Darian Phillips ‘20 LABB Intern– As a part of Wabash’s intensive 7-week LABB program, a group of 22 interns, including myself, were provided with the opportunity to serve as consultants for the college. Each intern was placed into one of five groups and was presented with an issue concerning the college, such as: parking, independent housing sign-ups, reporting dashboards, student senate inventory, and open shift sign ups.
After being placed into groups, we quickly began to breakdown and evaluate our given issue by implementing a structured problem-solving technique known as A3 thinking. A3 thinking is an industry-leading program that provides individuals, companies, and educators with a comprehensive and effective roadmap for professional and workforce development. Moreover, the A3 thinking technique provided us with a simple, strict, and systemic template to organize our thoughts and ultimately develop solutions in an efficient and effective manner. Throughout this process, we were blessed to have Wayne Bewley, class of ’85, as our A3 thinking guru/mentor. Wayne stood alongside each group, helped guide them in the right direction, and made sure we were executing each step in the A3 process properly. Moreover, Wayne provided us with valuable business skills, informed us that we should never skip a step in any given process, and showed us that rough data is better than no data at all.
The final week of the program, each group presented a comprehensive breakdown of their solution to faculty, staff, and those concerned with college. Unfortunately, we were not informed whether the college will further pursue our suggestions, but I am eager to see if this year’s LABB program can have a lasting impact on Wabash. I would like to end with one final thank you to Roland Morin, Alejandro Reyna, and Wayne Bewley for being exceptional mentors throughout this summer, this is truly an experience that I will value throughout my professional career.
