Reflection – Mind Mapping

Challenge & Selection

I was auditing this course to get some pointers on product design while I was working with three of  my friends / ex-colleagues on an ecommerce product idea that we felt would be relevant for one of  the developing countries in Asia. This idea involved passing on the maximum of the profit margins to  the customers in a structured manner (in form of cashback).

At the initial stage, we had interviewed few users in various age / income group(s) to get a view on  their needs while they shop online / offline for daily needs, many times observing how they use the  existing products and how they give importance to specific functions as well as issues they are  facing. We also use the rival products ourselves and related to our shopping experiences to get  insights on what could be missing or can be improved.

In the next stage, while we are working on possible features to be included in the prototype  (minimum viable product), we agreed on using mind mapping technique. Rationale for this decision  was that this technique, we felt, would help us to put in perspective the data that we had collected  to collectively agree on the unstated needs of the personas we spoke to and come up with  innovative ideas to fulfil theses needs. Our ultimate aim was to agree on top priority features that  we need to include in our prototype to test it with our ‘key users’. I could related to the solution that  we were looking for in ‘Module 3’ of the course where the trainer mentioned that mind mapping  technique can be used for identifying patterns & themes from your data.

Application

We started this process by gathering in our work room (spare room that we had used to put story  boards during our data collection stage). Most of the data was available on boards that we have  captured during interviews, research as well as discussions we had done within the team, and it was  spread un-mapped across various boards.

We then asked the team members (total 6 – four team members and 2 developer interns) to go  through each board and note down the ideas / pointers that they feel would help to form new  patterns or innovative features for the personas we have studied. We allowed 45 mins for this step.

We then took a short break and gathered again to create a mind map of the ideas / themes that we  have noted down individually. This was done as per the guidelines given in the course module 3 –  one of the team member started with a theme and placing his notes related to the theme on the  mind-mapping board. This was followed by other team members placing their notes to the same  theme. This was followed by the next member presenting a theme and he and everyone placing  their notes for this theme on the board. We allowed the concept of theme and feature to be  interchangeable as our aim was to come up with key features to be included in our prototype. We  took two hours for this step.

Once this step was completed, we worked together to come up with a one sentence description of  each theme or feature into a key product feature that we can related to the product that we plan to  build. Each of the product features that were put in the mind-map was then rated by each team  member as either - High, Medium and Low which helped us to come with a prioritized product  backlog of key new / innovative features that we could include in our prototype. The highest-ranking  features could be included in the minimum viable product (MVP).

Insights & Approach

While we did this mind mapping exercise together as a team, we learned that using this technique is  more efficient and a structural way to process the huge amount of data that we had collected to  come up with key themes and ideas than the erstwhile linear / brain storming methods that we had  early to achieve the same purpose. Processing the data can be a quiet time consuming and stressful  task and get un-productive if a collaborative approach is not used hence killing the creativity of the  team while working on a new product idea. We found this technique efficient in coming up with  innovative themes at the same keeping shared understating between the team members.

Design thinking techniques, as a whole, we found that is about following a structured way to  innovative on the problems faced by customers, or fulfilling underlying needs that they have and  mind mapping is very effective to get creative heads together to achieve this goal by keeping shared  understanding at the base.

If I get an opportunity to apply mind mapping techniques again with my team or the organization  that I am working in as lead Business Analyst, I would try to get a bigger and diverse team of  ‘shoppers’ to do participate in exercise to ensure to get more creative ideas / themes to the problem  that we are trying to solve, and come up with clear design criteria for the product / solution that we  are trying to build.

