Reﬂection - Mind Mapping

Challenge & Selection  I have worked in shared services for most of my professional career within the same  organization. Regardless of what objectives management come up with it always come down  to how can we bring the cost of a transaction down.

Our shared service organization covers close to 2000 team players spread across 4 regional  service-centers as well a multitude of in-country teams covering several areas such as payroll  Our objective was to reduce payroll processing costs by several million dollars over 5 years.

The challenge is linked to the selection of a single payroll provider to cover close to 50000  active and retired personnel in 30 countries. Building the request for proposal taking into  account the legal, branch and local payroll needs required the use of a tool to collectively  gather and prioritize needs as well as to reduce the time it took to collect requirements.

Application  Logistically is was not practical to get to 30 diﬀerent countries within a few weeks while we  created our RFP. The provider was going to be tasked with each countries legal compliance but  we needed to ensure any local, branch rules, speciﬁcities, etc… were collected. The objective  was not to create the blueprints rather ensure we put into the RFP everything we would need  so the providers could cost the implementation and running costs upfront and avoid a complex  and costly change control process as much as possible.

At the beginning, European workshops were carried out in-person starting with the good old  fashioned white board and post-it notes. Once the workshop was done we would collate the  information in a mind-mapping package and have the teams review. Following workshops  started with a review of the previous workshops mind-map. After a couple of workshops we  were getting more and more eﬃcient because countries were expressing similar requirements  or by seeing what was already on the map provided their prioritization of the requirement. At  that point we moved to only using online tools for mind mapping and realtime collaboration  tools and carried out virtually all remaining workshops and pre-workshop work using the  diﬀerent software packages but keeping a single mind-map which served as the basis for  writing our RFP..

We created our RFP in record time and implemented the system over 18 months.

Insight & Approach  Activities such as collecting requirements and not just important to ensure a good costing  exercise but are also one of the building blocks in the project’s change management strategy. If  we had needed to go to each country it would have both cost a fortune and taken several more  months to get to a similar level of requirement description.   By starting out face to face we were able to onboard local payroll teams into the project but as  the exercise continued what we managed to create was an internal network of payroll  practitioners across the countries working together towards a single goal.

Using mind-mapping software allowed us to deﬁne common terminology which in turn led us  to review processes and reduce complexity once it came to implementing the new solution  brining about the expected savings.

Next time I have the need for such a tool I would probably  • not keep a single map rather split it up in some way. By the end of the payroll exercise

navigating the map was too cumbersome

• Deﬁne some kind of reference system to reference the diﬀerent mind map nodes and entries

in the RFP document.


Reﬂection - Mind Mapping Challenge & Selection I have worked in shared services for most of my professional career within the same organization . Regardless of what objectives management come up with it always come down to how can we bring the cost of a transaction down . Our shared service organization covers close to 2000 team players spread across 4 regional service - centers as well a multitude of in - country teams covering several areas such as payroll Our objective was to reduce payroll processing costs by several million dollars over 5 years . The challenge is linked to the selection of a single payroll provider to cover close to 50000 active and retired personnel in 30 countries . Building the request for proposal taking into account the legal , branch and local payroll needs required the use of a tool to collectively gather and prioritize needs as well as to reduce the time it took to collect requirements . Application Logistically is was not practical to get to 30 diﬀerent countries within a few weeks while we created our RFP . The provider was going to be tasked with each countries legal compliance but we needed to ensure any local , branch rules , speciﬁcities , etc … were collected . The objective was not to create the blueprints rather ensure we put into the RFP everything we would need so the providers could cost the implementation and running costs upfront and avoid a complex and costly change control process as much as possible . At the beginning , European workshops were carried out in - person starting with the good old fashioned white board and post - it notes . Once the workshop was done we would collate the information in a mind - mapping package and have the teams review . Following workshops started with a review of the previous workshops mind - map . After a couple of workshops we were getting more and more eﬃcient because countries were expressing similar requirements or by seeing what was already on the map provided their prioritization of the requirement . At that point we moved to only using online tools for mind mapping and realtime collaboration tools and carried out virtually all remaining workshops and pre - workshop work using the diﬀerent software packages but keeping a single mind - map which served as the basis for writing our RFP .. We created our RFP in record time and implemented the system over 18 months . Insight & Approach Activities such as collecting requirements and not just important to ensure a good costing exercise but are also one of the building blocks in the project ’s change management strategy . If we had needed to go to each country it would have both cost a fortune and taken several more months to get to a similar level of requirement description . By starting out face to face we were able to onboard local payroll teams into the project but as the exercise continued what we managed to create was an internal network of payroll practitioners across the countries working together towards a single goal . Using mind - mapping software allowed us to deﬁne common terminology which in turn led us to review processes and reduce complexity once it came to implementing the new solution brining about the expected savings . Next time I have the need for such a tool I would probably • not keep a single map rather split it up in some way . By the end of the payroll exercise navigating the map was too cumbersome • Deﬁne some kind of reference system to reference the diﬀerent mind map nodes and entries in the RFP document .