Saturday, May 28, 2016
Testing the Opportunity Hypothesis - Part I
I have an opportunity! We need a shuttle service for kids, especially for sports practices. Specifically ages 6-16.
Parents of children that are active in sports face difficulties with time management. Due to work schedules, last minute meetings, having multiple children in sports or other responsibilities, parents often struggle with getting their children to practice on time, if at all.
Who has this issue: Parents, Coaches, the athletes
Why do they have this issue: The parents have issues with work schedules, last minute meetings, overbooking, last minute responsibilities and multiple children, among other possible reasons. The coaches have an issue with members of their teams not attending practices. The children have issues simply by not being able to go.
What is the issue: Getting their children to practice on time, if at all.
Testing the boundaries
For this assignment, I sought out parents to interview with various numbers of children, ranging from only one child to five children. The children were or various ages, some within the boundary of my opportunity, some outside.
When interviewing parents for this assignment, I did find that every person or family that I interviewed had this need.
When asking them about what the need was, it was simple: their children needed to get to their sports practice. It is a challenge for families to create that extra time, but they do not want their children to miss out on sports activities.
When asking them about why the need was there, it was clear with some statements of "time" and "I feel like I need another parent." Working parents simply do not have the time to take their children to everything that they are involved in. One interviewee was interested in the idea just because she had multiple small children. She found it hard to have the oldest at practice, chasing the younger one around or keeping him still while being pregnant with her third baby. Now that baby #3 has arrived, she feels that it would be impossible to have her oldest in sports without a service like this. She thought this was a great idea to free up some time for her. Another interviewee is going back to work full time and her daughter needs to get to cheerleading practice. This will be difficult for her as her daughter's practice in mid-afternoon when she is at work.
I got some great feedback and some great ideas from the interview process. Some new ideas came up in early interviews that I was able to expand on in later interviews. Some of these interviews went a little long, we expanded on some ideas and kicked around some others. This may have not been the full intent of the assignment, but it helped me to understand where different people are coming from.
I took it one step further and interviewed some kids as well. These were not recorded, but it was insightful to hear their response to some of these questions. I interviewed three (3) older children, ages 11, 12 and 16. Surprisingly, they felt comfortable with a service like this as long as they were able to meet the driver ahead of time.
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Carolyn,
ReplyDeleteI think that this is a real problem. I know that my family experience this when I was younger. I have a brother that is two years younger than me and my parents always had a hard time taking us to our practices because they were often on the same day in two separate locations. A service like this would be very helpful, especially to working parents.
Hi Carolyn,
ReplyDeleteI think that this opportunity is a wonderful idea. I can not tell you the amount of times I was late or unable to go to practice because of my mother and father. I am positive if my parents could have paid for a service like this they would have done this 100%. This is a unique opportunity and I believe you should strongly consider following it.
Hi Carolyn,
ReplyDeleteI agree that this is a great opportunity! While I was not involved in sports, I definitely see how this could be a big issue for parents. This seems like a great idea, especially if multiple kids from the same team were on the same shuttle, making them feel more comfortable. However, I do feel that some parents may have some issues with this idea, even with knowledge of who's driving, due to safety concerns. I do think that this is a great idea for busy parents though. Keep up the good work!
As someone with very busy parents, this kind of service would have been incredibly helpful for me. Parents sometimes can't afford the time to take their kids around to different extra-curricular activities, but don't want their kids to miss out on vital things. This is a really good idea. I also really commend talking with children and seeing how they felt on the situation.
ReplyDeleteI really like this idea and how you are thinking out of the box. This could have been a problem for your parents when you were young and that is awesome to relate back to that need or something you will struggle with. This will help parents out and allow these kids to do the things they want without restraint on schedule and timing with the parents. Definitely something people can relate to.
ReplyDeleteThis is by far one of my favorite ideas I have seen so far. It is extremely specific and serves a need that I would think most parents would have. I am really interested to see how you would go further with this idea in actually formulating a plan and figuring out the logistics of a service like this! Great idea!
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