Challenge & Selection

I am a member of my organization’s customer services department in the cafe and our challenge  is to improve the workflow (activities and projects) within the department in order to decrease  problems that faced customers. For example, wrong in the order, don't know the ingredients of  the food and suppliers don’t have information about availability of their products. The project  scope includes the customer service department composed of ten employees, and human  resource department, with whom we work closely.

The project is limited to internal resources (i.e., budget and employee time). The solution should  include an even distribution of working hours amongst the team members. We will focus on  trying to uncover what our team members,

Application

The first tool I used was the tool of mind mapping, to achieve a shared understanding of a  problem space among a diverse group of directly customers before attempting to identify and  define possible solutions to the problem. I use this approach often with our other customers,  who are food inspection department that related to government working to deliver their  services of food safety to their customer.

If appropriate to the situation, I will borrow the concept to mind mapping that helps to  understand the basics and related to others relationship. The mind map, I often start with learn  about the customers and suppliers, listen and ask questions. Next, try to define the scope, ask  questions assumptions and look for some patterns. Then, come to most important step which is  come up with many solutions, co-create with team members for new ideas .in the last  brainstorm and select the best solutions. Finally, using testing to evaluate, gather learnings and  literate and scale. The mind maps are simple, using simple shapes and icons to understand  easily.

For the activity, I will divide the stakeholders (suppliers) into 3 groups of participants each  representing different area of interest. Each group receives a paper contain mind map for their  problem that they can write on directly, or use sticky notes to make comments. I give them two- three questions to answer, such as: 1) What key important problems they faced? 2) What would  you suggest to make it more accurately reflect your problem space? 3) What key insights do you  have about the relationships between the entities in your problem space? I give them  approximately 15 minutes to discuss the questions and mark up the graphic. Then I have each  group report out on their answers to those three questions while pointing to the mark-ups on  their maps. As each group reports out, I record commonalities in the insights of each group, and  then additional insights that come from the group discussion on an additional copy of the mind  maps. After the session, I digitize each group’s poster as an artifact, create a view that combines  the shared and new insights from the group discussion, and then create a revised graphic that  incorporates their feedback and proposed changes that they agreed to as a group.

Insight & Approach

What I have learned from conducting this exercise with several groups is that while the mind  mapping is important for reinforcing their understanding of the problem they are working to  solve, the more valuable aspect of the activity is the shared insights and shared learning that  occurs while they are working to define their problem space. The maps give the diverse group of  suppliers and customers focal point for discussion that allows them to share their perspectives  and develop insights into potential causes of their problems. They can identify where they are in  the graphic – or if they are missing – and can more quickly gain new insights about relationships  between key entities instead of taking time to identify them. They can also identify variables in  the problem space – that is, it helps them to identify what they don’t know, in what areas they  need to obtain information or data to provide the values for the variables.

Since I discovered that the most valuable aspect is the shared insights and learning, next time I  would use the mind mapping activity as a starting point for a series of design thinking activities.

