Design Thinking Reflection Submission : Mind Mapping 

 Author : Vanessa Sanchez     August 15 , 2019 

 The challenge 

 I ’m currently part of the IT Governance Team within my organisation and one of my projects over the year   has been to gather and report KPI information across the various IT departments . The scope of this piece   of work is limited to internal KPI data only and excluded any third party / vendor information . The current   process ( which has been in place for the last 12 months ) is to collect all the data manually each month ,   approx . 300 KPIs across all IT departments . The whole process from start to finish took approximately 17   working days to complete each month . Over 40 people are involved at varying degrees across the month   with this process . 

 The main problems faced within the current process were getting the data in on time , the quality of the   submissions , confusion around what data needed to be submitted each month and manipulating the   various Management reports error free and on time . 

 My challenge is to automate the whole process where possible and to get the senior management   meaningful reports out within 7 - 9 working days . 

 Selection 

 The tool I have selected is Mind Mapping .   I have gathered individual feedback and large amounts of data   around the problems faced by stakeholder and customers of the process .   My aim is to make sure they   are all involved along this journey and to help drive towards an automated solution where I have their   buy in . 

 Mind Mapping has been identified as an effective tool to help analyse ideas and identify pattern and   themes . 

 According to Vanessa Sanchez , “ Design Thinking for Innovation , Week3 , Mind Mapping ” . Available at     https://www.coursera.org/learn/uva-darden-design-thinking innovation / lecture / lsFRa / mind - mapping- tool , a marketing professor at Darton :   “ Mind mapping is one of the most powerful tools in the design   thinker 's toolbox . It 's used to look for patterns , it 's used to look for insights that lead to more creative   solutions to your design challenge . ” 

 Application 

 The first step I took was to arrange an offsite day away from the office for all the stakeholders . 40   stakeholders were invited across IT from those supplying the data to those receiving the reports . The aim   was to get a holistic view ; I shared the current problems/ issues and feedback received . 

 The challenge was written on the wall in front of them . The stakeholders were split in to small groups and   given sticky notes and asked to sort through the data and feedback received and to come up with recurring   themes .   Because of the visual nature of Mind maps the teams were encouraged to either write or draw   their thoughts on the sticky notes . The themes were then discussed in detail to gain a further level of   granularity and clarity and to identify any further links/ patterns and new thoughts . After much discussion 

 Design Thinking Reflection Submission : Mind Mapping 

 Author : Vanessa Sanchez     August 15 , 2019 

 the themes were agreed upon . The mind map was then published for all the stakeholders for future   reference . 

 Insight 

 From the offsite day I observed the following ; 

 It ’s important to keep the stakeholders/ groups aligned on the topic in hand . It ’s very easy to be distracted   and for the session to be pulled in a different directions . The tool helped to disperse the ‘ noise ’ around   the process issues and it allows them to think out of the box or in a slightly different way . Many of the   stakeholders had not used this tool before , so for them it was a new experience and the feedback was   positive and some said they would use it again in the future . The tool is very easy to use and groups found   the visual elements made it easy to focus on the subject and help stimulate other ideas which may not   have surfaced before . The details from the day will now feed into the next stage of designing the solution .   The main benefit for all those involved was how the map helps hold all the elements together . 

 Approach 

 I was introduced to mind maps many years ago by my daughter ’s school ; she has Dyslexia and one of her   teachers recommended this tool to help her organize her homework . From that point on I have   subconsciously used the tool to help organize my day etc . but have never used it in a group situation until   now . The outcome was interesting and I would definitely use the tool again . In future the approach would   be slightly different ; I would make more use of pictures , colours and visuals rather that statistics and   words as they seems to lead to deeper discussions and understanding with the groups .   I also think I would   set the scene out differently making it more interactive and help drive the direction of the challenge . 


EMAIL: 
ID_NUM: 
NAME_STUDENT: Vanessa Sanchez, Vanessa Sanchez
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: Design Thinking Reflection Submission : Mind Mapping 

 Author : Vanessa Sanchez     August 15 , 2019 

 The challenge 

 I ’m currently part of the IT Governance Team within my organisation and one of my projects over the year   has been to gather and report KPI information across the various IT departments . The scope of this piece   of work is limited to internal KPI data only and excluded any third party / vendor information . The current   process ( which has been in place for the last 12 months ) is to collect all the data manually each month ,   approx . 300 KPIs across all IT departments . The whole process from start to finish took approximately 17   working days to complete each month . Over 40 people are involved at varying degrees across the month   with this process . 

 The main problems faced within the current process were getting the data in on time , the quality of the   submissions , confusion around what data needed to be submitted each month and manipulating the   various Management reports error free and on time . 

 My challenge is to automate the whole process where possible and to get the senior management   meaningful reports out within 7 - 9 working days . 

 Selection 

 The tool I have selected is Mind Mapping .   I have gathered individual feedback and large amounts of data   around the problems faced by stakeholder and customers of the process .   My aim is to make sure they   are all involved along this journey and to help drive towards an automated solution where I have their   buy in . 

 Mind Mapping has been identified as an effective tool to help analyse ideas and identify pattern and   themes . 

 According to Vanessa Sanchez , “ Design Thinking for Innovation , Week3 , Mind Mapping ” . Available at     https://www.coursera.org/learn/uva-darden-design-thinking innovation / lecture / lsFRa / mind - mapping- tool , a marketing professor at Darton :   “ Mind mapping is one of the most powerful tools in the design   thinker 's toolbox . It 's used to look for patterns , it 's used to look for insights that lead to more creative   solutions to your design challenge . ” 

 Application 

 The first step I took was to arrange an offsite day away from the office for all the stakeholders . 40   stakeholders were invited across IT from those supplying the data to those receiving the reports . The aim   was to get a holistic view ; I shared the current problems/ issues and feedback received . 

 The challenge was written on the wall in front of them . The stakeholders were split in to small groups and   given sticky notes and asked to sort through the data and feedback received and to come up with recurring   themes .   Because of the visual nature of Mind maps the teams were encouraged to either write or draw   their thoughts on the sticky notes . The themes were then discussed in detail to gain a further level of   granularity and clarity and to identify any further links/ patterns and new thoughts . After much discussion 

 Design Thinking Reflection Submission : Mind Mapping 

 Author : Vanessa Sanchez     August 15 , 2019 

 the themes were agreed upon . The mind map was then published for all the stakeholders for future   reference . 

 Insight 

 From the offsite day I observed the following ; 

 It ’s important to keep the stakeholders/ groups aligned on the topic in hand . It ’s very easy to be distracted   and for the session to be pulled in a different directions . The tool helped to disperse the ‘ noise ’ around   the process issues and it allows them to think out of the box or in a slightly different way . Many of the   stakeholders had not used this tool before , so for them it was a new experience and the feedback was   positive and some said they would use it again in the future . The tool is very easy to use and groups found   the visual elements made it easy to focus on the subject and help stimulate other ideas which may not   have surfaced before . The details from the day will now feed into the next stage of designing the solution .   The main benefit for all those involved was how the map helps hold all the elements together . 

 Approach 

 I was introduced to mind maps many years ago by my daughter ’s school ; she has Dyslexia and one of her   teachers recommended this tool to help her organize her homework . From that point on I have   subconsciously used the tool to help organize my day etc . but have never used it in a group situation until   now . The outcome was interesting and I would definitely use the tool again . In future the approach would   be slightly different ; I would make more use of pictures , colours and visuals rather that statistics and   words as they seems to lead to deeper discussions and understanding with the groups .   I also think I would   set the scene out differently making it more interactive and help drive the direction of the challenge .
### Output: 