Mohd Asim 

 1 . Challenge : Describe your challenge , including all relevant information . 

 In my role as Customer Experience manager , I consult and support new product launches in our organisation . My role is to be 

 the advocate for the customer and ensure solutions being delivered result in a positive experience for the customer . Recently I 

 was brought in to assess a seemingly simple project . It involved working with a partner and leveraging their state of the art 

 billing platform to provide a seamless and flexible wireless plan ( I work for a Telecommunications company ) . One of those 

 projects that was labelled a needle mover ! After a few meetings it became clear that there were a million concerns from 

 functions all over the organisation , from Customer Care to Finance to IT . Each person representing their own functional area 

 only knew one piece of the puzzle . Having worked in the organisation for over 10 years in a multitude of functions I felt that 

 there were a lot of employee and customer facing impacts that were being missed as most people on the project did not see 

 the interdependencies of their functions . 

 Everyone was focused on the “ What If ” phase of design , while I worried that the cross functional team needed to understand 

 and align on the current state- “ What Is . ” As mentioned in Week 2 , the story of George and Geoff , my repertoire within the 

 organisation was allowing me to sense the need for developing customer empathy to drive insights , uncover opportunities and 

 identify risks . 

 2 . Selection : 

 I had recently read about the Mind Mapping tool in “ Creative Confidence ” by Tom & David Kelley . I felt this would be a 

 great tool at this stage of the project since my goals was to bring about a common understanding of the customer needs , 

 stakeholder views , identify patterns of opportunity and risk and overall drive insights towards how best to execute this 

 project . ( Week 2 : The Me - You - Health Story . ) 

 3 . Application : Describe how you applied the tool you selected to your challenge ( e.g. , what you did and how the tool was 

 applied effectively or ineffectively ) . 

 Although I understood in principle what Mind Mapping was all about , and unconsciously used it many times in my personal 

 life while doodling and musing on tough problems , I had never used it at work . I decided to book a 3 hour meeting with all 

 the stakeholders . I made sure I booked a room with multiple white boards and brought with me an assortment of different 

 colored white board markers . After explaining to everyone the importance of looking at this project holistically , both from an 

 internal and external lens , I asked everyone to agree upon the goal of the project . This I wrote in the middle of the white 

 board with a rectangle around it . Afterwards I asked each stakeholder to introduce themselves and tell us what role they 

 performed within the context of this project , and what concerns they had . 

 As each person spoke I jotted down these items on the white board , connecting their roles as sub - nodes to the main goal , and 

 their concerns or ideas as sub - sub - nodes underneath their sub - nodes . Imagine a hub and spoke diagram growing outwards . In 

 between invariable other members of the group would think of an issue , opportunity or simply fact while they heard their 

 colleagues speak . I captured these in different colors and drew dotted lines between ideas to signify dependencies , putting 

 smiley faces next to wins and frowns (  ) next to areas which required more work . As the map expanded there were several 

 aha moments , especially as people saw positive and negative feedback loops , concerns , etc . All the stakeholders finished the 

 meeting with a much more grounded understanding of the net new work streams that were required to be scoped and assessed 

 if we were to meet the objectives of the project . 

 Since this was my first time , I was improvising as I went along , however everyone appreciated as the complexity of the 

 situation developed visually for all to see . 

 4 . Insight : Describe the insight you gained from applying the tool you selected to your challenge ( e.g. , how an insight 

 affected your thinking about the challenge and about design thinking more broadly ) . 

 As the map expanded there were several aha moments , especially as people saw positive and negative feedback loops , 

 concerns , etc . All the stakeholders finished the meeting with a much more grounded understanding of the net new work 

 streams that were required to be scoped and assessed if we were to meet the objectives of the project . In a subsequent meeting 

 we reviewed these net new work streams , prioritized them by business impact and started testing / investigating these 

 scenarios . Half way through the exercise we realized that the cost to implement this project was under - estimated and would 

 be close to triple the amount originally presented . Ultimately the project was put on hold so the organisation could focus on 

 other priorities and saved everyone a lot of time , effort and money . 

 5 . Approach : Describe what you might do differently next time -- applying the same tool you selected or a different one - 

 - and the reason(s ) why . 

 Some key learnings for me after my first mind mapping attempt 

    There will always be someone who can not join in person and will be over the phone – ensure the white board can be 

 shared via web cam to ensure everyone can participate 

    As more items were brought up , in hind - sight , there could have been better ways I could have captured this 

 information on the white board . For next time I will give some thought in advance to the types of information that 

 would be captured and plan ahead what that hierarchy would look like 

    In this meeting , I was the one facilitating and writing on the board . In the future I would like to co - create better with 

 the stakeholders by finding creative ways for them to participate more than just giving their opinion e.g. , pausing 

 mid - way and asking teams to go to the white board and put stick notes to provide more feedback , etc . 

    Practice , practice , practice ! 


