Visualization

Challenge & Selection –

The tool I used is the tool of Visualization, or Visual Thinking, to achieve a shared understanding of a  problem, among various stakeholder before attempting to identify and define possible solutions to the  problems. I used this approach to design the flow of handling the postpaid SR in NCH process of  complaint handling. New complaint Handling process was launched by the digitization and the product  teams, after a long CFT discussions & taking the insights from various network stakeholders like – NCRT,  Network Quality, Planning, Deployment Operations. The objective of this process (NCH) is to give auto  indicative RCA to the customer complaints raised by postpaid customers. The problem at hand was that  the TSG engineers identify the indicative RCA based on their skill & competence. Also the time taken for  them to attend the SR per day & per week was less than the inflow per day. This kept the SR pending for  long time with TSG engineers itself.

In a 30 days time window, TSG engineer took more than 15days to send the SR to the right stakeholders  after classifying it. The stakeholders took their own time (depending on the action to be done) to rectify  the problem & revert back to TSG for resolution of the complaint. This led to very poor resolution in 30  days for the customers. The reference video that I took is the one illustrated by Angela Mayer over the  Visualisation tool, where she illustrated the impact of simple techniques like straw man drawing over  the board that can help people understand what we want to say. it allows us to think in a nonverbal  way, It allows us to access parts of our brain, parts of our creativity. Tools such as - Write on white  board, images we create, power point ppt we create etc. to make people understand the concept. The  challenge which needed to be solved with the visualization tool was the process in which the SR would  be flowing for resolution once its classified by the NCH, how the interim communication will be given to  customer & how it will be closed in Konnect tool. The tools involved in this process are – DT (Decision  Tree), XNET (Rule engine), Konnect (WFM). The flow has to be seamlessly explained to all in circles for  proper execution.

I have used the technique of using a flow chart to visual the flow of a problem, to explain the process &   prompt everyone for discussion to allow a diverse group of stakeholders to learn from each other in the  process of defining the scope, boundaries, key elements, and relationships between elements to  consider when identifying pain points and opportunities for improvements or solutions.

Application-

Since there are multiple stakeholders in the whole NCH process, such as – customer raising an issue in  the form of SR, product & digitization using XNET, Siebel & DT to classify the issue & Network Quality &  NCRT running the process in the filed with the help of stakeholders to solve the problems, eventually  solving the SR, communicating the customers & making him happy.

I started the process by creating the process flow charts for each of the 11 RCA that the SR were getting  classified into by the XNET. The first one that we took was the “operations issue RCA”, where the flow  had to be designed in a flow chart to make every one understand how it will be solved in the field.

1. Customer coming to the DT (decision Tree) for raising an issue, XNET analysing the issue &

computing a rule based RCA, asking the Siebel tool to give the customer an SR. Then flowing that  SR to the Work Force management tool - Konnect for action by the TSg engineer.

2. TSG Engineer picking that Sr & sending that to the Operations team in the circle MS for action

on daily basis. Circle MS taking the action & sending back the result to th eTSG NPI for closure.

3. TSG NPI based on the revert received from Operations team, sending the SR to TSG Hub for

closure.

4. TSG Hub upon seeing the SR as resolved in Konnect, closing it finally, triggering a feedback

message to the customer who raised the SR.

5. Customer responding back after reading the message whether he is happy or not.  6. To explain all above, I have drawn the flowcharts with the help of Visio tool, to make everyone

understand the flow end to end.

7. I conducted informal training sessions with the TSG engneers as well to make them understand

with the help of the same flow charts & line diagrams.

8. The flow charts have proved to be very simple to make & make people understand, using simple

shapes and icons available in Visio.

Insight & Approach

What I have learned from conducting this exercise with stakeholder groups is that while the graphic – eis  important for reinforcing their understanding of the problem they are working to solve, the more  valuable aspect of the activity is the shared insights and shared learning that occurs while they are  working to define their problem. The graphic gives the diverse group of stakeholders a focal point for  discussion that allows them to share their perspectives and develop insights into potential root causes  of their problems. While I could create the graphic flowchart from a blank slate in a collaborative  manner, starting with it jump starts the conversation for them. They could quickly identify where they  are in the graphic – or if they are missing – and can more quickly gain new insights about relationships  between key entities instead of taking time to identify them. They can also identify variables in the  problem space – that is, it helps them to identify what they don’t know, in what areas they need to  obtain information or data to provide the values for the variables.

Since I discovered that the most valuable aspect is the shared insights and learning, next time I would  use the visualization activity as a starting point for a series of design thinking activities.

