Reflection – Visualization

Challenge

I’m working as Business Analyst for the IT industry where myself along with my team members   actively engage in the processes of designing, developing, testing and deploying IT solutions  based on the customer needs, whereas I play a critical role in identifying these needs and  requirements accurately. The customer satisfaction upon the final software products or IT  solutions that are delivered to them will be solely based on how accurately the customer  needs/requirements were perceived by me and how successfully my team had been competent  enough to satisfy these needs and requirements. Therefore, my role of identifying these  requirements and the accuracy of the clearly identified requirements is the most challenging  outcome for me as an individual when performing my role within the business analysis context.  Further based on my experience I have seen that most of the customers do not know how to  elaborate their requirements thoroughly and tend to have hidden or rather unstated  requirements which are not articulated clearly to myself or to my team members, therefore upon  failing to observe, understand and to capture these unstated requirements we will not be able  to satisfy our customers with our end software system/product that will be delivered to them.

Selection

Myself along with my team went through several design thinking tools that will be effective for  us to capture the customer requirements more clearly and we have decided to use storyboarding  as an initiative and also due to the fact of cost effectiveness in story boarding in comparison to  the other tools and techniques that were available.

Storyboards are based on a scenario or a user story. The persona or role that corresponds to that  scenario is clearly specified at the top of the storyboard. A short text description of the scenario  is also included. The description of the scenario or story is clear enough that a team member or  stakeholders such as customers could easily understand what is depicted before looking at the  visuals.

Application and Insight

Since I myself was not very artistic and so were all the team members we sought that drawing of  storyboards were much easier to us since storyboards are often informal and illustrate a  sequence of steps graphically, in an easy-to-understand manner and it can be done with a  minimum number of shapes such as rectangles, stick figures (which anyone can draw), speech  bubbles etc. Initially me along with my team members used pen and paper for story boarding

since we thought that it might be easier for us to start off with, however at the time of trying to  put-up every single piece together to complete the big picture we found out that it was still  difficult to understand what everyone is trying to communicate and depict through their own  version of storyboard drawing and lacks uniformity. Therefore, I suggested to use an IT tool for  storyboarding so that it will be have more uniformity and will be more clearer to be understood  by everyone in the team, for this we had a poll among the team members and most agreed to  use an IT tool for storyboarding, then upon researching on using a simple tool for story boarding  I managed to come up with, MS PowerPoint Story Boarding add on which comes in the MS  PowerPoint package. Further this tool had a predefined set of templates such as system screens,  buttons, navigation bars etc. which I could easily use for my tasks of story boarding. Thereby I did  storyboarding based on one exact theme to ensure uniformity and proceeded with capturing of  the most optimal ideas of my team members on “How they think is the most optimal way to  satisfy the customer Requirement” to my storyboard drawings.

Me along with my team members decided that its it better to keep an ‘iterative  process/approach’ in terms of capturing the customer feedback on the storyboard drawings so  that making changes will be more effective, faster and the time taken to deliver the final product  will be more resourceful. Thereby we used storyboarding during our customer meetings and  debriefing sessions of requirements to demonstrate our perception on how we have perceived  our customer requirements, and in turn they could pin point where they would prefer  changes/modifications to incur or any additional measures that we need to be consider in our  final IT solution by going through our storyboard drawings. Therefore, it was evident to us that  they could articulate their requirement(s) more clearly through our storyboard drawings and  from our side it was made easier for us to capture the customer requirements more accurately  through an iterative cycle of demonstrating our storyboard drawings.

Approach

As mentioned previously my team went through several other techniques when deciding the  most optimal tool based on the limitations that prevailed during the time such as cost, however  another alternative that we considered during that time was ‘Prototyping’ which incurred a  higher cost than storyboarding. Hence, we started off with storyboarding to capture the  customer requirements more clearer and in a more concise manner through storyboarding to  give us a good start and to make our solution design more stable. However me along with my  team members discovered that if we could use a few prototypes during the later stages of the  IT/Software solution development we might be able to make our end product more customer  friendly and enhance the capacities of the final software product that will be delivered to the end  customer. Thereby if we continue to use storyboarding during the initial stages of the software  product development and to use a few prototypes during the later stages of the software  development it was evident that we will be able to come up with a more fruitful as well as with  a more resourceful end product.


