Reflection – Visualization

Challenge & Selection

Visualization is a tool I have used for many years. My role is “innovation catalyst” at a major utility  (energy provider). That mission covers the generation of new product for our customers (like solar  panels, new tariff schemes for electricity, connected services for heating like thermostat or  maintenance contract). Bringing such products to the market usually require the intervention of  many stakeholders & teams : marketing, finance, legal, IT, operations, customer service … The  challenge for me is to make sure that different teams in different steps of the product design or  business creation have a common understanding.

Today I chose to write about Visualization because I think it is very intuitive and powerful to help  create a common understanding and bring real collaboration. Unlike in the course (module one) in  “the good kitchen” example where Visualization is used for the intended final users of the service, I  have used Visualization in internal communications context but with the same type of outcome = a  clear and common understanding.

Last but not least, as a very practical and simple tool to use, Visualization can play a positive role in  different situations (idea generation, coordination between different teams, etc.), here are two  example on how it can apply.

Application

I often find myself standing up at a paperboard. The power of simple drawing _even as simple as  words, boxes and arrows_ is very big for catching the attention of an audience, keeping focus on the  topic of the meeting. I have used Visualization tool in many contexts and with different objectives.

One first example during an exploratory phase for regulatory innovation experiment. Following an  invitation from the national energy regulation agency, my company was to come up with ideas on  how to suggest experiments targeted at helping the regulator design future regulation. The team  around the table was made up economists, energy policy analysts, legal department representatives  and of course marketeers. The topic was quite open and I had to deal with different level of  understanding around the table. I used simple drawing on the paperboard to settle a common  framework for the “base case business scheme”. I asked the to the people in the room to come to  the board and explain their ideas for experiment schemes detailing what piece of the previous set up  they would change or if they would change the whole arrangement and how it would look like then.

Another example during a meeting dedicated at improving customer experience. A solar panel  installation business had been launched few months before and it was time to capitalize on  experience and simplify the process. Different teams came up with their respective “scope of duty”  representing different “touch points” with the customer (acquisition, qualification, sales, installation  and admin support). We used a common flow chart type of visualization to build the whole customer  journey and used this to improve the overall experience, merge some messaging (emails to  customer), identify “hot zones” where things usually did not go as planned, reduced some un- necessary waiting times by doing thing in parallel instead of one after the other.

Insight & Approach

In both examples the big and obvious gain was the common understanding. In the first case, the  main insight would be to bring clarity in a complex topic. Understanding how energy policy and

regulation affects tariffs and how to tweak it is not an easy thing. Drawing little pictures, blocks and  arrows made it just more clear for everyone.

In the second case, I would say the main insight was that visualization helped see the big picture, the  tool helped reveal optimization opportunities or things that could be made more simple to improve  customer experience.

In terms of approach I would think that the Visualization tool applied in the cases presented was  relevant and useful, for the first case I would tend to complement internal brainstorming with “real  outside world” research using learning launch and try to collect more data based on real facts and  customer interaction.

