1 . Challenge 

 I work for a small management consulting company in Cologne Germany , that specializes in process   optimization . In one of the first projects that I took part in after joining the company several years   ago , we were asked for support by an old university classmate of my boss , Mr. Muller .   Mr. Muller was working at Deutsche Telekom , Germanys largest telecommunications company , a   behemoth with a wide range of services for consumers and businesses ( like landline and cellphone   communication , internet access and IP TV , as well as various business services ) , several ten thousand   employees , dozens of European subsidiaries and hundreds of locations in Germany alone .     Mr. Muller had just been promoted to be head of the “ IT Service Management ” department , which   was responsible for managing the IT operating budget and the associated hardware ordering process ,   that was required to operate , replace and develop the IT hardware ( RAM , CPUs , Harddrives , Servers ,   etc . ) that was used by any of Deutsche Telekom´s IT systems ( not including Desktop PCs ) .     Mr. Muller was struggling with his main objective , that had also cost his predecessor´s job , which was   to achieve significant cost savings of 25 % compared to the as - is numbers from the previous year .   It needs to mentioned that this was not the first round of cost cutting measures at Deutsche   Telekom , but that they were rather doing this exercise every few years and so the easy wins had   already been achieved .     To make matters even more complicated , the IT Service Management department was not the only   department at Deutsche Telekom charged with handling the IT operating budget . Other major   players included the IT Governance department that provided general oversight and guidance , as   well as the “ Solution ” departments which operated the applications , that were running on the   hardware , purchased and maintained by the IT operating budget .     These were the circumstances when Mr. Muller provided a mandate to my employer , which basically   made his challenge to our / my challenge : Achieving cost savings of 25 % in the IT operations budget ,   compared to the preceding years numbers . 

 2 . Selection 

 The management consultants team consisted of three consultants , including me , that had been   tasked with supporting the 60 employees of the IT Service Management department .    Our main skill was not that we had any expert knowledge of budget management in general or the   processes at Deutsche Telekom in particular . Rather we brought an impartial outside view and free   resources that where not busy with day - to - day activities to the table .     Because of this lack of detailed knowledge , we firstly needed to gather as much information as we   possibly could . We therefore decided to follow an approach that was regularly applied by my   employer at the beginning of a project , which was to conduct interviews with key individuals .    I think that this decision to conduct interviews was absolutely a conscious one , but because it was   supported by very positive experiences from the past it was also sort of the “ logical choice ” and did   not require very much contemplation . 

 Right after receiving the mandate , our management consultant team therefore went straight to   work , assembled a short list of questions , coordinated appointments and conducted twenty - seven   one-2 - one interviews with selected individuals from the IT Service Management , IT Governance and   Solution departments .   After completing the interviews , the next phase of the project was to analyze and assess the   collected data . Since these interviews used open ( rather than closed yes / no ) questions , they   produced large amounts of information , which was not simply numerical . Therefore a pure data   analysis tool like Excel would not do the job .     Contrary to the intuitive selection of the interview method , the decision for the Mind Mapping   technique was a deliberate one , whose reasoning is very accurately summarized in the courser.org   week 3 episode on the Mind Mapping Tool , which reads as follows ( quote ): 

 “ Mind mapping is looking for patterns and insights in a large quantity of data you collected during   your exploration of what is the current reality . … Mind mapping is an engaging alternative to that   giant report we might otherwise have written to sum up and communicate in prose and charts and 

 spreadsheets . ” 

 This short paragraph from the course lecture summarizes perfectly what we were trying to achieve   with the application of the Mind Mapping technique . We were not sure whether the technique   would resolve all our questions , but we agreed that it was a promising starting point . 

 3 . Application 

 We decided to implement the Mind Mapping technique by conducting a workshop with key   stakeholders from all departments involved .    To prepare for this workshop , the management consulting team went through the interview results   from the first phase , reviewed these results , grouped them by theme and finally created graphic   images that summarized these results in an easy to understand way . We then printed those graphics   and pinned them to the walls of a large corporate conference room .     The seven key stakeholders that we invited to attend the full day workshop were Mr. Muller as well   as the heads of the IT Governance and five Solution departments . ( All of them had also participated   in the interviews ) . The workshop was guided by our team . 

 We started the workshop by summarizing the preliminary summaries that we had pinned to 

 the walls and highlighted our shared objective of achieving cost savings of 25 % in the IT operations   budget . 

