Reflection – Mind Mapping

Challenge

In our current project for loyalty applications the clients came up with a requirement to have a  solution to send push notifications to several devices running loyalty mobile app without much  delay. The requirement was to send bulk and personalized push notification to apple and android  device with best possible through put rate. I was assigned the task to find the best technical  solution for the notification services. In my experience I have learnt that the better is client’s  requirement’s understanding, the better and the stable is the solution. Therefore, I decided to  use design thinking and design thinking tool to define a concrete solution for same.

Selection

After carefully studying the various design thinking tools through the course, I decided to use  mind mapping tool to define a solution for the above stated problem. In my experience it is very  much important precisely understand what a client is asking for and what actually they need. I  felt mind map tool was the perfect choice for this situation which will bring both client and me  on the same page to understand the exact requirement. Mind map tools are more visual and  easier to understand, In addition I feel mind mapping is a powerful tool that allows to be more  structured, in position to find great solutions and able to gather data in easier way. In return it  helps to get more insights into customers need and we can easily corelate patterns.

Application

I did little research on the best available mind mapping tools to find the best suitable one for my  challenge. However, there were no free tools available and hence I could use only the trail version  of these tools. For my case, I selected iMindMap which is designed to be visually stimulating, with  curved branches, bright colors and sharp images to help unleash your creativity. It's simple to  brainstorm, refine, plan and craft an animated presentation. I aligned and mapped various  components and resources involved with that of client’s requirement. It was easy to illustrate  flow of data and process using the iMindMap.  The program execution and parallel task  processing was easy demonstrated easily by the tool for clients understanding. And it helped us  to validate that our solution matched the customers requirements.

Insights

By using mind map tools our team identified several sub goals and milestones. We then did  brainstorming to identify solution for each milestone. Also, we learnt it was easier to align the  requirements in a visual format then in writing notes. Clients provided immediate feedbacks to  the maps almost instantly as they could relate to the visual representation easily. These tools  could be used often, to understand the problem and then to convert it into a precise solution.  We also learnt that client had specific requirement to handle static notifications and customized  notification. And that for them it was two different types of notifications whereas the system  could not identify the difference between the two.

Approach

In future, I would be more proactive to use these tools to their capacity. It is important to get a  peer feedback before presenting such maps to the customer. An internal brainstorming session  will be useful in scenarios where the client may not have full understanding of their requirements.  Usage of correct color to display each node in the map is essential too.

