Reflection – Mind Mapping

Challenge & Selection    As a business improvement consultant, I am always confronted with the variety of problems brought by  customers’ to “fix”. Customers come to me looking for different ways of addressing their problems after  they probably tested many other techniques. My answer to them is that I am just the plumber and I may  not know your business but I only have a box of tools that I can use once I understand your pain. One of  these customers came to me complaining about their lengthy hiring process and all the issues and  complains he is getting from business units leads as the required staff are arriving later than the needed  time. The customer has already completed 2 years ago a Lean Six Sigma study which resulted in a major  improvement but still he feels the process can be improved to meet the Service Level Agreement (SLA)  clauses and corporate Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) regarding hiring cost.    Application    After a week discussion, I found out that the hiring team and major customers are lacking a common  understanding of the future and they don’t share the same criteria for what a new process could be. I  suggested what about drawing their stories showing where they think improvement can be made. I  gathered the hiring team and major customers in a room, which had already big posters showing the  hiring value stream (from Lean Six Sigma study), Corporate KPIs and other policy documents. I also added  the results of a survey done recently to new hires about their hiring experience.    I provided colored sticky notes to the hiring team and their customers and asked them to write their ideas  and stick it near the process step which may improve the hiring process. There was no rule on the number  of sticky notes they can use and they should not discuss them among themselves in the initial step. Once  this task was completed, I asked them to group and use the affinity technique to group similar ideas and  put outlies as one bucket to also be discussed. While they started the grouping, initial patterns start to  emerge like unclarity of job description, contradicting business KPIs, agents’ role in international offices  and package negotiation issues.    By picking a random first theme, I asked each participant to tell us more about his/her idea and try to  connect if to other similar ones. This exercise is lengthy but is the heart of the Mind Mapping as it  generates new linkages and common understanding of the “to be” criteria design. All ideas are discussed  and put under relevant theme. Once this activity is completed, the attendees are requested to identify  new patterns and insights about their groupings and draft statements to develop the criteria. These  statements are reviewed asking “so what” until meaningful improvement criteria are defined.    I use my phone camera to freeze this image showing all their input under the final statements. Statements  are written in a different color post it and then share by email with the group for a final reflection. We  reconvened after few days to generate the final list of criteria, which will be used to develop the new  design for a prototyped process.      Insight and Approach    The Mind Mapping technique, as explained by Yolanda Rodriguez revealed new insights that  previous studies didn’t identify. As example, the international agencies were not empowered to conduct

on-time CVs screening, the job descriptions were outdated and created confusion desiring the selection  phase and finally, business units KPIs and hiring department KPIs were contradictory and generated  frustration among staff and managers.     The Mind Mapping output was used by the improvement team to define criteria for new designs and  prototypes. The hiring manager was willing to assign a team to conduct experimental hiring using the new  ideas for a small simple of candidates. The results were encouraging as the time to hire was reduced by  30% and the candidates’ satisfaction has increased. The new findings were submitted to enhance the IT  system, approval processes and jobs descriptions.    After this application, I used the Mind Mapping in many different projects to generate new ideas and  insights that are not always following a linear pattern, where data is scare and complexity is obvious. I  also use the tool as a communication tool between different stakeholders to compare and contracts their  ideas. Each group is requested to explain views using Mind Maps and common grounds are easily  identified.