 Next came a two hour period were the participants had time to walk through the conference 

 room , review the printouts and take personal notes . At several points in this two hour period we   needed to remind the participants to review all the graphics , because intense debates had occurred   that stopped the participants from continuing their journey through the conference room . 

 As a third step , we asked every participant to write his key insights on a notecard and after 

 this followed the process as described in the week 3 lecture video , which is one participant sticks one   of his cards on the wall and all the other participants one by one add one of their cards that fits the   theme . Then the next participant does the same , until all notecards are on the wall . This step took   approximately two hours as well . 

 After a lunch break , we started to rearrange the status quo into more appropriate groups or 

 clusters and finally started to identify and draw the connections between those clusters ( to draw the   connections we used cord thas was held in place by needles ) . 

 At the end of the day we came up with a surprising result , that I am describing in the 

 following chapter .     In retrospect I think that this Mind Mapping workshop was very successful . However , having seen the   lecture video I can think of several factors we probably did not execute perfectly and that I would   improvements the next time : 

 -   We only invited the department heads to the workshop . The intention behind this decision   was to limit the number of participants to a manageable number . Alternatively I think we   could have invited a much bigger number of participants ( e.g. all interviewees ) and split them   up into subgroups . This might have enabled additional insights . 

 -   We did not follow the final Mind Mapping step as described in the lecture video , which is to   define “ design criteria ” . The reason for this was that we did not follow the Mind Mapping   technique ( the technique was unknown to us ) , so we did not prepare for the “ What if ? ”   phase . Furthermore , we were absolutely satisfied with the insights we gained without those   “ design criteria ” . However , defining these criteria might also have yielded additional insights . 

 Overall I think we did well and the Mind Mapping workshop was a success , but it could have been   even better . 

 4 . Insight & Approach 

 One result of the Mind Mapping workshop were specific cost cutting measures/ suggestions , that   further refined the ones that had already been mentioned during the interview phase .   However much more significantly , we discovered that the past inability of all involved departments   to achieve the budget objective in terms of cost cutting , was NOT at the proverbial center of the   problem !    Instead this inability was merely a symptom/ consequence of the much larger underlying problem ,   that was depicted at the center of the Mind Map , and read “ IT operating budget management   process deficiencies ” .   The major factors from the key branches of the Mind Map read : 

 a ) The IT operating budget management process had not been defined with a sufficient level of 

 detail and therefore left many gray areas , so that either no department felt responsible or all   departments did simultaneously .    The IT Service Management , IT Governance and Solutions departments had not 

 established an effective and working distribution of tasks . 

 b ) The same IT operating budget management process had not been communicated adequately 

 and was therefore unknown to parts of the organization . 

 c ) The IT operating budget management process was slow and non - transparent in view of the 

 status of any particular hardware order . 

 d ) There were actually two separate and distinct IT operating budget management processes : 

 One for the cellphone/ mobile division of Deutsche Telekom and one for the landline   division . 

 These insights were subsequently used to develop specific action plans .   The project ended up not achieving the target of 25 % operating budget reduction , because this   objective was set by the executive board as a blanket target for all departments/ divisions , with little   regard for the realities on the ground . However we managed to significantly improve the day - to - day   operative cooperation of all departments involved , which yielded financial as well as considerable   non - financial benefits . 

 At the time I took part in this project , neither I nor anybody from the team knew about the concept   of Design Thinking . However now that I think about this project retrospectively , I understand that we   used Design Thinking inadvertently and discovered two of the Design Thinking´s key benefits . 

 First : Conducting a “ What is ? ” phase at the beginning of a project allows for sufficient time to 

 understand the current status quo . This enabled us to understand , that what we originally   considered the key problem was merely a consequence of a much larger issue . A “ What is ? ” phase   simultaneously prevents the common dilemma of “ jumping to a conclusion ” . 

 Second : The project team members don´t need to know the answer to the given problem 

 right from the start of the project ( which would mean that they would simply need to find the best   way for implementing their already conceptualized solution ) !    Instead , the project team simply needs to engage with all stakeholders in an iterative process , to   harness their existing knowledge and develop a solution to the problem .     I will therefore always conduct a “ What is ? ” phase at the beginning of my projects , even if not using   the Design Thinking approach , and I will try to always actively engage with stakeholders to harness   their knowledge and valuable insights . 


