Mind Mapping

Challenge

I work in a logistics environment, where I am entrusted with handling the company’s data while  trying to make sense out of it. One of the common challenges in this environment is meeting and  exceeding our business partners, more precisely, our customer expectations. To exceed customer  expectations, we needed to maintain regular communications which discuss our business needs,  processes, plans, forecast and as well as the customer’s.  Next, we have to make appropriate  implementations and find out from our customers what they make of recent advancements, to  determine their levels of satisfaction. Some of the key challenges that needed to be resolved  included making timely deliveries, doing regular updates on shipments and stock reports and  constant tracking of cargo to destination. Before taking on design thinking, there used to be  constant complaints and a general sense of dissatisfaction from our customers on the above  challenges, which made most of the employees demotivated and eventually lost focus. Various  attempts, not related to design thinking failed to resolve this issues. There was a clear need to  query every aspect of the organization and get to the root of all this challenges and complaints.

Selection

The above processes are interdependent and as such I figured that mind mapping was our  choicest tool to exceeding the expectations of our customers and business partners. It could also  create a unique sense of determination and motivation to my team members. This decision was  arrived at after researching on various tools which compared their relevance to the business  environment. The fact that a mind map allows us to scale and sift through various pieces of data  and information to create meaning and useful patterns, meant that we had already found the first  piece of the puzzle. Due to the nature of our business, we amass a lot of information and data  which can be organized for different outcomes.

Application

From the large pool of data, gathered from daily operations reports, client’s feedback system,  partners and our analytics and research team, I was able to establish a team to sort through the  data and establish all sorts of patterns and behaviors from all stakeholders. After an almost  thorough and detailed analysis, patterns started to emerge and of notable concern was the  following.

Maintaining constant communication channels, to provide regular updates, was a huge problem  from within the organization and whose effects spilled over to most of our business partners,  who in turn could not understand why we couldn’t deliver as promised.  The data also revealed  that the kind of disconnect and lack of a smooth flow in information sharing, resulted in time  wastage, lack of accountability, lack of motivation and as a result, presented a heavy burden in  terms of detention and demurrage costs. Poor communication in our business is a huge problem  which many, including our business partners fail to understand its cost implications.

All the information gathered from the data analyzed seemed to point at communication blunders  running from little or no communication to excessive and confusing information. We also noted

that most communications were initiated internally by our team members and therefore, resolved  to restructure our information processes, to enable us achieve our goal of exceeding customer  satisfaction. Of importance to highlight, is the fact that we were unable to link our misfortunes to  our business partners since every piece of evidence pointed to our own undoing.

Insight

Having held a detailed discussion and analysis, we invited our IT department to help create a  new and centralized communications system. In the new system, a customer would make a  request, like ask for shipping quotations from one point to the other and a unique channel would  be opened. This request would be allocated to one person in the relevant department who would  follow it up until we had a successful offer to ship. Once the first person did their part he/she  would mark it as completed, leave comments and pass it on to the next person in the system, who  would initiate the shipping process, and also pass the task along the operations chain. This  channel would remain open to the relevant, parties at various stages, until the last step, which  would be the receipt of payment after invoicing. Managers had the opportunity to monitor every  activity and add inputs wherever they felt necessary. The system also filtered necessary  information tailored in a unique way for every client and sent automated reports. Within the first  month of implementation, we had made astounding discoveries. The system was amazing in  many different ways. It provided a platform whereby customers would get a detailed description  of arising issues which led or could have led to additional costs or savings and employees could  maintain focus on numerous activities on their desks. It also provided a basis where individual  performance could be measured and be held accountable for various outcomes. Managers could  monitor productivity, plan and make worthy appraisals. The company could also align its  marketing activities and budgeting more profitably.

Approach

Following the huge success from the mind mapping tool, the company has urged me and my  team to incorporate other tools we find appropriate to our business environment. This is a great  opportunity for transformation, considering the lessons learned in the design thinking course. I  am really excited and can’t wait to enlighten my team on everything I have learnt and most of all  get them ready to introduce the learning launch tool, in our perishables business unit. A good  percentage of this business unit relies on exhibitions organized from time to time to grow it. It  also demands that we constantly, seek new and innovative ways and technology for sustainability  and competitiveness. For this upcoming task, I really find the learning launch tool best suited to  move the revenue needle up.

