Reflection – Mind Mapping 

 Challenge 

 Right now , I am a postgraduate student of the program ‘ Governance of Science , Technology and   Innovation ’ in Moscow , Russia . Earlier I worked as business consultant in my home country   Eritrea . Before three years , while working in consulting firm in Asmara , an customer ( Eritrean   returnee from abroad ) came to our office for consultancy . His plan was to open new business that   engages in provision of slaughter services of sheep and goat for households . The role of our team   was to find out whether there was an actual need for such services and willingness of residents to   shift for such service . Traditionally , most of the residents of the city have the habit of eating   meat of sheep or goat on every religious holidays and slaughter by themselves at home . Rarely ,   others buy cattle and share among themselves and very few with less income go for buying one   or two kilograms of meat from grocery . Meat consumption goes much beyond its nutritious   value , and is considered a good tradition where family members who have been apart for   different reasons come together and celebrate their holidays together . The celebration begins   from slaughter of the sheep or goat till lunch accompanied by traditional coffee ceremony .    families used to do the slaughter by themselves or hire people who engage in such activities and   pay them . To carry out the slaughter process at home , one needs much water . 

 Selection 

 The most appropriate tool that we found helpful in finding out the opportunity of new business   was ‘ Mind Mapping ’ . This tool is very important in collecting data while answering the first step   of idea generation ‘ What is ’ . As professor Marian Moore explained in her video “ Mind mapping   is one of the most powerful tools in the design thinker ’s toolbox . It is used to look for patterns   and insights that lead to more creative solutions to your design challenge . It provides a Segway   from ‘ what is ’ to ‘ what if ’ ” . 

 Application 

 Using the ‘ Mind mapping ’ tool is important in collecting data from the ground that are helpful to   answer first question of the idea generation process ‘ what is ’ . To understand the real situation in   depth as well as the mindset of the society , our team ( comprises eight people with different   profession ) decided to arrange group discussion with residents ( 40 representative ) followed by   ethnographic interview . Our selection for that method was to find out quickly and economically   the real situation on ground and the unarticulated problems of residents as it helps the team to   interact with them in their real - life environment . 

 Since our objective had only two themes , that is , to know their readiness to give up their   traditional slaughter at home and shift to the new slaughter services or not , they had no difficulty   in expressing their opinion . In our discussion , first we put ‘ New Business ’ at the center as   beginning point . Next , we figured out the opportunities and constraints available in opening the   business . The main opportunities were found to be the availability of resources ( capital , human , 

 technical , etc ) and absence of other businesses in similar activity . On the other hand , the barriers   that could hinder the business were the traditional attachment of residents and temporal   consumption pattern . To check out our hypothesis , the ethnographic survey was very helpful . We   selected one neighborhood , called ‘ Enda Korya ’ , with relatively high income and adequate   services except an occasional water shortage . The interview was carried out to know the   traditional attachment and the effect of water shortage in embracing the slaughter service ,   thereby to verify our assumption . 

 Insight 

 Mind mapping , as a design thinking tool is helpful to capture patterns and insights from the real   situation . The tool helped us primarily to find out the correctness of our assumption . It proved   that our assumption on traditional attachment of the society was right . Even the water shortage   was a real concern for them . However , to our surprise , after the ethnography survey and group   discussion , it was found that residents valued their time much more than to their traditional   attachment . Therefore , the tool was really helpful leading to an important insight that we never   had considered . Though residents had the problem , they could n’t articulate it clearly until we   held the discussion . The mind mapping shows that the patterns and insights captured are crucial   steps . As long as the primarily objective of design thinking is to solve customers ’ problem not to   show off one ’s brilliance , customer empathy is key to look at a problem from different   perspective . That ’s why , their responses indicated how desperately they were looking for better   alternative and they had a different valuation of time than our hypothesis . The tool helped us not   only to open one slaughter house in one neighborhood , but also to open other branches in the   city . 

 Approach 

 Since our consulting team was composed of multidisciplinary staff , we were able to look onto   the business from all perspectives . Everyone ’s idea was highly valued and using mind mapping it   was clearly stated and gave fruitful results . Since dealing with such issue of opening a new   business requires huge initial investment , a thoroughly design thinking explanation could be   done through mind mapping . Engaging customers at early stage through ethnographic survey is   helpful to discover wrong assumptions and access primarily data from consumers ( final users )   themselves . Next time , in doing similar job I would like to employ visualization design tool .    Because this tool develops your imaginative ability and presents your next move vividly   especially to stakeholders who find it difficult to understand technical terms . Other tools such as   learning launch are not appropriate for such cases . This is due to the high initial investment to   prototype or make a small experimental test . Once , capital investment is made , failure of the   business could be excruciating disaster . 


