Challenge

In my information technology career in automotive sector, requirement to solve problems through  computer programs come from various stakeholders such as product development engineers,  purchasing teams, test engineers and business sponsors.  All teams bring their perspectives to the table  and have domain knowledge of their area only.  This puts information technology team in a special  position to understand the business logic, assumptions and uncover any constraints that these teams  have been working with.  Further, translating technical and business language into computer software  requirements is big challenge as work is performed by various team members to implement the solution  who have far less knowledge of automotive engineering aspects.  Having common understanding of  business problem to be solved among different stakeholders.

Selection

I have used Visualization for a project that I have worked on from inception to deployment.   Visualization has help me better understand, integrate, translate and communicate the complex  problem in easy terms. I have frequently used Visualization in form of flow diagrams, roadmaps,  strawman diagrams or fishbone diagram, enabling all involved to grasp the idea or approach at a faster  pace while uncovering any dependencies on external interfaces.  Working with people of diverse  professional backgrounds, understanding of a problem and framing questions around is a critical success  factor.  In automotive industry, I have used visualization when business sponsor brings a problem for I.T.  to solve, I begin with high-level picture (also known as 50,000 feet view) of the problem with a flow  diagram made up of 3 boxes-  input, process and output. This simple diagram anchors team around  what is needed/available to start the work (input) and what is expected deliverables (output) while the  middle section (process) is where I.T. team of experts will develop the solution to the problem.

Application

Beginning with a simple flow diagram when meeting with business subject matter expert (SME) is the  first step. This diagram provides high-level understanding of challenge (or problem) at hand in terms of  what data, interfaces or inputs business will make available and what kind of output in terms of analysis,  reports, or actions is expected.  This simple high-level flow also highlights where are unknowns in the  requirements that we need to understand better in following sessions.  In addition to what critical  success factors are also noted.

Once the high-level understanding is established around the challenge, I started to decompose each of  the box to next level to gather information at greater detail for design of the solution. This will involve  working with various teams, stakeholders and subject matter expects such as quality control, security,  legal and operations management. This will be accomplished by asking questions in 1-on-1 meetings,  through workshops and via secondary research work. I met with each stakeholder groups and started  building on to the flow diagram with additional functions, actions, user inputs, etc. provided as feedback  to my open ended questions.  Following few questions provided insight to me to expand the flow chart

Input  Process  Output

are – 1. Where does data come from and what is frequency and format of the data is? 2. What happens  next and how is this accomplished today? 3. What could go wrong in all these steps? 4. How does output  looks like and who uses it and when?   These meetings with stakeholders resulted in better clarity and  sometimes made adjustment to the approach or final output.  When flow chart is completed with the  details, another Visualization tool is used to capture the understanding the delivery and  accomplishments. This is also in project management terms called Critical Milestone Chart.  This  conveys the duration of the project, where we are, what has been completed and what is expected to  be delivered and when. It also shows what is at risk (when denoted with yellow) or late (when denoted  with red diamond). Green diamond shows completed successfully. An intermediate flow diagram with  input looked like this:

Insight & Approach

Being a visual lerner myself, what I have gained from Visualization exercise is that it is very simple yet  effective tool for common understanding.  A diverse group of people can be on same page about the  challenge, solution and approach when looking at a graphic than reading a document.  It is also easy to   incorporate feedback during discussions and uncovers unkowns easily when working with visualization  of a problem. Further when the process flow is put next to a timeline in form of Critical Milestone Chart,  it helps understand the effort involved and feasiblity of the delivery commitment given the duration.  Graphic display of process and timeline helps team members who are not engaged in requirement  capturing session quickly grasp the understanding. This is a collaboration exercise and could be  continously improved or refined as greater details are available with the time.  Another important  insight is that once the flow diagram and milestone chart are developed, all teams been using it for  clarificaitons and discussions around commitmments as a reference document.  This tools has been very  useful in expaining project and delivery timeline to business executives.

This tools has made communication much clearer, I plan to share my insights and learning experience  with my co-workers about it and encourgae others to use the visualization activity as a collaborative tool  to incorporate feedback, develop common understanding and communicate more effectively.

Jan22

Process A

Doc

P Data

Process B

Process C

P Data  C Data

Process D  Reports

Jan12

Data avail

Feb 21  Apr12  Jun 05  Aug 8  Sep 12

Start  Process A  Process B  Process C  Process D  Complete

Today

