What is Development Engineering?

David LevineAlice AgoginoUC Berkeley

Designing products and services that improve poor people’s lives at scale

Is it hubris to “engineer” development?

• For over five centuries people from the Global North have “designed solutions” for those in the South

Profound humility

• For over five centuries people from the Global North have “designed solutions” for those in the South

• Often with tragic consequences

Profound humility

• Foundation of development engineering is realizing:– How little we understand needs– How bad our initial ideas and prototypes are

• Learn from and with local partners – For scaling: Need local partners to own & scale the

project• Plan for unintended consequences

Adding Development to Design Thinking Our complementary additions

Design thinking Development Business model / scaling / system thinking

More tools: sensors, experiments, and biggish data

Needs assessment

Qualitative tools

Ideation Creativity tools

Continuous improvement

Rapid prototyping

• Social goals to improve people’s lives at scale• Barriers to design from geographic and cultural distance• Constraints of poverty, remoteness, liquidity constraints,

gender roles,… • Opportunities of donors, mobile phones, microfinance,…• Tools like impact evaluations

Framework(Insights)

Observations(Contexts)

Imperatives(Concepts)

Solutions(Prototypes)

Qualitative &Quantitative

Data

Design Thinking in Development Engineering?

Example: cooking over biomass fires kills 4 million people per year

(Lim, 2014) http://blogs.civicus.org/worldassembly/2012/07/14/wood-fuel-destroying-the-environment-and-harming-the-african-woman

/.

Example: Development issues & stoves Needs assess Creativity Improvement Social goals to improve people’s lives at scale

Who breathes the most smoke?

How can we reduce smoke exposure?

Are we reducing smoke exposure?

Barriers to design from geographic and cultural distance

How can we learn when far?

How learn problems with out solutions?

Constraints of poverty, remoteness, liquidity constraints, gender roles,…

How sell when liquidity constraints?

Find 20 solutions to liquidity constraints

Test our solutions

Opportunities of donors, mobile phones, microfinance,…

What role for mobile phones?

How use mobile banking?

How collect data via phone?

Tools like impact evaluations What impacts do donors care about?

How roll out our product to build in learning?

Low-cost RCT

Development Engineering Dev Eng complementary additions Design

thinking Development=> More objectives, constraints & opportunities

Business model / scaling / system thinking

More tools:

Needs assessment

Qualitative tools

Add questions to inform the business model

Ideation Creativity tools

Applied to business models

Continuous improvement

Rapid prototyping

Of the business model

More quantitative tools Our complementary additions

Design thinking Business model / scaling / system thinking

Development=> More objectives, constraints & opportunities

More tools

Needs assessment Qualitative tools

Creativity Creativity tools

Continuous improvement

Rapid prototyping

Beyond rich qualitative methods:• Sensors embedded in products,

smart phones,…• Experiments (A/B testing, etc.)• Large data from satellites, clicks,

mobile phones…

Cook Stove Workshophttp://bit.ly/deveng-cookstove

Sensor Data

UCB-SUMS Stove Use Monitoring System

Maxim iButton: http://www.hedon.info/BP55:Low-costTemperatureLoggersAsStoveUseMonitors

What is Said – What is Done

• Comparison between ODK survey data and sensor data

• 85% over-estimated cooking hours & events – Users over-reported time spent cooking by 1.2 hours (almost double)– Non-Users over-reported by 1.7 hours.

Users

Non-Users

Development Engineering Dev Eng complementary additions Design

thinking Development=> More objectives, constraints & opportunities

Business model / scaling / system thinking

More tools: sensors, experiments, and large data

Needs assessment

Qualitative tools

Add questions & overcome barriers

Add questions to inform the business model

Using more tools

Ideation Creativity tools

Use as cues for creativity

Applied to business models

Use tools as cues for creativity

Continuous improvement

Rapid prototyping

Address barriers & use opportunities

Of the business model

Using more tools