EMAIL: 
ID_NUM: 
NAME_STUDENT: Mohd Asim
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: Mohd Asim 

 1 . Challenge : Describe your challenge , including all relevant information . 

 In my role as Customer Experience manager , I consult and support new product launches in our organisation . My role is to be 

 the advocate for the customer and ensure solutions being delivered result in a positive experience for the customer . Recently I 

 was brought in to assess a seemingly simple project . It involved working with a partner and leveraging their state of the art 

 billing platform to provide a seamless and flexible wireless plan ( I work for a Telecommunications company ) . One of those 

 projects that was labelled a needle mover ! After a few meetings it became clear that there were a million concerns from 

 functions all over the organisation , from Customer Care to Finance to IT . Each person representing their own functional area 

 only knew one piece of the puzzle . Having worked in the organisation for over 10 years in a multitude of functions I felt that 

 there were a lot of employee and customer facing impacts that were being missed as most people on the project did not see 

 the interdependencies of their functions . 

 Everyone was focused on the “ What If ” phase of design , while I worried that the cross functional team needed to understand 

 and align on the current state- “ What Is . ” As mentioned in Week 2 , the story of George and Geoff , my repertoire within the 

 organisation was allowing me to sense the need for developing customer empathy to drive insights , uncover opportunities and 

 identify risks . 

 2 . Selection : 

 I had recently read about the Mind Mapping tool in “ Creative Confidence ” by Tom & David Kelley . I felt this would be a 

 great tool at this stage of the project since my goals was to bring about a common understanding of the customer needs , 

 stakeholder views , identify patterns of opportunity and risk and overall drive insights towards how best to execute this 

 project . ( Week 2 : The Me - You - Health Story . ) 

 3 . Application : Describe how you applied the tool you selected to your challenge ( e.g. , what you did and how the tool was 

 applied effectively or ineffectively ) . 

 Although I understood in principle what Mind Mapping was all about , and unconsciously used it many times in my personal 

 life while doodling and musing on tough problems , I had never used it at work . I decided to book a 3 hour meeting with all 

 the stakeholders . I made sure I booked a room with multiple white boards and brought with me an assortment of different 

 colored white board markers . After explaining to everyone the importance of looking at this project holistically , both from an 

 internal and external lens , I asked everyone to agree upon the goal of the project . This I wrote in the middle of the white 

 board with a rectangle around it . Afterwards I asked each stakeholder to introduce themselves and tell us what role they 

 performed within the context of this project , and what concerns they had . 

 As each person spoke I jotted down these items on the white board , connecting their roles as sub - nodes to the main goal , and 

 their concerns or ideas as sub - sub - nodes underneath their sub - nodes . Imagine a hub and spoke diagram growing outwards . In 

 between invariable other members of the group would think of an issue , opportunity or simply fact while they heard their 

 colleagues speak . I captured these in different colors and drew dotted lines between ideas to signify dependencies , putting 

 smiley faces next to wins and frowns (  ) next to areas which required more work . As the map expanded there were several 

 aha moments , especially as people saw positive and negative feedback loops , concerns , etc . All the stakeholders finished the 

 meeting with a much more grounded understanding of the net new work streams that were required to be scoped and assessed 

 if we were to meet the objectives of the project . 

 Since this was my first time , I was improvising as I went along , however everyone appreciated as the complexity of the 

 situation developed visually for all to see . 

 4 . Insight : Describe the insight you gained from applying the tool you selected to your challenge ( e.g. , how an insight 

 affected your thinking about the challenge and about design thinking more broadly ) . 

 As the map expanded there were several aha moments , especially as people saw positive and negative feedback loops , 

 concerns , etc . All the stakeholders finished the meeting with a much more grounded understanding of the net new work 

 streams that were required to be scoped and assessed if we were to meet the objectives of the project . In a subsequent meeting 

 we reviewed these net new work streams , prioritized them by business impact and started testing / investigating these 

 scenarios . Half way through the exercise we realized that the cost to implement this project was under - estimated and would 

 be close to triple the amount originally presented . Ultimately the project was put on hold so the organisation could focus on 

 other priorities and saved everyone a lot of time , effort and money . 

 5 . Approach : Describe what you might do differently next time -- applying the same tool you selected or a different one - 

 - and the reason(s ) why . 

 Some key learnings for me after my first mind mapping attempt 

    There will always be someone who can not join in person and will be over the phone – ensure the white board can be 

 shared via web cam to ensure everyone can participate 

    As more items were brought up , in hind - sight , there could have been better ways I could have captured this 

 information on the white board . For next time I will give some thought in advance to the types of information that 

 would be captured and plan ahead what that hierarchy would look like 

    In this meeting , I was the one facilitating and writing on the board . In the future I would like to co - create better with 

 the stakeholders by finding creative ways for them to participate more than just giving their opinion e.g. , pausing 

 mid - way and asking teams to go to the white board and put stick notes to provide more feedback , etc . 

    Practice , practice , practice !
### Output: 