Adopting the Visualization Tool

Challenge & selection

I am a member of my organization’s technology management and research administration  team in the research and development department. Our scope is to create focus for  researchers and value proposition out of the research outcome, and my challenge is to help  them communicate both verbally and nonverbally. At the research and development  department, we are looking at very complex problems in the renewable energy field, and we  are expected to explore and solve problems innovatively. However, having diverse teams in  “an organization” with different backgrounds makes it difficult to conduct ideation sessions  that can go beyond verbal communication and trigger innovation as everyone feels limited  due to the fact that in organizations some ideas are to remain fixed.

For example, my team and I conducted an ideation session one month ago for the research  team by writing their ideas on the smartboard. Everyone got engaged individually with  brilliant ideas that at some point were left without having another member build on; at this  point, I sensed a limitation in how the team reflects the things they imagine internally to  create a single picture that connects all the points mentioned without disregarding any ideas.  Also, I sensed that the team feels that there is a limited room for innovation when it comes to  out of the box ideas since we operate under an organization that has a fixed process and is  more towards execution. Therefore, I chose the visualization tool to understand and help both  my team and the researchers achieve our goals. This tool is to be used in order to create a free  and vibrant environment for innovation. As stated in the lecture notes, visualization, “allows  us to think in a nonverbal way. It allows us to access parts of our brain, parts of our  creativity, that we might not normally be using in the course of conversation”.

Application

Understanding that the primary tool for visualization is imagining things, actions, others, and  movements not only drawing and connecting simple diagrams, helped me in developing a  process that encourages exploration and pattern finding by dividing the ideation session into  different activities, such as exploration, pattern finding, concept development and ideation,  mind mapping, and then prototyping to evaluate whether there is room for scaling up.  By  exploration, we gave the researchers a chance to study the topic beforehand not only in terms  of technicality, but also the market and business. When we are planning for value  proposition, we need to have an idea of what our customers need; they come to the ideation  session with these ideas generated for us to help them think visually; this process helps in  activating visual thinking, where some context and figures can be generated and connected  through pattern finding. Once we get to the concept development and ideation stage, their  imagination is already triggered, and pictures are flowing. They would easily share their ideas  and build on other’s ideas by verbal and nonverbal communication. They are expected to  freely sketch and draw detailed diagrams that then can be transformed into complex diagrams  and maps.

Another ideation session was conducted earlier this week to assess whether this application is  the best approach while utilizing the visualization tool. The feedback from the teams was  amazing because they felt more confident and freer with their ideas. Also, they were doing a  decent job when building and connecting to other’s ideas. Engagement was well

demonstrated through-out the session and the tool seemed to work effectively. Seniors were  impressed by the prototype they received, and are encouraging the project.

Insight & Approach

By conducting this exercise, I realized that the new approach fits better in terms of  conducting ideation sessions. It helped me think broadly about how design thinking is not just  some ideas connected by arrows, but a set of tools that can be connected to serve the physics  of innovation. I am glad that the seniors are impressed with the outcome, but the engagement  of the researchers themselves encourages me to try other tools in future. I understood that  they like to stay in their comfort zone as they are in an organization that sometimes limits  their creativity, but they like to be challenged and guided to think visually. Using the  visualization tool, I would like to include pilot and scaling stage in the session, making it a  very interactive session that can be distributed on two to three days; the reason why I am  interested in the pilot and scaling stage is that it encourages the researchers to give more in  terms of research and it increases their interest in creating value out of their research papers  via patenting rather than merely publications.

