coffee shop assingnment

Babson College: Master of Science in Entrepreneurial Leadership

Observation Exercise: Coffee Shop Observation

Individual Assignment (pass/fail) Due at the beginning of session 6 (Sept 23)

Expectations: Plan to spend at least one hour on this assignment, not including travel to the location. Task: Coffee Shop observation Spend one hour doing the following observation/interview exercise, include at least 30 minutes of observation and about 30 minutes capturing the results.

• Go to an off-campus coffee shop (we recommend during the weekend when you have the most flexibility)

• Observe what’s happening as customers order, collect, and begin to consume their coffee; also observe how workers are going about their work.

• As you observe, look for interesting behaviors that you don’t entirely understand and that are different from your own experience. Use the “AEIOU” guidance on the back of this sheet to think about different things to observe.

• Once you’ve seen an interesting behavior, formulate a question around your observation – a question to which you don’t know the answer. (Be careful not to assume that the people you are watching are thinking the way that you do about ordering and enjoying coffee)

• Approach a customer or employee and ask a question: learn what you can to help you better understand your observation or resolve your curiosity as to why you observed the behaviors you did.

• If it helps, you may wish to explain first to the person you approach that you are a business student studying behavior associated with coffee purchasing.

• Once you have completed at least 30-minutes of observation, write a short (up to one page) summary of both what you learned about what you saw, heard, and noticed, i.e., behavior at a coffee shop, and what you learned about yourself in the process with respect to observation and interviewing. Also be sure to include the AEIOU table on the next page.

• Upload your write-up to Canvas and also bring this to class to share.

Babson College: Master of Science in Entrepreneurial Leadership

Coffee shop observation write-up A helpful technique for doing observations is to think about the following AEIOU categories below. As part of your write-up, include a table like this filled out with your observation notes. Category Notes Activities: What is happening? Primary, secondary, peripheral activities?

Environments: Where are things happening? Are there multiple kinds of environments within one larger place? What are the characteristics?

Interactions: Who is doing what with whom? Do interactions seem planned or spur of the moment? Are people interacting with other people? With things? With environments?

Objects: What objects are present and/or involved in activities and interactions described? What seems most/least important? What is puzzling?

Users: Who are the users? Do they vary in characteristics?

Following the table, also be sure to include a brief summary of both what you learned about what you saw, heard, and noticed, i.e., behavior at a coffee shop, and what you learned about yourself in the process with respect to observation and interviewing.