Challenge

I am part of a team that focuses on bringing transformation and innovation to our clients. So,  generating new ideas is very much part of our daily lives. My team comprises of experts  from the industry, emerging technology experts and solution architects. Coming up with new  ideas and developing them is usually a collaborative activity within the team. The challenge  is that the idea originator usually only relies on spoken words, at best a few slides, to  convey the vision. It makes it difficult for others to visualize the big picture and contribute  from their perspectives. Most of the time is spent on pouring individual thoughts because  people do not “see” the connections.

Selection

During the course there were two points which made me think about using Visualization tool  for my challenge. Visualization tool video in week 1 and in the final week, during which the  instructor left me with a very new thought – “get comfortable with emptiness, so that there is  space for everyone to contribute”. I selected the visualization tool to bring everyone on the  same page quickly and use that collage to indicate whitespaces, so everyone felt invited to  build further.

Application & Insight

I got together with my colleague who was due to present his idea to the group and I  requested him if we could try a different method than usual. He knows that I like to try out  new things and often tweak my ways when planning client demonstrations and sessions  with him. He agreed.

For our next idea presentation meeting, we sent out the idea theme (Warehouse 4.0) in  advance. We requested everyone to be ready to switch on their video and be ready for  some hands-on work during the meeting (these are COVID times, so were all working from  home!). My colleague had his brief pack ready, which included challenges, solution ideas  and benefits. I requested him to focus only on the challenges part. I gathered some  YouTube videos and images depicting a warehouse – how things are racked, stacked and  labelled, a snapshot of the inbound and outbound logistics processes, the people in the  warehouse, some of their profiles from LinkedIn, the automation and tools (robots, co-bots)  being used. We used a wide blank slide layout to include this imagery.

During the meeting, we reminded everyone that we were using the whole hour to  understand the challenges in today’s warehouses. As people poured their thoughts in, we  enriched this collage of material. For instance, when one of the experts mentioned about the  key performance indicators that a warehouse needs to meet, we started pinning those in  small yellow Post-it shaped boxes. When they spoke of the supporting IT systems, we  started pinning those in different coloured boxes. And thus, by the end of the session,  collectively we had a far enriched understanding of today’s warehouses, the people  operating them, their needs (to fulfil their KPIs) and the systems they used in their daily  routine.

A few observations I made along the way –

1. Leaving spaces for people to contribute was the key! People felt comfortable

contributing to build the idea. In the absence of those whitespaces, it would have been  presented as a complete idea – challenge, solution and benefit. The only space left for  people to contribute would have been to either support it or critique / contradict it.

2. The conversation was quickly pushed towards those areas which we as a collective

group knew little about. The whole session seemed energetic, less laden with fatigue.

3. My colleague who originated the idea felt a bit disheartened to have his work, that took

several days, put aside. He was probably deeply attached with the solution he  proposed.

Approach

Given the good results it bore, I will continue to urge my team to use visualization for idea  development. A small change I would make in subsequent iterations would be to change the  model of these sessions. Instead of having the idea owner to present, I would try to have a  neutral person, a non-expert, to anchor and facilitate such idea development sessions to  avoid confirmation bias and bring to light our collective contribution.

I may even try this tool, to get consensus and budget allocated from the senior leadership  for the next phase i.e. prototyping.

