Design Thinking   Eina Nazim

Example Reflection – Story Telling     Challenge & Selection       I have used some of the tools which is described in Design thinking Modules including Visualization and  Journey Mapping and Customer co creation. In this reflection I would like to share my learnings with  respect to using Story telling as a tool. I am leading applications engineering organization in  semiconductor chip design electronic design automation, due to complex technical problems and  increased customer pressure we have a requirement of updating Executives both Internal and external  in regular basis. As volume of data and multiple analysis data points conveying the key message and also  sharing the empathy for the customer that we are working on the right problems and be able to solve  timely becomes challenges, I have used story telling technique in high pressure environment to describe  the problem and also correlate with the day to day difficulty of the customer and how our solution can  optly fit in solving his todays problem and help him to spend his weekend peacefully while we work on  finding long term solution. I have used this technique to use the data but relate to the day to day  problem of the designer and how the quick fix has helped me in the past, story telling technique helps to  deal with the enormous amount of data and also helps in explaining the cause and benefit easily in  limited time and also gain the required traction along with helping to build the trust with the personal  connection.

Application and Insight:

Most of the times even in specific meetings where you have to pull in data and also to describe the the  background to set the context, I use the story telling technique which helps to build the chronology of  the events and the background context which helps to bring the audience to the same sync before we  dive in to the data analysis and also time to time bring in the cause and benefit to set the next steps  helps to build the logical flow and also to easily highlight risks and dependencies as needed through the  flow of story events. The Insight which I gathered so far based on the internal and external meetings  where I have used this technique is that it is easier to set the context, get required attention if handled  well, cons of using this if not done correctly with the appropriate time setting audience can lose the  attention and also divert the attention from pivot of discussion. Overall one of the best tool to get  traction, set the context and also set the big picture and benefit/cause when used effectively.

Approach

I would need to prepare the main pivot and risks for the story telling when dealing with multiple levels  of audience, in cases of when I am not prepared I would still prefer to use story telling with the help of  visualization as required to set the context as well as I might also use the journey mapping as an aid to  my story telling in appropriate challenging situations to gain the continued attention and required high  level scope

