Challenge:   I work in Human Resources, and have been engaged in different facets of HR. One of the challenges that  I have taken into consideration is the process that we have in HR for transmission of payroll changes in  terms of terminations, new hires, changes in salary etc… and how this is communicated to payroll for  them to take the appropriate action.   The process for many years has been paper action forms for each action which I had to manually create  for each change that payroll needed to complete and send it to them. This seemed too cumbersome to  complete for each payroll- i.e every two weeks.     Selection: The tool I selected in the exercise was Visualization tool. This would enable the team and  myself to clearly help in showing the process of what the problem is and how it can bring out ideas on  how to use a better process for the problem stated. It would create a platform to generate, visualize and  classify ideas to see different patterns and insights that are received.

Application: I started by using a whiteboard and different colors. The next step was to meet with the HR  and payroll team and who are the key stakeholders in the process and get everyone together. The  problem was written out in the center of the whiteboard, and everyone on the team discussed the  intent of action forms, the process that was being followed, what the pros and cons were, how and why  this process which was being implemented has been followed for so many years, have times changed,  what are the other processed that can be followed using current trends which would be better aligned  to the solution. All these were written out on the whiteboard using different colors. After the session, I  used the whiteboard to create a view that combined the new insights from the group discussion, and  then create a revised graphic that incorporated their feedback and proposed changes that they agreed  to as a group.

Insight & Approach: Insight that I gained by using the mind mapping tool was that it is a great way to  create a shared understanding between multiple teams/ stakeholders in different roles. Creating visual  depiction of the problem gets everyone to understand the problem in the same way and helps getting  everyone at the same page quicker. Another great use that I found for visualization in this whole process  is clearly defined, and everyone is able to see the problem, and what the solutions can be taken in a very  visual way that makes sense. This enabled the group to see that this process of completing action forms  was quite outdated, and easier version which still captures the whole process and keeps the integrity  intact would work with using an excel sheet.  This process was very I plan to use visualization tool more  often in my future projects which need to solve such complex problems in a diverse group of people.