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: 1 . Challenge 

 I work for a small management consulting company in Cologne Germany , that specializes in process   optimization . In one of the first projects that I took part in after joining the company several years   ago , we were asked for support by an old university classmate of my boss , Mr. Muller .   Mr. Muller was working at Deutsche Telekom , Germanys largest telecommunications company , a   behemoth with a wide range of services for consumers and businesses ( like landline and cellphone   communication , internet access and IP TV , as well as various business services ) , several ten thousand   employees , dozens of European subsidiaries and hundreds of locations in Germany alone .     Mr. Muller had just been promoted to be head of the “ IT Service Management ” department , which   was responsible for managing the IT operating budget and the associated hardware ordering process ,   that was required to operate , replace and develop the IT hardware ( RAM , CPUs , Harddrives , Servers ,   etc . ) that was used by any of Deutsche Telekom´s IT systems ( not including Desktop PCs ) .     Mr. Muller was struggling with his main objective , that had also cost his predecessor´s job , which was   to achieve significant cost savings of 25 % compared to the as - is numbers from the previous year .   It needs to mentioned that this was not the first round of cost cutting measures at Deutsche   Telekom , but that they were rather doing this exercise every few years and so the easy wins had   already been achieved .     To make matters even more complicated , the IT Service Management department was not the only   department at Deutsche Telekom charged with handling the IT operating budget . Other major   players included the IT Governance department that provided general oversight and guidance , as   well as the “ Solution ” departments which operated the applications , that were running on the   hardware , purchased and maintained by the IT operating budget .     These were the circumstances when Mr. Muller provided a mandate to my employer , which basically   made his challenge to our / my challenge : Achieving cost savings of 25 % in the IT operations budget ,   compared to the preceding years numbers . 

 2 . Selection 

 The management consultants team consisted of three consultants , including me , that had been   tasked with supporting the 60 employees of the IT Service Management department .    Our main skill was not that we had any expert knowledge of budget management in general or the   processes at Deutsche Telekom in particular . Rather we brought an impartial outside view and free   resources that where not busy with day - to - day activities to the table .     Because of this lack of detailed knowledge , we firstly needed to gather as much information as we   possibly could . We therefore decided to follow an approach that was regularly applied by my   employer at the beginning of a project , which was to conduct interviews with key individuals .    I think that this decision to conduct interviews was absolutely a conscious one , but because it was   supported by very positive experiences from the past it was also sort of the “ logical choice ” and did   not require very much contemplation . 

 Right after receiving the mandate , our management consultant team therefore went straight to   work , assembled a short list of questions , coordinated appointments and conducted twenty - seven   one-2 - one interviews with selected individuals from the IT Service Management , IT Governance and   Solution departments .   After completing the interviews , the next phase of the project was to analyze and assess the   collected data . Since these interviews used open ( rather than closed yes / no ) questions , they   produced large amounts of information , which was not simply numerical . Therefore a pure data   analysis tool like Excel would not do the job .     Contrary to the intuitive selection of the interview method , the decision for the Mind Mapping   technique was a deliberate one , whose reasoning is very accurately summarized in the courser.org   week 3 episode on the Mind Mapping Tool , which reads as follows ( quote ): 

 “ Mind mapping is looking for patterns and insights in a large quantity of data you collected during   your exploration of what is the current reality . … Mind mapping is an engaging alternative to that   giant report we might otherwise have written to sum up and communicate in prose and charts and 

 spreadsheets . ” 

 This short paragraph from the course lecture summarizes perfectly what we were trying to achieve   with the application of the Mind Mapping technique . We were not sure whether the technique   would resolve all our questions , but we agreed that it was a promising starting point . 

 3 . Application 

 We decided to implement the Mind Mapping technique by conducting a workshop with key   stakeholders from all departments involved .    To prepare for this workshop , the management consulting team went through the interview results   from the first phase , reviewed these results , grouped them by theme and finally created graphic   images that summarized these results in an easy to understand way . We then printed those graphics   and pinned them to the walls of a large corporate conference room .     The seven key stakeholders that we invited to attend the full day workshop were Mr. Muller as well   as the heads of the IT Governance and five Solution departments . ( All of them had also participated   in the interviews ) . The workshop was guided by our team . 

 We started the workshop by summarizing the preliminary summaries that we had pinned to 

 the walls and highlighted our shared objective of achieving cost savings of 25 % in the IT operations   budget . 

