USING MIND MAPPING TO UNCOVER CLIENT INSIGHTS

CHALLENGE The big challenge in my project is extracting the most signiﬁcant insights from the important quantity of information gathered from  quantitative research and qualitative consumer interviews. These insights will be used both to structure our offers to clients and prioritize mass  communication messaging in a new market.

SELECTION I chose to use mind mapping to help us develop a common understanding of the challenge and agree on the most signiﬁcant insights.

APPLICATION We invited 20 stakeholders in the project to a full-day session. In the ﬁrst part of the session, participants were invited to visit our  « gallery ». All the information, quotes, statistics, pictures from consumer homes, were put up on the walls. The room was covered in information  (picture 1).

Participants captured on post-it notes the information that felt most signiﬁcant to them as they wandered throughout the room.

We then divided participants in teams of 4 and asked them to share the information they had found signiﬁcant to ﬁnd overarching themes (picture  2). We asked them to look for patterns in the information they had collected but also to be mindful of anything that stood out as being particularly  different. Their overarching themes were noted and developed on large ﬂip charts (picture 3).

In the second part of the session, each team presented its themes to all the participants for discussion and comparison. We were then able to ﬁnd a  common understanding of the « So whats? » and start working together on the design conditions as the project moves forward.

Regina Parker — November 2016

INSIGHT Most participants in the Mind Mapping exercise never truly experience our destination as our clients do. Their visits are carefully orchestrated and mapped-out.  Mind Mapping was truly enlightening for them as an occasion to understand the client experience without the ﬁlter of a report or analysis.  Mind Mapping opened many  eyes.

Using direct quotes gave us access to the words our consumers use to express their feelings which in turn informed us on how to address speciﬁc barriers and activate  certain triggers. It removed many ﬁlters.

Regrouping the information also helped better command of it. Participants deﬁned together the full meaning of the different themes, giving each one the depth and  richness required. This comprehension helped move the project forward in a direction everyone felt comfortable with.

Finally going beyond the simple deﬁnition of each theme and asking « so what? » contributed to our understanding of each theme in the speciﬁc context of our organization  and project. This last question truly brought the project to life in a very relevant and applicable way.

APPROACH Mind Mapping is a great tool for extracting insights from large quantities of information. It is also very useful to establish common understanding of a  challenge to allow a project to move forward as it takes away from opinion and into our consumers’ minds and hearts. I would use the same tool again.

What went well Participants were very good at spotting the information they felt was important and discussions were backed with solid quotes from real-life consumer  interviews or quantitative data that made discussions very authentic and inspiring. Using the quotes helped the group be more empathic and keep clients at the center of  our discussions.

What I would do differently I would plan for more time for the « wandering & information gathering » part of the session. Half a day was perhaps too short. Participants  need time for the information to sink in and overarching themes to emerge. In the time we allotted, participants could not process all the information leading them to feel  they might be missing one key information.

Reading all the information is a very tiring exercise. I would made sure the information is on different colored paper to help with short attention.

Regina Parker — November 2016

