C2 General

Reflection – visualization

Challenge

I am a management consultant, whose current project is to perform the role of a Business Manager  in a Team that produces and delivers Cloud products (i.e. Cloud Team) to large enterprises. This  Cloud Team is part of the Technology organization of one of the biggest and most relevant Telco  providers in Europe. Due to a recent major partnership of this Telco Provider, the Cloud Team was  assigned the accountability of a “Co-Creation” Team. This “Co-Creation Team” was accountable of  co-creating by engaging customer, with the aid of several suppliers. The Co-Creation Team had a  portfolio of standardized ideas, that will be customized according the customer’s needs and then  developed into a Minimum Viable Product. One of the great difficulties the Co-Creation Team faced  was the lack of resources involved in the process of “Portfolio Creation”. Other Teams Leads within  the Cloud Team did not to allow their employees to collaborate with the Co-Creation Team because  they fear it will reduce overall productivity. The latter did not only produce lack of interest in the Co- Creation project but overall bitterness within the employees for not being included in one of the  most innovative projects available. Because employees felt they could confide in me and considering  my role had given me high-level overview of the Cloud Team’s activities and accountabilities, the  Cloud Leadership Team felt that I was the adequate person to find a possible solution for these  existing problems. In brief, I had identify whether it was possible to generate a solution to both the  creation of a portfolio, the fear of decreased productivity among Team Leads and the lack of interest  and bitterness among employees.

Selection

The tool I selected for this challenge is visualization. I chose it because the Team had been planning  an all day workshop for quite some time, which meant that all employees that are based in different  locations in Europe would be together in London. Among the agenda prepared for the day, I  included an item named “Co-Creation” and thought that the only way to make an abstract idea  visible and concrete was through visualization. Moreover, visualization would allow the Cloud Team  to become engaged, enable them to think outside the box and reduce the amount of existing friction  among the employees due to the high levels of collaboration it requires.

Application

On the day of the event, the Team lead of the Co-Creation Team provided a bit of context on how  she envisions co-creation happening within this Telco Provider and the impact the Team should have  by creating a digital society, enabling inclusion and taking care of the planet. We than proceeded  into splitting the team (55 employees and 5 contractors) into smaller groups of 10, ensuring all  Teams would be as mixed as possible. In other words, not more than three people with the same job  title should be in the same group.

The activity consisted that each group had three macro categories (i.e. Digital Society, Inclusion for  All and Planet) to focus on for thirty minutes each. During this time, the groups were given a  template which contained four boxes: “customer problem”, “value created”, “partnerships” and  “technology components”; within each of these boxes, it was requested to sketch/draw with a  minimum use of words a possible idea any customer could be interested. It was clearly stated that at  least one template should be produced per macro category. At the beginning of the activity, I was a  bit reluctant that the teams would not be willing to participate in this exercise; hence, would not  produce any idea. However, once the activity started, it was clear that within the small groups at  least half of the individuals were immediately engaged and, as the activity progressed, gradually the

C2 General

most stubborn ones became engaged as well. By the end of the idea production phase, we had at  least eight templates with ideas coming from the small groups. Considering the energy of the team  was high, we decided to cancel the remaining items of the workshop’s agenda to focus on this  particular activity. All the smaller teams were granted the possibility to expose their ideas to the  wider Cloud Team. Considering that each idea was sketched or drawn, it allowed the wider audience  to understand it immediately. Furthermore, this “show and tell” experience allowed Team Leads to  notice how passionate their employees were around becoming active participants in this co-creation  project and how it had noticeably reduced bitterness and reluctance to collaborate and cooperate.

Lastly, we decided to display all the templates around the room and let people walk around to vote  for their top three preferred ideas for “Digital Society”, top three ideas for “Planet” and top three  ideas for “Inclusion for all”. After the idea selection, the Team was asked to provide feedback.  Overall feedback was that the session had been engaging, productive and creative; they were  thrilled to have participated in the creation of the Co-Creation Team’s portfolio. On the other hand,  the Cloud Team had several improvement areas. One of these was that the Cloud Team felt they  should have been engaged earlier (i.e. in the “what is” phase, not in the “what if” phase) as well as  wishing more time would have been given to brainstorm on these ideas. Another improvement was  to include a discussion section after the “show and tell”. By granting the Team the possibility to  discuss the ideas, focusing on questions such as what they love about and what they think is missing,  would have enhanced overall ideas’ robustness. In the end, the Co-Creation Team was given nine  ideas that the Cloud Team was confident would be worthy of exploring with potential customers and  suppliers as well as a pool of ideas that could be explored later on.

Insight and Approach

The insight gained in this challenge is that, as imagined, usually individuals tend to be extremely  visual, which makes the visualization tool very effective when either sharing or in the process of  making an idea visible, clear and understandable. Moreover, the fact that by engaging all the  members of the Cloud Team in mixed groups, enabled a broader repertoire of ideas to emerge. It  showed the Team Leads the opportunities for their employees to collaborate and become active  members of the Co-Creation Team, which could continue to aid during the what wows and what  works phases. On the other hand, besides of not giving the appropriate time to the Cloud Team to  use this tool, it was evident that the Visualization tool was under used. Without the discussion  section, the Team felt the overall activity lacked the possibility of getting feedback around possible  enhancements for their ideas. Furthermore, it was clear that engaging the Team from the beginning  could have diminished overall resistance from Team Leads to adopt a more fluid operating model,  which will enable their employees to actively collaborate with the Co-Creation Team.

After arriving to these discoveries, it is clear that next time I am planning in using the visualization  tool, the stakeholders engaged should be given more time to feel comfortable around the ideas  produced. In addition, the inclusion of discussion will ensure knowledge is shared and feedback is  provided which will only enhance the original ideas. Lastly, the inclusion of the Cloud Team or any  other Team will ensure that barriers such as fear and lack of engagement are demolished, leaving  room for better collaboration and greater innovation.

