Design Thinking Reflection Assignment

1. Challenge:

Within my organization, a key challenge is to improve the ease and efficiency of locating  a wide array of information and data related to the ingredients, components, suppliers  and facilities involved across the large volume of products we manufacture.  Currently,  various bits of data are managed by a wide array of stakeholder groups within my  organization and are fragmented across a number of different shared network drives,  databases and electronic document systems which currently are not linked to each  other.   As a result, it is often very cumbersome and time consuming for people to locate  the information they need.      Making progress toward finding solutions to improve data management and the ease of  retrieving data has often been very difficult due to a number of factors.  One factor is  the sheer volume of information across the entirety of products we manufacture.   Another is that any one stakeholder group typically only works with and has visibility to  a smaller subset of data, and where and how it is managed, based on the group’s  specific area of responsibility.  Hence, without a broader understanding of the full span  of data and systems across all departments, people find it difficult to grasp the current  state of the situation, thus making it challenging to discuss possible solutions.

2. Selection:

As part of this challenge involves exploring and building agreement around the  definition of a problem, this type of challenge is suited for design thinking as noted in  Week 1 Video 7.      Visualization was selected as a tool to map out the scope and various bits of data, the  data sources, to gain insights and look for patterns and better understand our current  processes.  Additionally, as the goal here was to also begin synthesizing the mappings to  look for patterns, the visualization tool was selected which aligns with comments  presented in the Week 1 Visualization Tool lesson.

3. Application:

For this project, a group of individuals from various stakeholder departments was  assembled.  The visualization process then started with drawing out big circles to  represent the primary areas of information including ingredients, packaging  components, suppliers and facilities.  Next, smaller shapes were used to list out types of  information such as material specifications, weights, dimensions, chemical test results,  safety/handling/transportation data, pricing, supplier company details, facility details  and more.

Lines were then drawn, in a mapping fashion, to illustrate to which primary area each of  the smaller specific bits of information was associated.      Finally, the various databases, platforms and document systems were drawn out and  mapped to the different types of information.

4. Insight:

The exercise enabled the team to get a better and more tangible understanding of the  scope and extent of the data, and the degree of fragmentation across the various  systems.  Also, the exercise revealed patterns which may be helpful when further  refining the process of conceptualizing potential solutions and later prototyping.  As one example, it was found that there are many instances of the same bits of  information being acquired by different stakeholder groups and stored on different  systems.       Altogether, this exercise helped to build agreement around the definition of a problem  and also reveal patterns which will be helpful in progressing with the next steps in  working on potential solutions.

5. Approach:

Before we begin to move to the next what-if stage and establishing criteria to be used in  the later prototype testing, we still need to better understand the patterns of individual  stakeholders and the flow of data.    As an extension to the previous project, mind mapping would be a helpful tool to better  understand and identify patterns as to how, and at which points, data is acquired,  stored and then pulled from the systems by others.

