technology, Hanoi university. The course was attended by 42 students in the second semester of the 2022 – 2023 academic year, all of whom are enrolled in the 3rd year of studies.
Description of gamified design thinking activities
Students were grouped into teams of 4 – 5 members. Each group was challenged to identify a small business running on outdated processes and to revise the existing business processes by using information systems, namely software, to achieve operational excellence. Each group was encouraged to select a specific software package to support business processes and to inform teacher for approval. Students deployed the ICT-INOV digital learning platform throughout the project to post problems, share ideas, and interact with others in the team.
Activities were organized in the following steps.
Step 1. Team building
After being grouped in teams, students were allowed to work together, ask each other questions, discuss the strengths and weaknesses of each team member, and define team member roles. Subsequently, each group agreed on a team name and designed a team logo.
Step 2. Understand the targeted customer and identify problems.
In order to correctly understand customer needs and the actual parameters of the given problem, students were encouraged to practice empathy by applying user-centered approaches, such as conducting research to understand the past, present, and future needs and aspirations of customers. Subsequently, they drew a business model canvas to concisely describe the profile of the selected company, and specifically the company functional areas, its core business processes, and its cross-business processes with detailed explanations.
Step 3. Brainstorming.
Students were encouraged to describe the information system or software that they selected for managing business processes. They were asked to list key features and explain carefully how they match with company business processes. Specifically, they described the rationale for selecting the specific information system, the system’s functionality, and at least 3 key features explaining how they match business processes. They were also asked to provide screenshots of the software. Some suggestions for information systems software for use in the class include ABIT®, Sapo®, KiotViet®, Hararetail®, Nhanh.vn®, CRMViet®, MShopKeeper®, Suno®, and others.
