Design Thinking for Innovation – Reflection      Darden School of Business

Mohamed Cruz

Design Thinking for Innovation – Reflection  Darden School of Business – University of Virginia  ”Innovation project proposal”      Challenge  My challenge was to motivate a diverse group of stakeholders to greenlight a collaborative  technology project which would require a commitment of time and resources from their  departments, and close cooperation with our client. I had existing relationships with some of the  stakeholders whilst others were relatively new. The meeting participants had different cultural and  professional backgrounds, they were located in different parts of the world and all spoke English  as a second language. My meeting was online via Skype which meant that I would need to rely  on verbal communication together with graphic presentation and would not have the advantage  of being in the same room as my colleagues.     A key challenge was that my proposal required a new method of collaboration and innovation in  our organisation and would require participants to commit in part to ”the unknown”. Existing  project templates were not sufficient. I had a clear objective and problem to solve from the client  side but not a clear map to get there.      Selection  I selected Visualization as my tool for this challenge because I needed to communicate several  complex ideas quickly and simply to a diverse audience. I am confident in my verbal  communication skills but I wanted to create a series of simple images which would help create a  common understanding of the problem and the mission. The strength of visual tools versus the  purely visual is emphasized in the video on the visualization tool ”When we're talking and we're  verbalizing things we see things internally, but we may all be understanding the words in a slightly  different way.”    I had a limited amount of time (1 hour) to explain my proposal, get feedback and finally get  commitment to the project. I needed to acheive understanding and consensus fast. As Angela  Myer states, the more you create a visual image of what you are thinking, ”the more likely you  are to achieve a sense of agreement and consensus with people”.      Application  I prepared a series of slides which included simple, colorful graphics and animation where  appropriate. The presentation was designed to explain to my colleagues: 1) The background  context to this proposal 2) The technical practicalities 3) The resources involved 4) The  commitment I required from them.    Visualization was critically important to two slides in particular. Firstly, It was essential to clarify  a complex technical concept in a simplified way and in a way which drew the attention. I did this  by creating a before and after animation which showed the technical solution being  implemented. Secondly, the slide where I explained the advantages of the proposal for our  organisation and our client. I used a limted colour pallet to simplify the visual messages and  repeated this palette throughout my presentation to create a unique visual language/identity.

Design Thinking for Innovation – Reflection      Darden School of Business

Mohamed Cruz

Insight   The project was approved by everyone present and I think that a large contributing factor was  the use of clear visual communication to engage and inspire my colleagues. From a design- thinking perspective, before the presentation I had carefully considered the strategic objectives  and motivations of each participant and made sure that these were included clearly and simply  in the presentation. Using visualisation to communicate a complex technical complex in a simple  way was also a good way of explaining the project quickly and allowed the discussion to focus  on the end goal of the project and the benefits and not only technical detail. I was concious that  the precise method (technical solution) might change, but that the fundamental purpose of the  project would remain the same, and this was the vision/purpose that I needed to communicate.     I was concious that for my organisation to adopt and approve this project, participants would  need to have a growth mindset, the willingness to learn, to fail fast and cheaply and to iterate. I  was careful to communicate all of this during my presentation and the following discussion,  framing it as a wonderful opportunity to do things creatively and to discover new solutions for  the benefit of our partners and ourselves.        Approach  I expect to give similar presentations in the future, and I intend to continue using visualisation to  communicate and inspire debate on innovation projects. On reflection I will also consider using  storytelling to a greater extent to support my communication. For example, I am considering  referencing specific individuals on the client side and communicating their individual needs and  objectives to help build the narrative and motivation for such projects. Ultimately, my work has  to be human-centered, and while I know my clients individually, many of my colleagues do not  have that personal relationship with them, so I must be careful to explain elements of the ’story’  which I already know but which my colleagues may not.    Storytelling would also allow me to project individual future success for my internal stakeholders  in a focused an engaging way. What I previously described using words and abstract or  technical imagery could be supported by individual human characters whose journey/experience  can be illustrated from the first presentation itself through to the successful completion of the  project and the resulting benefits for them and their organisations.

