CHALLENGE

Ten months back in my organization, we had a challenge of very low turnout to the staff  restaurant. The organization was very concerned about this as they could not ensure the quality  of food eaten by the staff outside the office and also concerned about the staff well-being.  Based on these reasons, the organization decided to find a solution. A team was selected for  this purpose and I was the head of the team.

SELECTION

The mind mapping tool was selected as the design thinking tool to help resolve the challenge.  The tool was selected because it helps to identify patterns and insights that can lead to more  creative solutions to challenges.    APPLICATION

We selected few staff to gather data on reasons why they don’t eat in the staff restaurant. We  met with each of them to confirm their available date for a one-one-one session as we could  not get all of them at the same time. We had sessions with 10 staff members and we gathered  lots of reasons why they don’t show up at the restaurant. Based on the feedback we drew a  mind map to identify a pattern and we realized similarities in their reasons for not eating at the  restaurant. The reasons that were most common were quality of food, cleanliness and early  arrival of caterer. The process took over a month because we had to schedule individual  meetings with staff.

We then met with 3 different caterers, presented our top requirements to them and put them  one week rotation. We had informed staff of the rotation earlier. We sent online  questionnaires to the 10 staff selected earlier after each week and we got positive feedbacks.  We then selected 2 of the 3 caterers and the turnout to lunch increase by 80% within 2 weeks.    INSIGHT

Before we (the restaurant change committee) started to investigate further on the reasons why  staff didn't show up for lunch, we almost concluded that the major reason for not showing up  was quality of food. This design thinking method approach chosen helped us to realize other  important reasons why staff don't show up which guided our path to the solution.

APPROACH

If faced with similar challenge in the future, I might use the learning launch tool as I think this  will give faster feedback which will lead to faster solution. We would have gotten 4 different  caterers on a week rotation, announced this to staff prior to the commencement of the  rotation then watch the turnout and also get opinions from questionnaires.

