Design Thinking for Innovation – Final Reflection Paper

Challenge & Selection

My background and experience for the last 15+ years has been in market research. The structured kind

of market research where the work is linear and analytical. We may do qualitative research, but  that’s primarily to inform our quantitative survey. And, to our customers, whatever the  quantitative survey reveals is truth. After all, the client is always crystal clear on the problem they  are trying to solve and they just need to run a survey to validate their position to management.

This course has inspired me to think about market research differently. To challenge my colleagues and

clients about the “problem” at hand. To ask – what is and what if. It really is about putting the  customer of the center of everything we do – rather than putting ourselves and the center and  expecting the customer to love what we produce. Historically, leaders in my organization are  convinced they know what the customer wants and data is merely a validation tool. Part of my  ambition with this course is to start to change that thinking and to encourage a customer-first  approach and culture.

To accomplish this, I have selected Mind Mapping as my tool. In my past career, my team was the

producer of the lengthy, market research reports that nobody read. The reports where the client  would either cherry pick the data points that validated their beliefs or ignored if the data didn’t  support their plans. Mind maps are a creative, visual way to present an abundance of data. By  applying the mind mapping tool, I hope to identify patterns and insights in ways that are  compelling, and impossible for my colleagues to ignore.

Application & Insight

We have a new product under development. There has been lots of traditional market research

conducted over the past couple of years to support the development and launch of the new  product. To ensure we’re on the right path and developing features that serve the unmet needs of  our customers, I am planning to develop a mind map with the exist data and market research  reports. The information has been siloed and we have not effectively engaged stakeholders across  the organization to synthesize and generate insights from all of the reports.  This approach will  bring colleagues together and encourage new, creative perspectives to generate fresh thinking,  patterns and insights. Given COVID and our work from home situation, we will attempt to do this  using remote videoconferencing tools.

I have only planned the exercise and have not had time to actually run the mind mapping session.

While I hope we can gain new insights about our customers and what they want from this product  (or a different product, that we haven’t thought of), what I really want to gain is increased  awareness from my colleagues about the powerful opportunities of mind mapping and design  thinking at large.

Approach

One challenge may be running this mind mapping exercise virtually. When our organization has done

these sessions in the past, we get everyone into a room with sticky notes and markers. We can

create a virtual environment, but, if given the opportunity, we might do it differently next time  around.

I think the visual depiction of the mind map is extremely compelling and I think I would use it in other

situations as well. We have so many unread market research reports and leaders have so little time  to read those reports. By getting our customers, colleagues and other stakeholders involved to  inform the creation of a visual depiction of what the customers need, that will be extremely helpful  in ensuring a customer-focused mindset for the next stage of the process - idea generation.

