Process efficiency – Visualization

Business case and challenge:

Few months back I was aligned to a new project where I had to improve the efficiency of processes. This  was a unique case where I couldn’t find any reference or used case. Initial analysis with data driven  approach was not helpful in understanding the real process challenges, there were lot of divergent  thoughts coming from the team while defining the business challenge and develop a vision with right  inputs and agreement with relevant stakeholders. That’s when I thought of using Design Thinking  “Visualization” tool to identify the challenges faced in the processes and develop probable solutions  collaboratively including diverse group of stakeholders. Visualization is a design thinking technique to  address challenges through generating ideas and outline concept designs. I had prepared set of focused  questions that would allow diverse group of stakeholders to start collaborative discussion that would help  in defining project scope, boundaries, setting targets, areas of improvements.

Application:

I started with empathize phase the goal was to understand the stakeholders by gathering  information about the roles and activities performed by them in the processes. During this I used  focused group discussion and noted their observations. The information gathered helped me to  understand that existing current process maps and documentations were not providing cross  functional end to end process understanding. To ensure everyone’s ideas are heard I had  compiled list of relevant stakeholders to be involved in decision- making process keeping in mind  this group interacts with internal/external suppliers and customers that enable the organization  to provide services. During the interview with group I used 5 Whys technique to understand  “What, How, Why” for every issue/challenge in the process. The purpose was to do detailed root  cause analysis and discover the actual problems in the process but not symptoms that looked  superficial challenges initially.    In second stage I created persona journey, this would help in understanding the needs of end  users as it encourages understanding end users’ requirements empathetically, better  understanding of activities stakeholders are aiming to complete. To start with graphics of the  problem offered great starting point this served as outside the box thinking instead of narrating  the overarching process challenges in a usual manner that was monotonous. This approach  helped to narrow down actual challenges end users face and the opportunities of improvement  could be identified via this activity. This helped to understand what features are missing in  applications, how does it impact the overall process efficiency, what customization needs to be  done in the application to meet need of the end users. During this phase I had completed  brainstorming sessions with the users, developed hypothesized solutions and kept the sessions  open to capture every possible idea that would be solution to very process challenges/pain  points. In the end I prepared user story map that would allow to categorize the end users, map  the themes. For each of the personas defined the set of activities and tasks that should be  completed during the journey. By doing this it helped quickly test ideas and understand if it meets  the end user’s requirement and how fast could this be deployed as it was one of the success  criteria.

Third phase was focused on ideation where the teams collaborated to ideate real solutions using  the above gathered information through sessions like sketching, prototyping, voting. As the  saying goes there is no “Best or Wrong ideas”. The viable solution for each problem was finalized  as per majority voting. These solutions were then discussed to be implemented with end users  to test in the process if it addressed the pain points discussed in the beginning of the project and  envision success in the end.    The last phase was Testing and implementation, I didn’t keep the Testing phase till very end, but  it was more of a constant loop of incorporating any feedback received from the user like in a  sprint mode Agile methodology. At the end of each accomplished step, we tried to get feedback  from users to move on to the next phase. After the prototyping was complete, it was time to test  with the larger audience and check with them how effectively the solutions met their  requirements, understand their perception. In the end all the gathered information and  experiences were translated and locked as final solutions. The activities were outlined within user  story maps to maintain evidences as artifacts of the personas. Story maps were created with the  thoughts identifying the activities carried out, steps required to complete, and list of tasks  associated with each other.

Insight and approach:

At the beginning when I had started Design Thinking Visualization to solve the process challenge  was apprehensive as the approach was different from traditional data driven analysis and  hypothesis building which I had been doing from long time. But at the end of this project I was  delighted to see the solutions were actually implemented that helped to improve the process  efficiency also this was highly appreciated by stakeholders and end users as they were part of the  entire exercise from beginning, this approach was perceived as inclusiveness and empathetic that  the steps we have laid out have helped to achieve something that would have been very hard  otherwise. From Project methodology perspective Visualization has also helped to clearly define  project scope, prevent scope creep. For business this has served as Real value add by right  selection of solutions to solve the process challenges and pain points

My biggest learning from this exercise is that solution identification can be applied to solve real  business problems in my case it was to improve the process efficiency within stipulated  timeframe, thinking empathetically from users’ point of view and bringing people together.  Instead of using traditional problem-solving approach in sequential steps, this was focused on  iterations as per user feedbacks following Empathizing, Defining, Ideating, Testing and  Implementing.

