Reflection – IT Customer Service - Visualization

Challenge & Selection

With the explosion of online services, our company, which provides IT services to other small and medium scale  companies is facing challenge of identifying the priority and severity of issues when a customer or customer  infrastructure experiences problem. Problem gets bounced between various departments even before proper diagnosis  is done. I intend to use Visualization or Visual Thinking approach to get a shared understanding between various  departments and levels. I have used whiteboarding, flow chart, straw man visualization of various problem domains  and their relationships with set of simple questions and prompts for various stake holders for discussion and scoring  of issue from their perspective. This helped identifying priority, key elements, scope, boundaries and relationship  between elements and departments. This detailed level visualization helped identify key issues to consider when we  identify improved process and solutions.

Application

Before I even start the Visual Thinking, a small group of experts (Digital Transformers) consists of departments collect  the current processes, tools, number of issues each department solves and other relevant monthly reports, KPI (key  performance indicators) various departments use. Have each of the member to conduct a survey / informal interviews  to collect relevant material to augment the documented materials.

I start the process by creating a straw man graphic of the problem domain. To develop the straw man graphic, I will  draw from any existing material available to understand the environment. The existing material may be operational or  procedural documents, training materials, marketing materials, GAO or other auditing reports. If materials are not  available, then I conduct informal interviews with one-three of the stakeholders who serve as my main points of  contact on the initiative.

As mentioned in the example assignment, if appropriate to the situation, I will borrow strategies and approaches  mentioned in David Gray’s book, “The Connected Company” to identify internal services to identify Partners and  Value Chain Providers (we already work with vendors for various internal and customer services). The “front- stage/back-stage” approach helps us identify key elements and relationships between and internal and external  stakeholders. The straw man graph/diagram will utilize simple online tools like draw.io and Google Docs to visualize  and collaborate. Once High-level graphic is ready poster-size board is created.

Once the relevant material is available, For the activity, I will enroll a large group of people and divide into smaller  5-6 participants each representing different departments and levels. Each group will receive a poster-size copy, sticky  notes and easel board for internal discussion and updated graphic from their perspective and will be grouped in a  separate table. Each group will be tasked to prioritize a set of issues and 2-3 questions to answer. I give them 20 mins  to complete the task and give questions after completing the tasks. Each group will be given opportunity to make a  presentation of their priority list and answers to the questions. Update the poster board with their modifications. I  record each group list and answers. I recreate Google Doc and draw.io diagram to reflect each group – group think.  After Discussion, Updated Document reflects the shared knowledge and additional details, as it contains feedback and  changes the group agreed upon. I will create a template for future Visual Thinking exercises relevant to our company.  This will be used as guide to future sessions to further enhance the process thru Iterations.

Insight & Approach

Insight from the session and approach I have taken has helped us create a sustainable process to involve and enhance  shared knowledge of technical capabilities, identify problem types and categories, prioritize them. This helped identify  some of the issues involved in solving problems with in internal and external stakeholders. The graphical  representation provided various stakeholders to provide feedback and shared understanding on the process and  bottlenecks in the system.  It also helped identify other KPI that needs to observe by the managers and executives to  help engineers to focus on the issues, external bottlenecks that are not in control of internal stakeholders. It provided  template for future sessions to expand the services, identify relationship between them, identify bottlenecks in  collaborating between internal and external stakeholders.

