Reflection - Mind Mapping + Ethnographic Interviews

by Barbara Pedro

Challenge     In my company I facilitate Design Thinking sessions by request to help teams of different size to tackle

challenges they face in everyday life. Our Global Support technical team reached out to me and asked

for help to address the following ​challenge​: ​“How can we redesign the job experience and

increase happiness in Global Support Team?”. According to the results of anonymous

questionnaire, members of this team (20+ people in each of the 5 locations) showed little interest in work

and were demotivated, while the level of trust in the team was critically low.    Design criteria​: The proposed solution should not have has any impact on ongoing operations

(customer queries to be resolved on time and according to quality standards) and has to be tested

without budget.     Project scope: While the proposed solutions did not require any budget, they needed time and project

manager - one employee dedicated 15% of her worktime to apply the ideas to work process. The ideas

will be piloted in November and December in one office location. If in the end of the test period

significant improvement in happiness and motivation are observed, these solutions will become

“business as usual” processes for other 5+ locations.     Time frame: ​We conducted a 4h session to collects user insights and brainstorm on fast solutions.

Rapid prototyping/pilot stage will take place in November and December.     Selection    Important Note: While the task was to pick one of the four suggested tools, we needed to

conduct preliminary research before moving in to Mind Mapping, since we started from the

scratch. Therefore I combined Mind Mapping with preliminary Etnographic Interviewing.     Since we had final users (Global Support agents) in the room, we decided that ​Mind Mapping Tool from

Week 3 combined with ​etnographic approach ​with elements of Journey Mapping will be the most

appropriate tool at this stage. Etnographic research (the tool described in the ​“Good Kitchen” Story from

Week 1) is one of the first steps on “What is” stage which allowed us to observe the situations and

experiences from daily life that led to dissatisfaction and helped to find out the unarticulated needs of

end users by asking deep open-ended questions and watching the user behavior.     In our scenario ​unarticulated ​was the key word, since due to low trust level team members did not

share their insights and personal views and did not have time to listen to each other. Along with this, this

tool is generally quick to use, allows to step in the boots of the end user and does not require any

budget.     To all the information collected during interviews we applied the ​Mind Mapping tool​. It allowed us to

look for patterns and identify the most “painful” issues. Participants grouped the major repetative

concerns on sticky notes according to more general themes and invited representatives of other

subgroups (additional stakeholders) to provide their fresh view and ideas on existing structure.     Application

I divided the participants in 3 working groups and introduced them to the concept of ​active listening -

fully involved, without interruptions, elaborating and asking follow-up questions wherever possible. Main

rule - only one person speaking at a time. Agents were describing their daily routine in details while

answering open-ended questions: “Tell me about the time when you felt that you were treated unfairly in

the workplace”, “describe the moments when you feel that your contribution is meaningful” etc. The

managers of the team were appointed as interviewers in each of the groups and were writing down the

key points. After the interviewing stage we moved to ​Mind Mapping and I asked them to group the key

points under the generalizing insights which might become subchallenges.    After working on patterns in group and receiving feedback from members of other groups, participants

were allowed to cast 3 votes each on the idea groups which they found the most relevant and important

to solve. Each group had to identify an idea they would work on (out of 5-7 proposed issues) by voting.    As a result we identified 3 sub-challenges to tackle:

● Poor level of technical & product skills among new agents;

● Uneven workload during different seasons;

● Unfair distribution of work volumes in everyday job process.

After “What if” and “what wows” stages where the participants generated ideas in individual and group

brainstorming and sorted out those matching the Design Criteria, mentioned above, the groups came up

with the ​following ideas for prototyping ​(high-level description here):

● Re-design the workflow experience for agents to avoid unequal distribution of work;

● Design an Onboarding framework with dedicated trainers which will allow to train new agents

faster and more efficiently;

● Re-distribute the workload and change the productivity targets in low and peak seasons.

Insights     In this challenge I have learnt that creating a safe environment for teams with low trust level and making

sure that everyone’s problems and point of views are heard and taken into consideration by

management can be a very powerful experience. After a set of questions the participants finally

articulated their needs and concerns ​which allowed us to build solution on this basis. I understood

that active listening without interruptions played important role here, since during the regular weekly

meetings team members often interrupt each other and show disagreement, which turned out to be one

of the drivers for low trust. I could say that etnographic deep interviews with open-ended questions and

journey mapping are great tools if you are facing a design challenge in an unknown environment, don’t

have enough facts for analysis and are just not sure where to start.     Regarding Mind Mapping my learning is that it is very important to watch out for ideas-outliers - they

might be brilliant but easily get lost if they don’t get enough support on the spot. Since I’ve noticed

couple of great insights which got lost, I suggested the team to collect absolutely all sticky notes and go

through them once again after the session.     Approach    In the limited time frame we had (4 hours for collecting user insights and brainstorming on possible

solutions) the in-room etnographic interviewing was the most efficient approach, which helped to break

the ice between the teammates, hear and be heard. This particular approach helped us to start from the

scratch, allowed me to get to know the end users and gain authority among the participants. The Mind

Mapping, which followed, helped to structure personal stories from different people into common issues,

experienced by each of the agents in various moments and formats.     If we had more time, I would suggest to take the same approach to the next level: organize 2h-4h

shadowing sessions for managers, where they could observe the particular challenges the team faces,

collect the insights about tools and instruments the team is using and their impact on overall well-being

and do deeper research on personal relationship and respect in the team to work with trust issues. I

would also love to invite managers and senior decision-making for an “exhibition of ideas”, where they

could leave their observations and identify the most feasible solutions based on required time allocation,

budget and organizational objectives.

