Using artificial intelligence in a distribution utility company

Challenge & Selection

I used a Visual Thinking tool, showing a first solution (a well-defined sketch) to  a group of stakeholders before defining the first solutions to the problem. The  customer is a distribution utility company based in Brazil. The idea is to  improve the logistic of the company using intelligent technologies such as  machine learning. Its customers are all citizens that live in the biggest  Brazilian state called Sao Paulo. I applied the technique of using a  visualization of a problem domain with a set of questions regarding the their  business process aiming at discussing strategies that don’t go against their  business process. We defined the scope and the possible problems for getting  data. We also identified the relationships between elements to consider when  deploying the solutions.

Application

In order to develop the first sketch, I drew it from the company specification  that was previously built along with the stakeholders in the project. The  material is mostly based on functional and non-functional requirements along  with the business objectives and goals. After we conducted interviews with  stakeholders, team representatives included in the proposed solution and  managers of the processes. After it, we tried to see the possible impacts of  the application on the customers with whom the service provider interacts. We  also try to keep engaged in the discussion representatives of all possible  groups that will be involved when the solution not will be developed but build,  and maintained as well. For example, the information technology group,  people from the logistics and so on. Meetings with the sketch are conducted in  person, sometimes can be on skype. For the activities, we consult  stakeholders experts in the domain but we also allow other groups to give  opinions in each part of the process. We also provide a blank boarder to and  blank papers to express the ideas and feedback about the process and the  discussion. The meeting lasts around 60-90 minutes to discuss all the  questions and update the sketch. The idea is to not burnout the participants  and to force them to be pragmatic yet creative. After the session, We write the

conclusions down in an official document that goes to all participants by email.  A new meeting is scheduled in order to refine the ideas and the proposal.

Insight & Approach

We saw that the aforementioned strategy was important for reinforcing their  understanding of the problem they were willing to solve. We also realized that  the client does not know very well what they want, and sometimes even the  process is not clear between different groups, even they interact with each  other almost every day. The shared insights were good to all groups and all  groups could contribute to the discussion, even the ones that were not experts  in a specific part of the process. The sketch gives a diverse group of  stakeholders a focal point for discussion that allows them to share their  perspectives and develop insights into potential root causes of their problems.  The whiteboard was very important to simplify and visualize some hard  concepts about the stakeholder’s idea or their explanation about some parts  of the process. We also took the time to identify them in the sketch. We also  identified other variables did not take into account previously. We always do  this visualization task after requirements collecting in order to make things  clear and to prepare the next steps of the project. After we go to deeper parts  of the project such as technical discussions and design regarding the  proposed solution.

