Example Reflection: Mind Mapping Tool

Challenge and Selection:

I work as the country manager one of the oldest Export Credit Agencies (ECA) in the world. As the official  arm of the British government, the agency has been around for a century, which inevitably has come  with many homegrown rigidities in the fields of business development, new business origination, and  raising awareness with key stakeholders. I joined as part of a five-member team in five different  countries as part of the initiative to launch the first international network in the hundred-year history of  the agency. The financing capacity was under-utilized, name recognition was extremely low, new  business origination on a global scale has only been dependent on a few individuals and some longtime  financial sector partners. The key challenges facing me was to increase awareness in the market, identify  new business opportunities and making sure that we utilize our capacity with the right financing  transactions improving the productivity.

Given the urgent need for creative thinking and an innovative approach to tackle the above challenges  in an organization with a relatively conservative mindset, I opted for the Mind Mapping Tool. The tool  provides extremely strong insights for the overall idea generation process as presented in the videos.

Application:

In order to tackle the above challenges, identifying the opportunities, and scoping this new expansion  project initiative, I initially focused on “what is” to be able to understand the overall market and listen to  the needs of potential customers and stakeholders. This was an important step to establish the criteria  for the “what if” idea generation phase. I reached out to all potential customers for ECA financing, such  as project sponsors, infrastructure contractors, concession companies, trade organizations, and banks.  This effort served the purpose well in two key areas. It provided me with invaluable insights on what the  actual needs of the clients are and also allowed me to boost the profile of our financing offer by raising  awareness among the potential customers on what they can achieve.

Second phase was to come up with “what if” scenarios really focusing on what concepts can be driven to  meet the clients’ expectations through a brainstorming of ideas. This required a teamwork with all the  key internal stakeholders. Starting with the feedback obtained from the customers and the design  criteria set up through the “what is” phase, a number of key scenarios were laid out across the broader  team.  This exercise helped to add innovation and creativity to the process and also improved the  bonding between the team members towards a common cause.

Next phase was related to coming up with some experimentation enabling us to observe “what vows”  and required us to come up with a pilot program to be able to test the key assumptions and customer  feedback. This pilot phase included renewed credit limits, possibility to finance in various currencies, and  most importantly, brought in some more flexibility as to what is eligible for financing in terms of the  customer projects. Last but not the least, the “what works” phase was utterly important to ensure an  effective, sustainable, and successful delivery. The iterative process of improving the product design  based on the client feedback has proved to be the most important take away from this exercise.

Insight and Approach:

Utilizing Mind Mapping Tool enabled us to be able to be involved in every discussion in the market today  that required ECA financing.  Our name and product awareness in the market, I am responsible for, is at  its highest and there are days that we are inundated by inquiries for our services by potential clients.  Competition has been tough but it was extremely valuable to consider taking the extra step in the right  direction by reaching out to the clients and other stakeholders and come up with a mechanism to   develop some flexibility on what we can actually achieve. Design Thinking actually served another side  objective in terms of rebuilding the team spirit internally, fostering innovation in the organization and  being able to focus on the prevailing customer needs.

I believe the Mind Mapping Tool enabled the agency to be able to think differently with a learning  mindset. It clearly brought in a broader repertoire of solutions for the clients and introduced the client  empathy by actually touching to the client. Next challenge can be to methodologically rewire this new  sprit into the system and make it more relevant with value creation, execution, dependability, and  scalability to make it consistent across the markets it serves. We may require Learning Launch as the  next Design Thinking Tool.

