Reflection Paper    Design Thinking for Innovation

1    Vinay Kolusu

Design Thinking – Reflection Paper

Tool – Mind Mapping

Challenge & Selection:

Being part of the software industry for more than a decade and a half, I had experienced the challenges  of providing innovation on the scale. Innovation is the most important aspect that keeps the business or  products ahead of the crowd. Sometimes the innovations that are done involve only a minor improvement  over the existing, however, the impart would of great value for the businesses. we often use various tools  to arrive at innovative solutions. One of the major tools that I use is mind mapping, as the tool helps  achieve the following

1. Uniform understanding of the problem statement    2. Collaboration from the stakeholders   3. Identifications of implicit needs.

Mind Mapping is a great tool to communicate across the board, from Senior Executives to entry-level  employees. As information assimilation and digestion is different to different individuals based on the  vantage point in the organization. Mind maps help to bring all of them to common ground and arrive at a  solution that is harder to agree upon.

Application:

I am going to tell you about a story on how mind mapping had helped me in not only arrive at a solution  that is agreed by all stakeholders but also provided some key insights. I was looking for a new business  idea that helps in the B2B marketplace. At first, I had a thought on the need of a marketplace for a specific  sector in the B2B space. It was missing the key essential parts like stakeholders, the exact problem that I  can address, what are the challenges, what can be the ideal way of arriving at a solution. I had started  working on mind mapping with a little help from visualization as well. I started putting the mind mapping  into work by doing the following

•  Projective Techniques – This tool had helped me connect the stakeholders, understand both the  macro and micro picture of the marketplace. I had projected a big picture view using the  marketplace in the centre and all other nodes interconnecting. This had led to the identification  of key elements and processes that are must for an MVP.

•  Having the gained some insights from Projective Technique, I had used interviews of the  stakeholders to evaluate the need and further zero in on the ideas that are required for MVP.

•  Surveys have been conducted to collect data and viewpoints from the various stakeholders, as  the data is analyzed by using various methodologies like graphs, pivot charts. I was able to further  eliminate and refine my understand the need.

•  Equipped with data and insights, I had built a digital dashboard (ie Digital yard sale ) and collected  the key elements.

Reflection Paper    Design Thinking for Innovation

2    Vinay Kolusu

Insight & Approach

The Activity was a game-changer, I was able to identify some of the key aspects that were missed in my  initial run through. The Assumptions were put to a very hard test and some of them, I had to reevaluate.  The mind mapping tool had helped in communicating the business idea to other stakeholders like partners  clearly and crisply eliminating ambiguity. This had led us to build a team that is more focused on the  solution to be built. The insights like customer preference, investor alignment, team requirements had  ballooned out of this exercise. This approach of identification of major innovation needs has enabled me  to challenge the status quo and implement truly complex changes with ease and comfort.

