1. Challenge

I work in a company where there is a big quantity of women on their thirties, the period when  they usually have children. In my country the maternity leave is paid for 6 months to care for a  new child and recover from childbirth. When the maternity leave ends and the women must  back to work, they start to worry about how moms can balance work and family. Is a challenge  for the company to find out how to deal with the needs of this importante and capable part of  the workforce.

The challenge of my team is to find ways to improve those women quality of life at work, so  they can be happier and more productive.

2. Selection

After proceding ethnographic interviews and selecting formal quantitative data, our team used  the tool of mind mapping to curate all the information and look for patterns.

We selected mind mapping because it allows a significant amount of stakeholders to join the  design thinking process, with tends to make then more engaged with the solution.

Mind mapping was selected because is more visual than other kinds of reports and charts what  makes the insights easily to be comunicated.

3. Application

We started the mind mapping process selecting the group to participate. We decided to invite  25 moms divided in three groups:

  Moms with grown up child – because they have already passed trought the inicial  challenges;

  Moms with babies and toddlers – because they are passing trough the challenges;

  Pregnant – because they are thinking about their future challenges.

We distributed the ethnographic interviews results, the formal quantitative data, charts,  graphs and materials produced with visualization techniques in a big room so everybody can  see all material.

Each mom recieved a clipboard, a marker and sticky notes.

Than we started the application of the tool:

1. Walk through the room observing all the material and to pick out what you think is

more relevant.

2. Write on separate sticky notes the itens they believe might form new ideas.  3. Group the sticky notes into themed.

4. Start to share selecting themes and sticky notes related to the theme.   5. Identify the insights.  6. Generate the design criteria.

With the design criteria established, we wrote the design criteria in a chart and confirmed  with all the participants of the session.

When the application finished, we took photos of the wall with the sticky notes and  transformed the information in a digital mind map, so we can have access to the information  inthe future if necessary.

3. Insight & Approach

The application of the mind map was interesting because allows the participation of different  grups with gave us differents points of view of the problem.

The visualization of the previous materials was very intersting so everybody could access all  the information and start the session at the same poin of knowledge.

In my opinion, the more valuable aspect of the activity was the opportunity to share  perspectives.

The engagement of the participants with the solution was a importante benefit of the use of  mind map. In another design thinking process I will certain use mind mapping tool again.

