Identify: Team Compass

This week, our team met to identify what our challenge was, our assumptions, and break down each component of food insecurity. We realized that the food pantry itself had many different sub problems, and that food insecurity itself had many different components. In order to tackle the challenge in a meaningful way, we need to identify all the problem spaces.

Our subproblems spaces were:

      • Awareness: Most people do not know about the food pantry.
      • Resources/Contents: Did the food pantry have food the users wanted?
      • Hours: The hours are odd
      • Perception/Level of comfort: There is stigma around food insecurity
      • Access: Transportation and location play important roles in food access

 

However, upon breaking down this challenge, we realized some of our subproblem spaces were built on assumptions. We assumed that the hours were odd because they were only on weekdays, in the afternoons. We assumed that the food pantry had food people did not want based on one team member’s experience. A final assumption we uncovered was that financial barriers were the main cause of food insecurity. Being aware of these assumptions made it possible to create an action plan of filling these knowledge gaps and either confirming or denying what we thought was true. We’re excited to start immersing ourselves in user interviews to understand more about our problem spaces next week!

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