Example Reflection – Mind Mapping    Challenge

For my project I decided to focus on our family´s bakery. the idea of open a bakery started 7 years  ago, it was run by my mother and my dad, both with knowledge on the pastry and bakery  industry.

At first it was a popular bakery on the town, with lots of customers and an exhausted amount of  work, but the years went by and it lost the popularity that has gain.

There are many reasons that can explain the why to this situation, but the most important for me  is, that the menu was never change, always stay simple, the bakery didn’t progress with the  society, always selling the same products with the same Price and the same earnings.

My idea is to include express service, but with three changes that make it different from others

First of all, the express service can be done by transportation that it did not required gasoline, like  skates, skate boards or bicycles. the second thing is that the containers, bags, boxes and any other  method of baling, needed to be nature-friendly, for example, the plastic bags: a usual plastic bag  has a deterioration process of 150 years while paper bags and boxes just take one or two years to  deteriorate. And the last but not least idea was to put motivational notes on the breakfast, this  actually make the costumer happier and comfortable with the product and the seller.

Selection

For my challenge I decide to use the design Thinking tool of mind mapping.

Mind mapping as we learn is a diagram of visualization that allow us to represent an idea through  short words, drawings, collages, etc. this tool it help us think, collect information, create ideas and  represent them by a paper. This is actually the favorite tool for a lot of managers.

I chose to use these tool on my challenge because I think that it can capture more the attention of  employees and customers. This method allows me to represent my idea in a way that the person  can comprehend easily and fast, at the same time I think it attracts more the human eye, what can  help in case you want a partner.

Application

I applied this method on my challenge by creating a kind of poster, I divided it in four and on each  part I put what I thought were the most important ideas of all the project.

In the first part I put all the information of our bakery at the moment. Like why it was created, who  did it, when, the bills 7 years ago and the ones in the present, also the role of each member of the  family when it comes to the bakery.

For the second part I put de disadvantage of the actual situation in general for our store and add  the reasons why the amount of costumers decreases, in this case the pandemic and the lack of  new products and menus.

In the third part I explained my idea. I resumed it to three pillars, for me the most required ones  and marc the pros or the vantages of each one, in this part I wanted to put in highlight what the  bakery will look in the future if we implement the idea I created.

And for the last part I represent which could be the obstacles for this idea and the solution that I  gave to all of them.

Insight

Elaborating all of this project make me learn the importance that it takes to have a good  relationship with the costumers and the employees, the simple act of putting notes on their  breakfast lift their mood in matter of seconds and the fact that they have the number of the actual  boss of the bakery to ask for some breakfast make them feel a high amount of confidence. That  cause that the costumer has a feeling of warm and the act of just order make them happy.it also  helps relieve a lot of stress by the rest of the day, if they started with a good mood they will end it  the same way. and all of this is really not easy, you need time, data and personal interest.

Other thing that I learned was that an idea can change for better or worse depending of the  reaction and judgment of the society with it. When my family and employees putt the notes with  their opinions of my idea, some of them actually turn nonsense, and change a lot my perspective  and with it the way I felt about the project.

Approach

The next time I will in the first place make things more effectible, this because I hope that with the  time I gain more knowledge about design thinking and the mind mapping tool.

I also will make more deep investigation which allows me to create more big and brilliants ideas  for solving problems. And I will improve the methods to increase the good relationship with the  costumers.

Probably the tool of mind mapping is my favorite one but in next projects I will use the others to  investigate and discover which tool will act more effectible depending on the problem.

