Reflection – Visualization tool 

 Finding a common ground thanks to visualization 

 Challenge 

 The company I work for provides strategic consultancy to companies that wish to improve and innovate   their processes and , in some cases , their business models . One of our clients was facing a series of   problems in handling customer care requests : since they had also activated an ecommerce activity   alongside their traditional physical shop , they were unable to handle service requests in a sustainable   timeframe and in a unified manner . They wanted to understand the bottlenecks in the process and how to   overcome them . 

 Selection 

 After having some preliminary conversations with the main stakeholders of the business process ( After   Sales & Customer Care team , Shop Manager , Business Process & Operations , IT team ) , my colleagues and I   realised that the scope of the problem was not very clear to them in terms of precise identification of both   touchpoints with customers and responsible internal actors . Under those circumstances , we opted for   some sessions of visualizations with all of them to set the problem together . 

 In fact , visualization could allow to find a common ground for all people involved : before identifying and   then taking any steps to solve the problem , we needed to make sure that all stakeholders were on the   same page . This meant that everyone needed to have the same level of understanding of the context and   of the issues linked to the situation . A necessary step to successfully come to a shared and effective   solution . 

 Moreover , as a side effect of visualization , we could provide them with a creative way of capturing how   their business had been changing over a very short time : visualizing what changed in practice would have   helped them to more easily identify if and where further improvements were needed . 

 Application 

 We scheduled three sessions to apply the visualization tool . Goal of the three sessions was to reply   together to the first question of design thinking , What is ? , with specific reference to the context of our   client ’s business : what is the real situation of our customer relations since we decided to expand our   business and partially transform it digitally ? To achieve this final goal , for any session , we proposed to take   a different perspective : 

 1 . Customer - perspective : what has changed for our customers , starting from the complaints we have 

 been were receiving lately ? 

 2 . Operation - perspective : what has changed for my team and me in our day - to - day ?   3 . Put it all together in the bigger business perspective : how our business has changed ? 

 Each session was conceived as an active workshop in which participants had 15 minutes to exercise their   creative power and express the given perspective . We provided them with sheets of paper , markers ,   crayons , magazines to cut out , scattered images , post - it notes . At the end of 15 minutes , each of them   hung their work on the wall and had a few minutes to look at the others ' . Afterwards , they identified   together the elements in common and the elements of diversity that resulted from the works . Then , on a   large blackboard , in the final part of the session , everything was put together into a single representation ,   taking in what had been identified as relevant and listening to the proposals that were made in lively   discussion . Each session lasted approximately one hour and 15 minutes . 

 The results of the first session , focused on the customer perspective , fuelled the starting part of the second   workshop on the operation perspective : the objective was to include in the representation of the changes   occurred in the daily operations also significant moments of the customer experience . Both results were   then put together in the final workshop where a big visual representation captured what the company was   going through with regard to customer care management . 

 Insight & Approach 

 The three sessions were helpful to set the problem in a way that not only mirrored the real situation from   the perspectives of the various stakeholders involved , but also shed light on a more general need for   process systematisation , starting from a better definition of new roles and responsibilities . What visually   resulted was : 

 1 . Confusion on the customer experience side . 

 The customer was not experiencing the brand in a unified manner , having somehow to deal with   the physical entity and the new , digital one . Corollary to this was not only having diversified   channels to advance customer care requests , but also receiving very different replies to inquiries . 

 2 . Internal misalignment on business objectives . 

 Internal people were experiencing confusion too , not being aligned on the changing business vision   and mission . This implied unclear objectives and even more unclear responsibilities in their day - to- day . 

 3 . Creative moment . 

 Despite confusion that resulted in a far from perfect customer care experience , the final picture   that was drawn building on the contribution of all internal stakeholders , showed clearly all the   potential of the company . 

 These insights confirmed the correctness of our initial intuition : people were not really on the same page .   This was because the company was going through a very exciting time of profound change , but also a hectic   one , and people lacked time to reflect on it , assimilate it and adapt their daily activities . 

 The approach adopted allowed some internal criticalities , mostly concerning people and processes , to   emerge and to find a common ground where solutions could be identified and implemented in a following   moment . However , the perspective of the customers was reconstructed only from the complaints they had   and from asking people to put themselves in their shoes : customers were not directly involved . This would   have required more time and budget than what we had for this project , the core of which remained in any   case to improve organization processes . Next time , we will propose to extend the visualization activity to   selected customers to get a first - hand view of their experience . 


