Example Reflection – Visualization

Challenge

The design thinking tool chosen was the Visualization. As supporting a non profit and  non governmental organization which purpose is to help the cancer treatment on  children, we could raise the need for a system integrating information for the patients,  doctors and hospitals on each child. As the actual situation is the delay on internments,  on patient exams, little information on types of the disease, lack of structure and  outdated children medical records.

Selection

As so, there were some meetings to figure out what solution would best fit the needs,  the idea was to visualize what are the flows of information between doctors, hospitals,  laboratories and patients. It was used a mix of some techniques to visualize the  structure, but strongly based on process mapping, with some add-ons of brainstorming  and mind mapping.

Application

Initially brief requirements were written with a brainstorm, for instance, the patient  would need to know what were the last prescriptions, the exams to be made, the doctor  should know what is the actual stage of patient, the government could see the need of  the interment and availability, and so on. After that the mapping begun, the actions for  each element (patient, doctor, hospital, labs, government) were drawn and also the flows  between them. Afterwards, a requirements review was done to see if the map has  absorbed the needs. Some technical features were also defined: as supposing the system  would be in the cloud and every new information would be updated on this structure;   the patient and doctor should have the information available on a cell phone; access  profiles would be needed, as confidentiality should be preserved.

Insight

The mapping was a clear and integrated view for the participants, we were 5. The list of  brief requirements was the commandments for the mapping. Of course we could change  it, but it was a reminder of targets. Some mind mapping were executed as some  discussions come into the field, for instance, the need for confidentiality on each patient  record, and who would have access on it.

Approach

One clear thing is that combining techniques (process map, brainstorming, mind map)   was a good approach, as each´s features and thought flows are not linear, and we could  go and come back many times. As I can correlate, in this case, the design thinking took  place until we had this overall system map and requirements.

