CHALLENGE  I manage and run an insurance agency. Our challenge has been having employees who  feel overworked and who end up being not productive and frustrated. This has had a  negative impact on our agency’s ability to give superior customer experience and the  growth of our overall agency production and revenue. Employees come and go and we  have never quiet figured the source of the problem. We will need to determine if we are  properly staffed and if the proper workload has been given to each staff. We shall find  out if we have too few employees or lack the proper systems to run the agency. Our task  will be to determine if really the workload is actually growing or employees are just not  working smart.        SELECTION  Mind mapping is the tool we have selected because it basically works in a similar way to  our brain. Instead of forcing employees to understand their work by traditional means,  mind mapping will help them to work in a way that feels natural to their brain. Mind  maps will prevent their brains from wondering off in different directions, allowing it to  focus directly on the task at hand. They can quickly communicate and organize their  tasks, leading to them becoming organized and be able to be productive. Mind mapping is  a powerful tool that can be used to look for patterns, and insights from the large amount  of information that will be gathered. This can lead to a more creative solution to our  challenge.       APPLICATION  We started the process by using the mind-mapping tool to capture and represent the mind  of the employees so we can actually get to know what is going on from their perspective.  It included documenting and measuring what currently exists by observing how  employees are currently handling their tasks. This will allow the organization to properly  define the problem and empathize with those performing the activities in the  organization. It is very easy to assume and make conclusions and come up with a solution  for a challenge from our perspective as managers. A mind map will make it easier to  visualize all of the steps in the daily tasks of each employee. This will help us quickly see  the gaps, set goals and better manage time. Information regarding their tasks will be  broken down into comprehensible chunks and the hierarchical structure will help to  clarify the thought processes giving us a wider perspective      INSIGHT & APPROACH  As we utilized the mind-mapping tool to see the step-by-step processes in our insurance  agency we were not only able to identify themes and patterns but also the different  personas in the organization. We found out that employees are all different and the cause  to their lack of productivity can vary based on their role and work style. The most  valuable insight gained as employees went through this process was the fact that they  could clearly identify the routine tasks, which ended up frustrating them and affecting

their productivity. The information can help employees keep only relevant processes and  organize them to work. We were able to tell the areas the employees succeeded in, the  areas they could be wasting time and resources and where they are experiencing  unnecessary process bottlenecks and gaps. As an organization we are better equipped to  decide which processes require optimization, change management, and where new  systems and technologies need to be adopted. In the case of our organization, the  employees needed to increase individual productivity. But “productivity” was not  understood by all in the same way. To understand what productivity meant for them, the  mind maps were used to show visually what their day-to-day work looks like.  For  example, if an employee had to process an insurance claim the mind map was used to  illustrate the steps required. Mapping each employee’s tasks is essential to be able to  foster a long-term engagement and retention.   Alternative approaches exist in design thinking when it comes to employee productivity  challenges. Our organization could also use the learning launch tool to get the truth and  the truth can be used to confirm or dis-confirm our assumptions relating to the lack of  employee productivity. As mangers we tend to assume employees are not productive  simply because they are not following the set down company procedures. It easy for us to  conclude an employee is giving excuses yet we have design tools such as the learning  launch tool that can help us carry out experiments, observe and know the exact truth that  will aid in handling our challenge easily.

