Reflection – Visualization

Challenge    As an IT Leader, I’m working a lot on all digital transformation topics and I need to constantly  bring new innovative digital products to the organisation. I also need to review existing way  of working and processes.  On one of the project I’ve recently worked on, I was working with different business  departments and we wanted to revamp entirely an internal solution supporting a large  operational activity. The current application was outdated and developing a new one was the  opportunity to rethink how we should perform the tasks.  We was limited in time and wanted to launch this new product quickly. But it was very  important to associate many business users to this revamp and to have everyone thinking  out of the box, not just implementing incremental innovation.      Selection    I created a group of users and IT professionals. All together, we’ve conducted some design  thinking workshop to brainstorm about how we could perform this operational activity on a  better way. I’ve decided to dedicate the first session to explain what is design thinking and  how we’ll proceed. then I’ve conduction then other workshops to map the existing processes,  user journey within this process, and identification of all the pain points.   I use What Is / What if / What Wows / What works  questions and framework as explained on  week 1. I’ve explained this framework and we went through all the questions.      Application    On the first session, I’ve presented the What is / What if / What wows / What works  framework. We’ve shared about this approach and had open discussions about the  uncertainty and what will come next this “discovery phase”.  We took the time of this first  session and few days between this first and the second workshop to let people think about  all this and understand well all ideas and be in the “right mindset” for the upcoming work.  On the second session, we’ve conducted visual mapping with sticky notes of all pain points  the users are experiencing today, as well as all features they think they could be a game  changer. Then we grouped all these sticky notes by type of issues and we draw the  end-to-end process from these sticky notes.  We had then a visual representation of the end-to-end process from a user perspective, with  all the pain points and opportunities identified along this process. We did that on large paper  boards on all walls of the meeting room.  We then started to answer the What If question and we proceed on the same way, with  sticky notes. Everyone participate and we came out with great ideas. We took all these ideas  and we use all of its to map the needed transformation from where we are to where we want  to go.

The following workshops have been more dedicated to some sub-processes and to answer  the “what works” question. We came out with great solutions we would not have been able to  identify on a more traditional approach and have moved on into some rapid prototypes.      Insight     By applying some visualisation tools and making all actions into the general design thinking  framework, it helps all participant to be active participant. We saved lot of time as we  mapped all processes, pain points, and new solutions into very graphic way, like a mind  map. By doing these both interactives sessions and visual representation, we avoided miss  understanding between participants, have been able to quickly focus on the questions that  matter, and not be distracted by not so important topics.  Also, about the new solution we designed, it helps everyone to have a general  understanding very easily, which helps to communicate outside of the group about this  solution and our decisions.We saved a lot of time about getting th buy-in from other senior  leaders.      Approach    I’m happy to have explained the big picture and full framework at first. I’m also happy to use  brainstorming techniques but within clear questions. It helps to drive participation and to  have everyone to think out of the box without creating bias. However, what I may do  differently is to combine this visualisation processes with the rapid launch and prototyping at  the same time, all together. I believe we could move even faster and reinforce the  participation of all staff.

