Reflection Paper: Design Thinking

Challenge:

I was tasked to lead a team that will develop and automate a company’s processes. It is  a freight forwarding company and they want to incorporate analytics and tracking systems  to better serve the customers. It was a new project, and I have experience with logistics  companies yet. I was handling 7 members and 9 executives of the company. The  challenge was that the technical people do not seem to meet eye-to-eye with the  executives on what features to be included in the system.

Selection:

To move forward with the project, we used mind mapping to empathize, define, and  ideate. We selected it because we wanted to know what the executives want and merge  it with what the developers can do. Having a mind map and having the flow of information  annotated made us realize that there is a common ground between the development team  and the executives.

Application:

It started with a single idea from the executives that was represented by an image. From  that idea, the development team added their own insight on what they think is the solution  to that problem/idea. From that core idea, we were able to arrive to five main features of  the system that we will develop for them.

Insight:

My main insight for using this tool is how easier things would go for the development team  to understand the needs of the client through mind mapping. We were able to know what  they want, and how they want it much more quickly. On the other hand, because of  visualizing the thoughts of our customer, they can also realize some of the more absurd  request that they have.

Approach:

Next time, I will try to incorporate Learning Launch in my projects in combination with  mind mapping to better serve my clients and to ideate a much more robust solution.

