Reflection – Mind Mapping

The tool I utilized to apply my Design Thinking learning was Mind Mapping.  I needed to better  understand my customers problems and establish the “Wow” that would meet their needs, be  achievable economically, and be something that my organization could actually implement.  As  a Customer Success Manager for an Enterprise SaaS solution provider, I work with a small  portfolio of customers to help drive adoption of our service and drive (and prove) value to the  customers.  Over the last year, we have released a significant set of new functionality and  features, and my customers were having challenges understanding how to best take advantage  of them while also getting access to appropriate resources and help from our side.

Selection

Not wanting to jump directly into solutioning that was based on my interpretation of the  problem, I decided that using the Mind Mapping approach would help me take a more creative,  and customer focused view.  I knew this approach would help expose ideas, challenges,  emotional impacts, and viewpoints that I could not identify or understand by simply trying to  apply past programs and services.

Application

I decided to conduct a Mind Mapping exercise / workshop with representation from the  customer, my fellow Customer Success peers at my company, and my organization’s  department leads that would have a unique viewpoint of the challenges.

My plan to apply Mind Mapping to this situation included providing an overview of the process,  an explanation of why each member was selected, guidance around brainstorming, and  promoting the notion of comfort around expressing ideas and allowing everyone to provide  input.

We then utilized a large whiteboard in a conference room to come up with problem statements  and areas where we felt there were gaps or opportunities in how we could provide better  support to the customer.  Then, by using stacks of Post-It notes, everyone was able to  brainstorm ideas on how to address the issues.  Each participant then placed the notes on the  whiteboard near each problem statement as they best thought it would apply.  Even those that  did not fit completely into a category were put on the board, but on the outside areas of the  board.

This was a successful exercise in that it allowed the participants to truly listen to and  understand the ideas from various viewpoints versus their own perspective.  It helped open up  conversation and allowed for questions that further exposed why some problems were a higher  priority than others as well as the ones that could be considered “low hanging fruit”.  The main  challenge during the exercise was around staying focused on the big picture of what we wanted

to solve.  While this approach removed some of the restrictions and preconceptions that would  normally have existed, it was also difficult not to stray too far from the intent of the workshop.

Insight

I feel that there were several key learnings from the Mind Mapping exercise.  It was an  opportunity to bring people together to unite on a common challenge.  While each member  had a different role and viewpoint, the ultimate goal was to come up with some options that  would be mutually beneficial.  The feedback from the session was positive and many expressed  that it was a fresh approach that helped stimulate ideas.  While some of the ideas were place  on the table, they were also cataloged for future consideration – some even for completely  different challenges unrelated to ours.

Approach

I believe that the Mind Mapping workshop was a successful approach to an important problem  that existed for both my organization and for our customer.  It saved a significant amount of  time and money since we were able to have a much more accurate understanding of the  problems and the impact of those problems for the customer.  It also provided the opportunity  for people in my organization to get direct customer exposure and hear firsthand about their  challenges.  This alone was worth the effort.  In hindsight, I would have had a better designed  process to capture the final Mind Map graphic beyond taking a photograph.  While this is a  good first step, with an additional participant dedicated to taking notes and re-creating the  whiteboard and Post-It notes within a software application, we could have delivered a more  polished and actionable set of next steps in a more timely manner.

