Nani Peroni  Design Thinking for Innovation Assignment     Challenge & Selection  In a previous role at a small business lending startup, I was responsible for the company’s customer experience across  the entire journey. While a small company, our departments were siloed and employees focused on delivering the best  experience they could to customers in their roles (sales, underwriting, collections, customer service, marketing) but  weren’t aware of the full relationship a customer would have with the company. This lack of awareness impacted  customers as they shared in their feedback with us. In order to bring value in my role, I wanted to build a connecting  thread between these groups so that we could deliver a cohesive and differentiated experience for our customers. To  help bring transparency to the entire customer journey and foster collaboration to drive a better experience for our  customers, I decided to run a visualization exercise with business partners. My goal was to create a visual and interactive  journey with specific touchpoints that our customer has with each one of our businesses to encourage discussion  around how we can build a better and connected customer experience.     Application   I invited representatives from each of the customer facing businesses to a two hour visualization exercise where I placed  key customer interaction points on the wall of our conference room (Awareness, Research and Consider, Apply, Repay,  Return/Attrite) to kick off the discussion. I provided colored post-it notes and pictures that represented channels, and  feelings. After walking the group through the intended goal for the session, we started talking through the different  customer stages and drawing touchpoints and feelings a customer would go through when interacting with the company  on post-its and paper.  The colored paper allowed us to differentiate between pain points and points of delight which  quickly made it evident how we were treating our customers holistically. After an hour, it was clear that many of the  people in the room were surprised at touchpoints happening earlier in the journey that had a downstream impact on  their interaction with the customer. (Since our company was split between New York and Michigan, I ran the same  exercise in Michigan and was able to merge the two visual journeys into 1 holistic map in the NYC conference room).

A picture of our visual map halfway through our session.

Insight   The visualization exercise generated an interactive map of customer touchpoints, customer feelings, pain points, points  of delight, pictures of customer interaction, and drawings from the stakeholders that were simply an outcome of going  through the visualization of the customer journey.  I could sense that by seeing all of the touchpoints and possible  emotions our customers may go through built empathy for the customer and encouraged participants to collaborate and  discuss changes to their current processes that would create a better experience.  Aside from the colorful and illustrative  visual in our conference room that everyone in the NYC office was exposed to, we walked away from the exercise with a  better understanding of our customers and a roadmap of ideas that we implemented to create a seamless experience.

It was also interesting to hear feedback from the participants about the exercise. Many of them have never used the  visualization tool and enjoyed being able to draw pictures rather than write-up an explanation. As Angela Meyer  explained in her video during week one of the course, visualization “allows us to access parts of our brain, parts of our  creativity, that we might not normally be using in the course of conversation.”  Other than gaining new insights around  visualizing and mapping our customer journey across all touchpoints, I learned a lot about how different people take on  the task of visualization and that there isn’t one right way to approach design thinking. Some liked to draw and others  preferred to use different colors but everyone was thinking visually.    Approach  This was my first attempt using the visualization tool in a large setting. I’ve practiced using the tool on my own to  brainstorm ideas and found tremendous value. Running it on a larger scale presented its own challenges (e.g. gaining  buy in around the value of “visual thinking” and approaching a project from a completely new angle) but overall believed  the exercise was successful. Being a very visual person, I really enjoy using this tool and am almost drawn to it  automatically when I think about solutions and ideas I have to approach a challenge.  When I decide to use this tool  again, I will consider asking the participants to think about the challenge and exercise visual thinking before coming  together as a group. Seeing the perspective others bring to the table before getting in a group think exercise can help  expand our boundaries of “what is.”


Nani Peroni Design Thinking for Innovation Assignment Challenge & Selection In a previous role at a small business lending startup , I was responsible for the company ’s customer experience across the entire journey . While a small company , our departments were siloed and employees focused on delivering the best experience they could to customers in their roles ( sales , underwriting , collections , customer service , marketing ) but were n’t aware of the full relationship a customer would have with the company . This lack of awareness impacted customers as they shared in their feedback with us . In order to bring value in my role , I wanted to build a connecting thread between these groups so that we could deliver a cohesive and differentiated experience for our customers . To help bring transparency to the entire customer journey and foster collaboration to drive a better experience for our customers , I decided to run a visualization exercise with business partners . My goal was to create a visual and interactive journey with specific touchpoints that our customer has with each one of our businesses to encourage discussion around how we can build a better and connected customer experience . Application I invited representatives from each of the customer facing businesses to a two hour visualization exercise where I placed key customer interaction points on the wall of our conference room ( Awareness , Research and Consider , Apply , Repay , Return / Attrite ) to kick off the discussion . I provided colored post - it notes and pictures that represented channels , and feelings . After walking the group through the intended goal for the session , we started talking through the different customer stages and drawing touchpoints and feelings a customer would go through when interacting with the company on post - its and paper . The colored paper allowed us to differentiate between pain points and points of delight which quickly made it evident how we were treating our customers holistically . After an hour , it was clear that many of the people in the room were surprised at touchpoints happening earlier in the journey that had a downstream impact on their interaction with the customer . ( Since our company was split between New York and Michigan , I ran the same exercise in Michigan and was able to merge the two visual journeys into 1 holistic map in the NYC conference room ) . A picture of our visual map halfway through our session . Insight The visualization exercise generated an interactive map of customer touchpoints , customer feelings , pain points , points of delight , pictures of customer interaction , and drawings from the stakeholders that were simply an outcome of going through the visualization of the customer journey . I could sense that by seeing all of the touchpoints and possible emotions our customers may go through built empathy for the customer and encouraged participants to collaborate and discuss changes to their current processes that would create a better experience . Aside from the colorful and illustrative visual in our conference room that everyone in the NYC office was exposed to , we walked away from the exercise with a better understanding of our customers and a roadmap of ideas that we implemented to create a seamless experience . It was also interesting to hear feedback from the participants about the exercise . Many of them have never used the visualization tool and enjoyed being able to draw pictures rather than write - up an explanation . As Angela Meyer explained in her video during week one of the course , visualization “ allows us to access parts of our brain , parts of our creativity , that we might not normally be using in the course of conversation . ” Other than gaining new insights around visualizing and mapping our customer journey across all touchpoints , I learned a lot about how different people take on the task of visualization and that there is n’t one right way to approach design thinking . Some liked to draw and others preferred to use different colors but everyone was thinking visually . Approach This was my first attempt using the visualization tool in a large setting . I ’ve practiced using the tool on my own to brainstorm ideas and found tremendous value . Running it on a larger scale presented its own challenges ( e.g. gaining buy in around the value of “ visual thinking ” and approaching a project from a completely new angle ) but overall believed the exercise was successful . Being a very visual person , I really enjoy using this tool and am almost drawn to it automatically when I think about solutions and ideas I have to approach a challenge . When I decide to use this tool again , I will consider asking the participants to think about the challenge and exercise visual thinking before coming together as a group . Seeing the perspective others bring to the table before getting in a group think exercise can help expand our boundaries of “ what is . ”