Mind Mapping as a Tool to Improve Mars, Inc’s Sustainability Practices

Challenge

My most notable experience wherein I had to come up with an innovative solution

was when I joined Mars, Inc Brandstorm, an international case competition spanning 65  countries and 40,000+ participants. Norgren Confidential has been around for 28 years, its goal is to  find the best student innovators and to provide these innovators with internship opportunities  in Paris in order to strengthen their skills. The challenge for Norgren Confidential 2018 was to find a  solution that would help Mars, Inc create a plastic-less future. Participants were asked to come  up with alternative packaging or systems that would allow Mars, Inc to become more  sustainable.     Selection

Mind mapping is used for visually organizing and analyzing the data gathered from

research and/or from surveys. It works well with teams as it allows the individual members to  learn together and to have a common understanding of the underlying details of a problem;  furthermore, mind mapping in teams also works well at igniting innovative ideas. In addition  to our research, Mars, Inc has provided us with case kits that had multiple pdfs containing  market data as well as current sustainability practices employed by the company. The  problem presented by Mars, Inc was too broad in the sense that any solution that is connected  with sustainability was welcome and the amount of research data was plentiful. My team  chose mind mapping as we needed a way to properly ingest the information before moving  forward to finding a solution.    Application

We started our mind mapping process by borrowing a huge white board from our

university, drawing the words “PLASTIC-LESS FUTURE” in the middle and encircling it.  From there, we added subcategories such as -- why is plastic-less important, why is Mars, Inc  hosting this competition, why is plastic bad, how to entice customers to go plastic-less, early  solutions, and current efforts by Mars, Inc. We attached our research data as well as other  insights to these sub categories as branches in order to create a giant picture of what we  have to work around as well as the salient points that our solution has to satisfy.    Insight & Approach

Looking  back, the biggest benefit my group was able to get out of the mind map was

that we were able to get on the same page with regards to understanding the problem and  how we had to model our solution. Just as important, we were able to identify what solutions  would not work through the mind map by looking at market constraints as well as previous  attempts. For example, an early idea of a solution we had was to create refilling stations for  Mars, Inc products and selling these refills at significantly lower prices in order to discourage  the purchase of products in single-use plastics. This solution would not work because the  primary audience of Mars, Inc were people from the upper middle class to higher class, people

who have decent amounts of extra money, people who could afford to just buy new products  rather than take the hassle of refilling their old bottles.

The solution my group came up with was mycelium packaging (also known as

mushroom packaging) as the production method is very simple, makes use of no harmful  chemicals, and is 100% biodegradable. We were able to make it to the national finals,  however, we were not chosen as the top team who gets to represent the country.  Nonetheless, it was still a rewarding experience as my group and I were able to improve our  design thinking skills as well as have fun in the process.

For future challenges and other case competitions, I think it would be immensely

helpful if I’ll be able to combine other tools such as persona and learning launch to mind  mapping as they take the understanding and ideating process a lot deeper which would yield  more innovative solutions.