 Next came a two hour period were the participants had time to walk through the conference 

 room , review the printouts and take personal notes . At several points in this two hour period we   needed to remind the participants to review all the graphics , because intense debates had occurred   that stopped the participants from continuing their journey through the conference room . 

 As a third step , we asked every participant to write his key insights on a notecard and after 

 this followed the process as described in the week 3 lecture video , which is one participant sticks one   of his cards on the wall and all the other participants one by one add one of their cards that fits the   theme . Then the next participant does the same , until all notecards are on the wall . This step took   approximately two hours as well . 

 After a lunch break , we started to rearrange the status quo into more appropriate groups or 

 clusters and finally started to identify and draw the connections between those clusters ( to draw the   connections we used cord thas was held in place by needles ) . 

 At the end of the day we came up with a surprising result , that I am describing in the 

 following chapter .     In retrospect I think that this Mind Mapping workshop was very successful . However , having seen the   lecture video I can think of several factors we probably did not execute perfectly and that I would   improvements the next time : 

 -   We only invited the department heads to the workshop . The intention behind this decision   was to limit the number of participants to a manageable number . Alternatively I think we   could have invited a much bigger number of participants ( e.g. all interviewees ) and split them   up into subgroups . This might have enabled additional insights . 

 -   We did not follow the final Mind Mapping step as described in the lecture video , which is to   define “ design criteria ” . The reason for this was that we did not follow the Mind Mapping   technique ( the technique was unknown to us ) , so we did not prepare for the “ What if ? ”   phase . Furthermore , we were absolutely satisfied with the insights we gained without those   “ design criteria ” . However , defining these criteria might also have yielded additional insights . 

 Overall I think we did well and the Mind Mapping workshop was a success , but it could have been   even better . 

 4 . Insight & Approach 

 One result of the Mind Mapping workshop were specific cost cutting measures/ suggestions , that   further refined the ones that had already been mentioned during the interview phase .   However much more significantly , we discovered that the past inability of all involved departments   to achieve the budget objective in terms of cost cutting , was NOT at the proverbial center of the   problem !    Instead this inability was merely a symptom/ consequence of the much larger underlying problem ,   that was depicted at the center of the Mind Map , and read “ IT operating budget management   process deficiencies ” .   The major factors from the key branches of the Mind Map read : 

 a ) The IT operating budget management process had not been defined with a sufficient level of 

 detail and therefore left many gray areas , so that either no department felt responsible or all   departments did simultaneously .    The IT Service Management , IT Governance and Solutions departments had not 

 established an effective and working distribution of tasks . 

 b ) The same IT operating budget management process had not been communicated adequately 

 and was therefore unknown to parts of the organization . 

 c ) The IT operating budget management process was slow and non - transparent in view of the 

 status of any particular hardware order . 

 d ) There were actually two separate and distinct IT operating budget management processes : 

 One for the cellphone/ mobile division of Deutsche Telekom and one for the landline   division . 

 These insights were subsequently used to develop specific action plans .   The project ended up not achieving the target of 25 % operating budget reduction , because this   objective was set by the executive board as a blanket target for all departments/ divisions , with little   regard for the realities on the ground . However we managed to significantly improve the day - to - day   operative cooperation of all departments involved , which yielded financial as well as considerable   non - financial benefits . 

 At the time I took part in this project , neither I nor anybody from the team knew about the concept   of Design Thinking . However now that I think about this project retrospectively , I understand that we   used Design Thinking inadvertently and discovered two of the Design Thinking´s key benefits . 

 First : Conducting a “ What is ? ” phase at the beginning of a project allows for sufficient time to 

 understand the current status quo . This enabled us to understand , that what we originally   considered the key problem was merely a consequence of a much larger issue . A “ What is ? ” phase   simultaneously prevents the common dilemma of “ jumping to a conclusion ” . 

 Second : The project team members don´t need to know the answer to the given problem 

 right from the start of the project ( which would mean that they would simply need to find the best   way for implementing their already conceptualized solution ) !    Instead , the project team simply needs to engage with all stakeholders in an iterative process , to   harness their existing knowledge and develop a solution to the problem .     I will therefore always conduct a “ What is ? ” phase at the beginning of my projects , even if not using   the Design Thinking approach , and I will try to always actively engage with stakeholders to harness   their knowledge and valuable insights .
### Output: 