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 – Visualization tool 

 Finding a common ground thanks to visualization 

 Challenge 

 The company I work for provides strategic consultancy to companies that wish to improve and innovate   their processes and , in some cases , their business models . One of our clients was facing a series of   problems in handling customer care requests : since they had also activated an ecommerce activity   alongside their traditional physical shop , they were unable to handle service requests in a sustainable   timeframe and in a unified manner . They wanted to understand the bottlenecks in the process and how to   overcome them . 

 Selection 

 After having some preliminary conversations with the main stakeholders of the business process ( After   Sales & Customer Care team , Shop Manager , Business Process & Operations , IT team ) , my colleagues and I   realised that the scope of the problem was not very clear to them in terms of precise identification of both   touchpoints with customers and responsible internal actors . Under those circumstances , we opted for   some sessions of visualizations with all of them to set the problem together . 

 In fact , visualization could allow to find a common ground for all people involved : before identifying and   then taking any steps to solve the problem , we needed to make sure that all stakeholders were on the   same page . This meant that everyone needed to have the same level of understanding of the context and   of the issues linked to the situation . A necessary step to successfully come to a shared and effective   solution . 

 Moreover , as a side effect of visualization , we could provide them with a creative way of capturing how   their business had been changing over a very short time : visualizing what changed in practice would have   helped them to more easily identify if and where further improvements were needed . 

 Application 

 We scheduled three sessions to apply the visualization tool . Goal of the three sessions was to reply   together to the first question of design thinking , What is ? , with specific reference to the context of our   client ’s business : what is the real situation of our customer relations since we decided to expand our   business and partially transform it digitally ? To achieve this final goal , for any session , we proposed to take   a different perspective : 

 1 . Customer - perspective : what has changed for our customers , starting from the complaints we have 

 been were receiving lately ? 

 2 . Operation - perspective : what has changed for my team and me in our day - to - day ?   3 . Put it all together in the bigger business perspective : how our business has changed ? 

 Each session was conceived as an active workshop in which participants had 15 minutes to exercise their   creative power and express the given perspective . We provided them with sheets of paper , markers ,   crayons , magazines to cut out , scattered images , post - it notes . At the end of 15 minutes , each of them   hung their work on the wall and had a few minutes to look at the others ' . Afterwards , they identified   together the elements in common and the elements of diversity that resulted from the works . Then , on a   large blackboard , in the final part of the session , everything was put together into a single representation ,   taking in what had been identified as relevant and listening to the proposals that were made in lively   discussion . Each session lasted approximately one hour and 15 minutes . 

 The results of the first session , focused on the customer perspective , fuelled the starting part of the second   workshop on the operation perspective : the objective was to include in the representation of the changes   occurred in the daily operations also significant moments of the customer experience . Both results were   then put together in the final workshop where a big visual representation captured what the company was   going through with regard to customer care management . 

 Insight & Approach 

 The three sessions were helpful to set the problem in a way that not only mirrored the real situation from   the perspectives of the various stakeholders involved , but also shed light on a more general need for   process systematisation , starting from a better definition of new roles and responsibilities . What visually   resulted was : 

 1 . Confusion on the customer experience side . 

 The customer was not experiencing the brand in a unified manner , having somehow to deal with   the physical entity and the new , digital one . Corollary to this was not only having diversified   channels to advance customer care requests , but also receiving very different replies to inquiries . 

 2 . Internal misalignment on business objectives . 

 Internal people were experiencing confusion too , not being aligned on the changing business vision   and mission . This implied unclear objectives and even more unclear responsibilities in their day - to- day . 

 3 . Creative moment . 

 Despite confusion that resulted in a far from perfect customer care experience , the final picture   that was drawn building on the contribution of all internal stakeholders , showed clearly all the   potential of the company . 

 These insights confirmed the correctness of our initial intuition : people were not really on the same page .   This was because the company was going through a very exciting time of profound change , but also a hectic   one , and people lacked time to reflect on it , assimilate it and adapt their daily activities . 

 The approach adopted allowed some internal criticalities , mostly concerning people and processes , to   emerge and to find a common ground where solutions could be identified and implemented in a following   moment . However , the perspective of the customers was reconstructed only from the complaints they had   and from asking people to put themselves in their shoes : customers were not directly involved . This would   have required more time and budget than what we had for this project , the core of which remained in any   case to improve organization processes . Next time , we will propose to extend the visualization activity to   selected customers to get a first - hand view of their experience .
### Output: 