The first tool I used was the tool of Visualization, or Visual Thinking, to achieve a shared  understanding of a problem space among a diverse group of stakeholders before attempting to  identify and define possible solutions to the problem. I use this approach often with our  customers, who are government agencies working to apply technology innovations to  modernize their mission or the delivery of their services to their customer, which may be U.S.  citizens, businesses, and non-citizens. I have used the technique of using a straw man  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.    In discussing policy changes with a social service agency, I was trying to explain to them the  benefits of taking a more client focused approach, among other things, and in particular, of  recognizing each person as a unique being, and addressing their individual needs first and  foremost. The agency was in the grip of a “compliance culture” and its clients were failing in  this non-empathetic, rigid structure. I was also explaining how sometimes addressing the  needs of one individual can impact everyone for the better, even if it seems extreme or out of  the ordinary. I told a story about when I ran an emergency shelter after a natural disaster.  Everyone was doing really well except for one woman whose stress was making her very  emotionally volatile. I could tell she needed attention; in my mind I decided she would be  “Princess for an hour.” I made her a cup of coffee and sat down with her and let her talk. It  turned out that her mother, who was with her, had survived a brain aneurysm and she was  terrified that she would fall or that some other crisis would befall her during this disaster  while in the shelter.

By applying the learning that tool, team identified our assumptions and designed launches to  test these assumptions. Additionally, we thought through anticipated results, expecting to find  that a more agile approach would improve our workflow, and that both our team and the key  stakeholders would be fairly open to the new prioritization of tasks and process. Our actual  results were slightly different from what we anticipated: while our team was open to the  prioritization of tasks and process, the key stakeholders in the larger marketing department  and IT department expressed some concerns. Moving forward, our team will review this  insight and incorporate it into future launch designs. The ongoing incorporation of insight is  particularly important at this stage, as launches come before a full rollout in the design  thinking timeline.

Given that our team has already gone through several design thinking activities/tools and are  at this stage in the timeline, the learning launch is the appropriate tool. As previously  mentioned, our team needs to review the insight gained from our first two launches and  incorporate this insight into future launch designs. Future launch designs should reflect  insight gained, progress made, and come closer to a compelling solution ready for full rollout.