EMAIL: 
ID_NUM: 
NAME_STUDENT: 
PHONE_NUM: 
STREET_ADDRESS: 
URL_PERSONAL: 
USERNAME: 

### Task: You are a PII (Personal Identity Information) Detection. Given a essays written by students, you have to identify ONLY the following:
NAME_STUDENT - The full or partial name of a student that is not necessarily the author of the essay. This excludes instructors, authors, and other person names.
EMAIL - A student’s email address.
USERNAME - A student's username on any platform.
ID_NUM - A number or sequence of characters that could be used to identify a student, such as a student ID or a social security number.
PHONE_NUM - A phone number associated with a student.
URL_PERSONAL - A URL that might be used to identify a student.
STREET_ADDRESS - A full or partial street address that is associated with the student, such as their home address.
### Input: Reflection – Mind Mapping 

 Challenge 

 Right now , I am a postgraduate student of the program ‘ Governance of Science , Technology and   Innovation ’ in Moscow , Russia . Earlier I worked as business consultant in my home country   Eritrea . Before three years , while working in consulting firm in Asmara , an customer ( Eritrean   returnee from abroad ) came to our office for consultancy . His plan was to open new business that   engages in provision of slaughter services of sheep and goat for households . The role of our team   was to find out whether there was an actual need for such services and willingness of residents to   shift for such service . Traditionally , most of the residents of the city have the habit of eating   meat of sheep or goat on every religious holidays and slaughter by themselves at home . Rarely ,   others buy cattle and share among themselves and very few with less income go for buying one   or two kilograms of meat from grocery . Meat consumption goes much beyond its nutritious   value , and is considered a good tradition where family members who have been apart for   different reasons come together and celebrate their holidays together . The celebration begins   from slaughter of the sheep or goat till lunch accompanied by traditional coffee ceremony .    families used to do the slaughter by themselves or hire people who engage in such activities and   pay them . To carry out the slaughter process at home , one needs much water . 

 Selection 

 The most appropriate tool that we found helpful in finding out the opportunity of new business   was ‘ Mind Mapping ’ . This tool is very important in collecting data while answering the first step   of idea generation ‘ What is ’ . As professor Marian Moore explained in her video “ Mind mapping   is one of the most powerful tools in the design thinker ’s toolbox . It is used to look for patterns   and insights that lead to more creative solutions to your design challenge . It provides a Segway   from ‘ what is ’ to ‘ what if ’ ” . 

 Application 

 Using the ‘ Mind mapping ’ tool is important in collecting data from the ground that are helpful to   answer first question of the idea generation process ‘ what is ’ . To understand the real situation in   depth as well as the mindset of the society , our team ( comprises eight people with different   profession ) decided to arrange group discussion with residents ( 40 representative ) followed by   ethnographic interview . Our selection for that method was to find out quickly and economically   the real situation on ground and the unarticulated problems of residents as it helps the team to   interact with them in their real - life environment . 

 Since our objective had only two themes , that is , to know their readiness to give up their   traditional slaughter at home and shift to the new slaughter services or not , they had no difficulty   in expressing their opinion . In our discussion , first we put ‘ New Business ’ at the center as   beginning point . Next , we figured out the opportunities and constraints available in opening the   business . The main opportunities were found to be the availability of resources ( capital , human , 

 technical , etc ) and absence of other businesses in similar activity . On the other hand , the barriers   that could hinder the business were the traditional attachment of residents and temporal   consumption pattern . To check out our hypothesis , the ethnographic survey was very helpful . We   selected one neighborhood , called ‘ Enda Korya ’ , with relatively high income and adequate   services except an occasional water shortage . The interview was carried out to know the   traditional attachment and the effect of water shortage in embracing the slaughter service ,   thereby to verify our assumption . 

 Insight 

 Mind mapping , as a design thinking tool is helpful to capture patterns and insights from the real   situation . The tool helped us primarily to find out the correctness of our assumption . It proved   that our assumption on traditional attachment of the society was right . Even the water shortage   was a real concern for them . However , to our surprise , after the ethnography survey and group   discussion , it was found that residents valued their time much more than to their traditional   attachment . Therefore , the tool was really helpful leading to an important insight that we never   had considered . Though residents had the problem , they could n’t articulate it clearly until we   held the discussion . The mind mapping shows that the patterns and insights captured are crucial   steps . As long as the primarily objective of design thinking is to solve customers ’ problem not to   show off one ’s brilliance , customer empathy is key to look at a problem from different   perspective . That ’s why , their responses indicated how desperately they were looking for better   alternative and they had a different valuation of time than our hypothesis . The tool helped us not   only to open one slaughter house in one neighborhood , but also to open other branches in the   city . 

 Approach 

 Since our consulting team was composed of multidisciplinary staff , we were able to look onto   the business from all perspectives . Everyone ’s idea was highly valued and using mind mapping it   was clearly stated and gave fruitful results . Since dealing with such issue of opening a new   business requires huge initial investment , a thoroughly design thinking explanation could be   done through mind mapping . Engaging customers at early stage through ethnographic survey is   helpful to discover wrong assumptions and access primarily data from consumers ( final users )   themselves . Next time , in doing similar job I would like to employ visualization design tool .    Because this tool develops your imaginative ability and presents your next move vividly   especially to stakeholders who find it difficult to understand technical terms . Other tools such as   learning launch are not appropriate for such cases . This is due to the high initial investment to   prototype or make a small experimental test . Once , capital investment is made , failure of the   business could be excruciating disaster .
### Output: 