I currently work as a data project leader for a Long Term Rental company that lease vehicles with full  services. More and more of our vehicles are equipped with Telematics Black Boxes, which log events  (such as speed, braking, cornering, acceleration,…) and provide to us lot of data.

Some weeks ago, our Insurance Business line managers asked us to build a driving score, correlated  to the accident rate. Working with data science team, we succeed in building a model, based on the  driving events collected from the Black Boxes the previous months, that could predict the risk for the  driver to have an accident the next month. The remaining point was to translate the risk ratio of our  model into a driving score easily understandable by the client and/or the driver. To better define this  score, I proposed to the Business stakeholders to participate to a workshop, where everyone would  have to imagine and describe the final usage that could be done from this new driving score.

Working with data scientists, I had already experienced how powerful are the data Visualization  tools, whether for exploratory data analysis, or to communicate clearly on data, and to support  recommendations to different stakeholders. This time, I wanted to experiment visualization, not to  communicate on data insights, but to check how it could be helpful to use visualization to collaborate  in sharing ideas and building products or services.

Before the workshop, I asked to each participant to think about the way he/she imagines to use the  new driving score; how the product or service based on this driving score would look like; and why  the client could be interested.

When we started the workshop, I let them draw their ideas, and then each participant had to present  his drawing and explain his/her ideas. (On this part, I am not sure if there was a benefit to draw  instead of writing ideas on post-it. Maybe it helped to mobilise the right side of our brain). Then, we  grouped the drawings depending on the similarity of ideas, and identified three main ideas to  develop : Premium discount, Prevention, and Serious game (we parked other ideas for later  investigations). At this point of the workshop, we continued to use visualization, summarising the  main ideas in one new picture, and I really enjoyed the experience. Building this common picture  allowed us to define a potential target being sure we shared the same view and that we were on the  same page. I have re-drawn and translated the results in English, to let you see how it looked like.

In the second step of the workshop, we have challenged the initial ideas and have enriched them  with additional features that came to our minds while handling of objections. Using visualization has  been key to support the co-creation work. Visualization allowed us to be sure we understood well  each other. And when I look at the final drawing, it reminds me all the discussion we had, even if all  details are not drawn (The final picture acts as a reminder of the all workshop). I can definitely  confirm that visualization is a powerful tool, and not only for data insights…

Visualization tool is an enabler used during all phases of the Design Thinking process. Not to use it  during a brainstorming workshop would miss potential additional ideas, and the risk not to have a  shared view at the end of the session. Moreover, I am quite confident that it helped to make things  more concrete for everyone in the room. Of course, the drawings we have done are not the only key  for success, but they contribute a lot. If I had to do it again, I would keep the same approach.

I am now looking forward to use visualization on the next steps of our “safety score” products, by  presenting mock ups to drivers and getting their feedbacks.

