Crafting Semiconductor Workforce Strategies

The Challenge

Working with Arizona State University and The US State Department, we were challenged to create and facilitate a program that engaged multiple stakeholders from Government, Higher Education, Semiconductor Manufacturers, Multinational Companies, Professional Bodies, and more. Given the fast paced and dynamic nature of the industry as well as the diverse group of participants, steps would need to be taken to make sure participants had a shared knowledge base to work off. The clients also expressed a need for any and all solutions to be actionable within 2 years and achievable by five.

Our Solution

Both workshops in Vietnam and The Philippines took place over 3 days and involved a mixture of key note addresses, panel discussions, and interactive activities. The key note addresses and panel discussions served as knowledge inputs where new data, research reports, and initiatives were shared. These input sessions were followed up with interactive activities.

In order to ensure that everyone had a shared understanding of the policy environment as well as various initiatives within their respective countries, participants first went through an activity where all initiatives they were aware of were brainstormed and shared. This crowd sourced information was combined with new data from the keynotes and grouped into 5 key areas. Participants then conducted a facilitated GAP analysis where they identified gaps and opportunities based on the current semiconductor landscape in their respective countries.

Taking the gaps and opportunities, facilitators then created a Creative Matrix with 7 Challenge areas and 7 Solution Spaces. These challenge areas and solution spaces formed a grid matrix where participants would brainstorm ideas within each challenge area and solution space. In order to ensure culturally relevant ideas, a 8th 'wildcard' solution space was added to solicit unique and culturally relevant ideas. This process led to the creation of over 120 potential workforce development ideas across the entire participant group.

Each group then used a Impact-Feasibility Matrix to sort ideas. In order to generate ideas that were achievable within 5 years, feasibility was defined as such while impact was left undefined so that participants were able to root impact in their own local and cultural understanding.

High Impact and High Feasibility ideas where then grouped into projects and concept notes were developed. Participants went through an iterative pitch development process where they generated feedback from fellow participants as well as client experts before pitching ideas to representatives from the clients and their funders.

The Outcome

By the end of both workshops, 16 'Big Ideas' were generated across various modalities to advance workforce development within the semiconductor industries. These included streamlined training and credentialing initiatives, faculty training, mentorships, investments, and policy initiatives. Over and above these big ideas, over 100 smaller crowd sourced ideas and initiatives were also generated and ready for further development.

More importantly, by rooting the process through bottom-up participation, participants expressed significant excitement in moving ideas forward. This tangible excitement has also led to significant interest from local governments and investors on supporting groups in turning ideas into projects.

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Romano was the lead designer, project manager, and facilitator on this project as part of the InsightPact team.