Reflection – Mind Mapping 

 Challenge     I work for a management consulting firm serving a universal bank . Over the past decade , our   client has fought aggressively for market share , but has failed to make substantial gains . We   were presented with the challenge of developing a new product to engage the underbanked   population ( not server by any of its direct competitors ) .     In addition to our own team , we set up a dedicated core team , and requested support from a   multidisciplinary group of experts ( technology , marketing , legal , operations , etc . ) .      During initial discussions with the participants we were excited to find that everyone had ideas   on what product could serve the segment , but quickly realized that most of those were either   copy - cats of products existing in other markets , or otherwise too centered on the technology , vs.   the end - user ’s need . We needed to step back and ideate from ‘ what is ’ for our target .     Selection     Mind mapping , as tool involves the development of a visual representation , akin to an art   gallery , were heterogeneous types of data are displayed so that participants can make   connections between them and distill valuable insights .     We selected mind mapping as a tool because it would an effective turn all our background   research and distill i ) a common understanding of customer pain - points , ii ) identify themes and   iii ) facilitate the generation of product concepts we could later test .     Application     Prior to the mind mapping exercise , we conducted traditional research and gathered   demographic data and other statistics . With the core team , we also conducted interviews with   people in the segment and a few surveys ( around the use of money and challenges people   faced during the last 30 days ) .     For the exercise , we printed the charts /statistics in large posters , and set them on a board as a   fact base . On a different board , we selected 4 of our in - depth interviewees and printed their   large photos along with their month - long journey ( money in , money out ) . On a third board we   had interesting quotes from the interview /surveys printed in large font .     The exercise consisted of having everyone circle this 3 pane gallery and focus on identifying   pain points these segment had . They were to write down ideas as they came on post - its and   place them in a fourth panel . If they saw any other similar to theirs , they were asked to place it   next to it . One member of our team , stood by this wall and helped cluster post - its and keep the   process running smooth . By the end of the exercise we had over 140 notes , clustered around   20 “ themes ” .     Insight     The mind mapping exercise was instrumental in uncovering pain - points and themes that would   never come in traditional research ( e.g. people like finding money they had forgot about ) . In   particular , I thought this tool was great in condensing different data types ; people clustered hard 

 data – like how much people spent - , with softer concepts like ‘ I am afraid of running into too   much debt ’ . It also helped people see beyond their preconceptions , all the element created the   mood of our target customer .     Going through this process together as a team , helped make everyone feel ownership of the   diagnosis , thus making the idea /concept generation phase simpler ( e.g. everyone could back   their suggestions making reference to pain - points that the group , not the individual had   identified ) . We continue going back again and again to this board ( which we turned into a digital   file ) for inspiration and for validation of new ideas .     Lastly , an interesting note to add would be that this post - it exercise helped bring out ideas from   the more introverted participants .     Approach     As outlined above , this tool /approach provided a substantial improvement over traditional   research techniques ; e.g. evaluating a laundry list of ideas vs. a set of pre - established criteria   and then validating with the participants .     In terms of improvements , we wished we had had the time to incorporate more of the non- traditional data type ( e.g. video from the interviews ) into the gallery . We also think we ’ll get   better at the clustering part of the exercise over time . 


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     I work for a management consulting firm serving a universal bank . Over the past decade , our   client has fought aggressively for market share , but has failed to make substantial gains . We   were presented with the challenge of developing a new product to engage the underbanked   population ( not server by any of its direct competitors ) .     In addition to our own team , we set up a dedicated core team , and requested support from a   multidisciplinary group of experts ( technology , marketing , legal , operations , etc . ) .      During initial discussions with the participants we were excited to find that everyone had ideas   on what product could serve the segment , but quickly realized that most of those were either   copy - cats of products existing in other markets , or otherwise too centered on the technology , vs.   the end - user ’s need . We needed to step back and ideate from ‘ what is ’ for our target .     Selection     Mind mapping , as tool involves the development of a visual representation , akin to an art   gallery , were heterogeneous types of data are displayed so that participants can make   connections between them and distill valuable insights .     We selected mind mapping as a tool because it would an effective turn all our background   research and distill i ) a common understanding of customer pain - points , ii ) identify themes and   iii ) facilitate the generation of product concepts we could later test .     Application     Prior to the mind mapping exercise , we conducted traditional research and gathered   demographic data and other statistics . With the core team , we also conducted interviews with   people in the segment and a few surveys ( around the use of money and challenges people   faced during the last 30 days ) .     For the exercise , we printed the charts /statistics in large posters , and set them on a board as a   fact base . On a different board , we selected 4 of our in - depth interviewees and printed their   large photos along with their month - long journey ( money in , money out ) . On a third board we   had interesting quotes from the interview /surveys printed in large font .     The exercise consisted of having everyone circle this 3 pane gallery and focus on identifying   pain points these segment had . They were to write down ideas as they came on post - its and   place them in a fourth panel . If they saw any other similar to theirs , they were asked to place it   next to it . One member of our team , stood by this wall and helped cluster post - its and keep the   process running smooth . By the end of the exercise we had over 140 notes , clustered around   20 “ themes ” .     Insight     The mind mapping exercise was instrumental in uncovering pain - points and themes that would   never come in traditional research ( e.g. people like finding money they had forgot about ) . In   particular , I thought this tool was great in condensing different data types ; people clustered hard 

 data – like how much people spent - , with softer concepts like ‘ I am afraid of running into too   much debt ’ . It also helped people see beyond their preconceptions , all the element created the   mood of our target customer .     Going through this process together as a team , helped make everyone feel ownership of the   diagnosis , thus making the idea /concept generation phase simpler ( e.g. everyone could back   their suggestions making reference to pain - points that the group , not the individual had   identified ) . We continue going back again and again to this board ( which we turned into a digital   file ) for inspiration and for validation of new ideas .     Lastly , an interesting note to add would be that this post - it exercise helped bring out ideas from   the more introverted participants .     Approach     As outlined above , this tool /approach provided a substantial improvement over traditional   research techniques ; e.g. evaluating a laundry list of ideas vs. a set of pre - established criteria   and then validating with the participants .     In terms of improvements , we wished we had had the time to incorporate more of the non- traditional data type ( e.g. video from the interviews ) into the gallery . We also think we ’ll get   better at the clustering part of the exercise over time .
### Output: 