Visualization

Use of visualization is fundamental and helps to share and communicate

ideas, create common understanding, speeds up the process.

Visually displaying ideas through visualization offers the benefits to

enable participants to externalize thoughts and their connections using

both their verbal and visual channel.

Challenge & Selection

 I use the tool of Visualization, or Visual Thinking, to achieve a shared

understanding of a problem among a diverse group of stakeholders

before attempting to identify and define possible solutions to the problem.

 I have used the technique of using a carpentry design visualization of a

problem domain with a set of questions or prompts 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

 I start the process by creating a carpentry design of the problem domain.

 To develop the carpentry design, I will draw from any existing material

available to understand the environment.

 The existing material may be operational or procedural documents,

training materials, and marketing materials.

 If materials are not available, then I conduct informal interviews with

group of the stakeholders who serve as my main points of contact on the

initiative.

 I will divide the stakeholders into groups of participants.

 I give them two-three questions to answer, such as:

1) What key elements are missing from the design?

2) What would you change about the design to make it more

accurately reflect your problem space?

 I give them approximately 45 minutes to discuss the questions and mark

up the carpentry design.

 As each group reports out, I record commonalities in the insights of each

group, and then additional insights that come from the group discussion

on an additional copy of the carpentry design.

Insight & Approach

 The carpentry design 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 they could create the carpentry design  from a blank slate in a

collaborative manner. They can quickly identify where they are in the design , 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.

