Experience of Conducting Analysis workshop using Design Thinking

Last month, I was tasked to conduct a workshop for a trading operations team for an Energy company. The task was to come up with various scenarios for improving the efficiency of operations leveraging technologies. I decided to explore design thinking as a way to conduct the workshop.

If you want to know more about, design thinking, please check out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_thinking

For ideal workshop in design thinking, it is recommended that define and research phases of the process should be thoroughly conducted in advance of workshop day. The workshop should be focused solely on presenting the findings of define/research & ideation.

To conduct the define phase I used the following:

1.        Interview with operations team (identified team)
2.        Researched the documentation
3.        Shadowed employees who are identified as product ambassadors

The output of this phase was a three point problem statement. I made initial validation of this problem with the team.

The research phase was based on past experience and past data. I built various scenarios in the form of user journeys on how the operations take place. The different user journeys and scenarios presented with situations on where efficiency improvements can be spotted.

Based on these journeys, I elaborated on what are the user motivations and needs. Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_journey

This was followed by an ideation phase. After the ideation, we finalized on top three things to focus for innovation in improving efficiencies. We concluded to transactionalize document storage and management.

This was later put into prototype phase for quick user feedback and execution of the idea. Throughout the process, ensured the business change aspect for better adoption of the idea.

My strong recommendation to use this design thinking for workshops. This would be especially useful to cut through some of the stereotype solution formations.