Reflection – Mind Mapping

Challenge

I lead my organizations business development team and my challenge is to improve the process of  identifying the risks during the diligence of a licensing or acquisition opportunity. The diligence activities  involve folks from various cross functional teams who provide their input on potential risks associated  with the opportunity. My goal is to streamline the diligence process so that a cross functional team is  able to review a larger number of opportunities without significantly increasing the burden on the teams  while continuing to identify all key risks. Working with a cross functional team including business  development team members we would like to identify and eliminate activities that lead to inefficiencies  in the process.

Selection

We had a lot of past data on diligence activities and in many instances their resulting inability to identify  the key risks accurately on many instances. Also, we could gather thoughts from some of the folks that  were involved in these diligence activities. Given the availability of significant data, we wanted to try the  mind mapping tool to identify the inefficiencies.

Application

For the mind mapping exercise, we invited stakeholders from various cross functional teams that are  involved in the diligence activities. We laid out details of the current diligence process and data from a  number of licensing/acquisition transactions on the walls of the conference room. The data included the  diligence activities associated with transactions that were considered successful and were able to  identify the key risks as well as ones that failed to identify the key risks. It also included thoughts from  diligence team members that were involved in the transactions and what they thought about the  transaction and diligence activity.

We reviewed the data individually and collected each of our learnings from the diligence activities  around why certain ones were successful and why certain ones failed on post-it notes. Folks also  indicated what they thought were pain points in the diligence process and how that impacted the  diligence results. Once we had all completed our individual thoughts we broke up into teams and  attempted to cluster the learnings into themes.

Insight and Approach

With the mind mapping tool the teams identified key themes which led to success of the diligence  activity. The teams were then tasked to come up with insights behind the themes and see if there were  connections. We discovered quite a few unanticipated results – some of the connections showed an  inverse dependency and working solely to improve one particular area could lead to a negative impact  on another. There was a need for fine balance between the areas and we needed to find an optimum  scenario. The insights and related interdependencies were incorporated in coming up with the design  criteria for an aspirational diligence process which identifies all the critical risks in most efficient manner  without becoming a burden on the cross functional teams.

Having been part of the mind mapping process to design the revised diligence process key stakeholders  felt ownership of the potential solutions. The tool helped me gain a wider perspective trying to design a

solution versus basing it only on my personal experiences with feedback from other stakeholders. I hope  to use the mind mapping tool in other scenarios where I need to solicit feedback and co-create  solutions.


Reflection – Mind Mapping Challenge I lead my organizations business development team and my challenge is to improve the process of identifying the risks during the diligence of a licensing or acquisition opportunity . The diligence activities involve folks from various cross functional teams who provide their input on potential risks associated with the opportunity . My goal is to streamline the diligence process so that a cross functional team is able to review a larger number of opportunities without significantly increasing the burden on the teams while continuing to identify all key risks . Working with a cross functional team including business development team members we would like to identify and eliminate activities that lead to inefficiencies in the process . Selection We had a lot of past data on diligence activities and in many instances their resulting inability to identify the key risks accurately on many instances . Also , we could gather thoughts from some of the folks that were involved in these diligence activities . Given the availability of significant data , we wanted to try the mind mapping tool to identify the inefficiencies . Application For the mind mapping exercise , we invited stakeholders from various cross functional teams that are involved in the diligence activities . We laid out details of the current diligence process and data from a number of licensing / acquisition transactions on the walls of the conference room . The data included the diligence activities associated with transactions that were considered successful and were able to identify the key risks as well as ones that failed to identify the key risks . It also included thoughts from diligence team members that were involved in the transactions and what they thought about the transaction and diligence activity . We reviewed the data individually and collected each of our learnings from the diligence activities around why certain ones were successful and why certain ones failed on post - it notes . Folks also indicated what they thought were pain points in the diligence process and how that impacted the diligence results . Once we had all completed our individual thoughts we broke up into teams and attempted to cluster the learnings into themes . Insight and Approach With the mind mapping tool the teams identified key themes which led to success of the diligence activity . The teams were then tasked to come up with insights behind the themes and see if there were connections . We discovered quite a few unanticipated results – some of the connections showed an inverse dependency and working solely to improve one particular area could lead to a negative impact on another . There was a need for fine balance between the areas and we needed to find an optimum scenario . The insights and related interdependencies were incorporated in coming up with the design criteria for an aspirational diligence process which identifies all the critical risks in most efficient manner without becoming a burden on the cross functional teams . Having been part of the mind mapping process to design the revised diligence process key stakeholders felt ownership of the potential solutions . The tool helped me gain a wider perspective trying to design a solution versus basing it only on my personal experiences with feedback from other stakeholders . I hope to use the mind mapping tool in other scenarios where I need to solicit feedback and co - create solutions .