Reflection – Visualization Challenge I ’m working as Business Analyst for the IT industry where myself along with my team members actively engage in the processes of designing , developing , testing and deploying IT solutions based on the customer needs , whereas I play a critical role in identifying these needs and requirements accurately . The customer satisfaction upon the final software products or IT solutions that are delivered to them will be solely based on how accurately the customer needs / requirements were perceived by me and how successfully my team had been competent enough to satisfy these needs and requirements . Therefore , my role of identifying these requirements and the accuracy of the clearly identified requirements is the most challenging outcome for me as an individual when performing my role within the business analysis context . Further based on my experience I have seen that most of the customers do not know how to elaborate their requirements thoroughly and tend to have hidden or rather unstated requirements which are not articulated clearly to myself or to my team members , therefore upon failing to observe , understand and to capture these unstated requirements we will not be able to satisfy our customers with our end software system / product that will be delivered to them . Selection Myself along with my team went through several design thinking tools that will be effective for us to capture the customer requirements more clearly and we have decided to use storyboarding as an initiative and also due to the fact of cost effectiveness in story boarding in comparison to the other tools and techniques that were available . Storyboards are based on a scenario or a user story . The persona or role that corresponds to that scenario is clearly specified at the top of the storyboard . A short text description of the scenario is also included . The description of the scenario or story is clear enough that a team member or stakeholders such as customers could easily understand what is depicted before looking at the visuals . Application and Insight Since I myself was not very artistic and so were all the team members we sought that drawing of storyboards were much easier to us since storyboards are often informal and illustrate a sequence of steps graphically , in an easy - to - understand manner and it can be done with a minimum number of shapes such as rectangles , stick figures ( which anyone can draw ) , speech bubbles etc . Initially me along with my team members used pen and paper for story boarding since we thought that it might be easier for us to start off with , however at the time of trying to put - up every single piece together to complete the big picture we found out that it was still difficult to understand what everyone is trying to communicate and depict through their own version of storyboard drawing and lacks uniformity . Therefore , I suggested to use an IT tool for storyboarding so that it will be have more uniformity and will be more clearer to be understood by everyone in the team , for this we had a poll among the team members and most agreed to use an IT tool for storyboarding , then upon researching on using a simple tool for story boarding I managed to come up with , MS PowerPoint Story Boarding add on which comes in the MS PowerPoint package . Further this tool had a predefined set of templates such as system screens , buttons , navigation bars etc . which I could easily use for my tasks of story boarding . Thereby I did storyboarding based on one exact theme to ensure uniformity and proceeded with capturing of the most optimal ideas of my team members on “ How they think is the most optimal way to satisfy the customer Requirement ” to my storyboard drawings . Me along with my team members decided that its it better to keep an ‘ iterative process / approach ’ in terms of capturing the customer feedback on the storyboard drawings so that making changes will be more effective , faster and the time taken to deliver the final product will be more resourceful . Thereby we used storyboarding during our customer meetings and debriefing sessions of requirements to demonstrate our perception on how we have perceived our customer requirements , and in turn they could pin point where they would prefer changes / modifications to incur or any additional measures that we need to be consider in our final IT solution by going through our storyboard drawings . Therefore , it was evident to us that they could articulate their requirement(s ) more clearly through our storyboard drawings and from our side it was made easier for us to capture the customer requirements more accurately through an iterative cycle of demonstrating our storyboard drawings . Approach As mentioned previously my team went through several other techniques when deciding the most optimal tool based on the limitations that prevailed during the time such as cost , however another alternative that we considered during that time was ‘ Prototyping ’ which incurred a higher cost than storyboarding . Hence , we started off with storyboarding to capture the customer requirements more clearer and in a more concise manner through storyboarding to give us a good start and to make our solution design more stable . However me along with my team members discovered that if we could use a few prototypes during the later stages of the IT / Software solution development we might be able to make our end product more customer friendly and enhance the capacities of the final software product that will be delivered to the end customer . Thereby if we continue to use storyboarding during the initial stages of the software product development and to use a few prototypes during the later stages of the software development it was evident that we will be able to come up with a more fruitful as well as with a more resourceful end product .