Challenge and Selection

I am a business analyst and whenever I come across a new client for whom my organization would be  enabling digital transformation of their business, I would immediately rely on the design-thinking tool of  storytelling. The clients that I come across are generally the market leaders or amongst one of the  market leaders in their industry but their growth of revenue seems to have become stagnant, as these  businesses are not yet digitized. The digital transformation journey for all businesses cannot be the  same and hence do not follow one single framework. This tool helps to find out the pains of the client’s  business and subsequently work out a multitude of options or paths that I could explore so that those  pains could be resolved and yet meet all the business needs without causing complications along the  digital transformation journey. This tool also holds the capability of bringing out additional gains to the  clients’ digital transformation journey.

Application

The first challenge in which I implemented Storytelling tool was for an Insurance client whose objective  was to digitize the first phase of the insurance lifecycle. In this phase, an insurance agent communicates  with a customer via various methods like face-to-face, telephonic etc. and sells him a particular plan(s)  for the insurance product(s) of his/her choice. Once the agent has fixed the deal, the customer enrolls  for that plan using an application form, which is processed by the insurance company, and the  subsequent insurance is given to the customer. Now these customers were generally members of an  organization with which the insurer had partnership and these subscriptions to these insurance products  were generally payroll-deducted.

When we began the project of digitizing this phase of the insurance lifecycle, my team comprising of 5  business analysts wanted to understand what were the expectations from the key stakeholders here –  the insurer(insurance application processing team) and the insurance agents, using a storyboard. We  talked to the agents first, and wanted to understand what were they trying to achieve and what were  the difficulties and apprehensions they usually faced while making a sale to the customers.

I leaned more towards visual storytelling and thereby incorporated images in my storyboard which  would include agents and customers in our story. We would draw real life incident while chalking the  story, highlighting certain points in our story wherein the agent would face a hurdle during the process.  We would work with the agents what could resolve those hurdles using the ORID framework of  questioning. The results, that would come out of these storyboards, would be taken up for further  validation using other design thinking tools like learning launch to establish the proof of concept.

There was another challenge in a different project, though a little different, in which I, along with my  team of 5 other Business Analysts, implemented the Storytelling tool for a client whose business need  was to develop an application for their connected car. This challenge was a bit simpler than the previous  one because the end goal was already realized – to build a mobile application. The gap lay as to how  that application was supposed to interact with the consumer (connected car owner and his/her family  members). Hence, we had used storytelling tool at that time too to understand what was the flow of  interaction between the consumer and the connected car using the mobile application.

Insight and Approach

The insights gained from the storyboards were immensely helpful for my first challenge. It helped us  understand that the partner organizations’ members to whom the agents were selling the insurance  products, had a very minimal time to devote within which agents could detail out all the benefits from  the gamut of products that they had to offer. Additionally, customers sometimes became impatient and  would ask the agents to leave behind pamphlets and booklets of the insurance products. One of the  primary pains of the agents was that they could not engage the customers in an attractive conversation  or communication flow so that they could make a sale to the customer

We finally addressed these pains by building an exclusive portal for the agents wherein they could  engage with the customers and save their progress of communication, which could also be solitarily  picked up by the customer from the customer portal. An added insight from the storyboard that  provided the point of differentiation to our application was that the entire experience was replicated  like an e-commerce shopping experience including carts and so on.

These pains were identified only when the storyboards (storytelling) was accompanied by drawing out  customer journeys. Apart from storytelling, we could have also taken the tool of Visualization as  explained in the course which could have yielded have the same results, I believe. I would definitely try  the tool of Visualization in the next project.


Challenge and Selection I am a business analyst and whenever I come across a new client for whom my organization would be enabling digital transformation of their business , I would immediately rely on the design - thinking tool of storytelling . The clients that I come across are generally the market leaders or amongst one of the market leaders in their industry but their growth of revenue seems to have become stagnant , as these businesses are not yet digitized . The digital transformation journey for all businesses can not be the same and hence do not follow one single framework . This tool helps to find out the pains of the client ’s business and subsequently work out a multitude of options or paths that I could explore so that those pains could be resolved and yet meet all the business needs without causing complications along the digital transformation journey . This tool also holds the capability of bringing out additional gains to the clients ’ digital transformation journey . Application The first challenge in which I implemented Storytelling tool was for an Insurance client whose objective was to digitize the first phase of the insurance lifecycle . In this phase , an insurance agent communicates with a customer via various methods like face - to - face , telephonic etc . and sells him a particular plan(s ) for the insurance product(s ) of his / her choice . Once the agent has fixed the deal , the customer enrolls for that plan using an application form , which is processed by the insurance company , and the subsequent insurance is given to the customer . Now these customers were generally members of an organization with which the insurer had partnership and these subscriptions to these insurance products were generally payroll - deducted . When we began the project of digitizing this phase of the insurance lifecycle , my team comprising of 5 business analysts wanted to understand what were the expectations from the key stakeholders here – the insurer(insurance application processing team ) and the insurance agents , using a storyboard . We talked to the agents first , and wanted to understand what were they trying to achieve and what were the difficulties and apprehensions they usually faced while making a sale to the customers . I leaned more towards visual storytelling and thereby incorporated images in my storyboard which would include agents and customers in our story . We would draw real life incident while chalking the story , highlighting certain points in our story wherein the agent would face a hurdle during the process . We would work with the agents what could resolve those hurdles using the ORID framework of questioning . The results , that would come out of these storyboards , would be taken up for further validation using other design thinking tools like learning launch to establish the proof of concept . There was another challenge in a different project , though a little different , in which I , along with my team of 5 other Business Analysts , implemented the Storytelling tool for a client whose business need was to develop an application for their connected car . This challenge was a bit simpler than the previous one because the end goal was already realized – to build a mobile application . The gap lay as to how that application was supposed to interact with the consumer ( connected car owner and his / her family members ) . Hence , we had used storytelling tool at that time too to understand what was the flow of interaction between the consumer and the connected car using the mobile application . Insight and Approach The insights gained from the storyboards were immensely helpful for my first challenge . It helped us understand that the partner organizations ’ members to whom the agents were selling the insurance products , had a very minimal time to devote within which agents could detail out all the benefits from the gamut of products that they had to offer . Additionally , customers sometimes became impatient and would ask the agents to leave behind pamphlets and booklets of the insurance products . One of the primary pains of the agents was that they could not engage the customers in an attractive conversation or communication flow so that they could make a sale to the customer We finally addressed these pains by building an exclusive portal for the agents wherein they could engage with the customers and save their progress of communication , which could also be solitarily picked up by the customer from the customer portal . An added insight from the storyboard that provided the point of differentiation to our application was that the entire experience was replicated like an e - commerce shopping experience including carts and so on . These pains were identified only when the storyboards ( storytelling ) was accompanied by drawing out customer journeys . Apart from storytelling , we could have also taken the tool of Visualization as explained in the course which could have yielded have the same results , I believe . I would definitely try the tool of Visualization in the next project .