SDE College is a technical school founded in 2008 as the result of a merger between Odense Technical College and Vejle Technical College. SDE College operates in 12 locations in Jutland and Funen, with 5200 students per year and 867 employees.

Challenge

When Syddansk Erhvervsskole tried to tackle the smoking habit by prohibiting it in its schools, one of the core impediments to the implementation was the organization's "usual way" of running projects and their limited competencies in running projects smoothly for all the stakeholders. That was the moment when the shared journey between Business Learning and the educational organization team began toward materializing the initiative.

Approach

To change the narrative of fearing changes that dissatisfy a wide range of stakeholders, our consultants took the opportunistic approach that followed the design thinking methodology and switched the narrative from fear to challenge, the breakthrough question being “How might we help the smokers embrace the change we aspired to achieve?”. In a short time, the design thinking session with 15 leaders, employees, and students from Syddansk Erhvervsskole revealed an urgency to make the end-user of the change understand the necessity of the initiative, as well as to create alternative solutions for both the students and the staff.

Impact

Syddansk Erhvervsskole found feasible, creative, and fun solutions that addressed the effects of smoke prohibition on campus. However, the main impact of the session was the happiness and relief achieved within the team when they acquired a constructive way of approaching the challenges.