University of Virginia     Rupesh Kumar Ahmad 

 Design Thinking for Innovation 

 Reflection – Visualization 

 Page 1 of 2 

 Challenge – Being a solution architect , my role involves providing solutions to achieve the operational   excellence by improving the business processes and user experience to our customers using the   innovative technologies .     Many times , the business process spans across the multiple business units or   departments across the organizations . The organization silos provide structure that allows expertise in   different area , but creates a barrier for information flow and lack of coordinated decision - making process .    My recent challenge was to improve the account receivable process for a mobility transportation   organization who operates in 100 + locations providing on demand service . This required breaking the silos   barrier , have a shared understanding of complete end - to - end business process and information flow and   then identify the process improvements opportunities before providing the possible solution . 

 Selection – I use the tool of visualization with our customers for scenario visualization . Visualization plays   a role throughout the design and development process . Visualization can materialize the concepts and   make their characteristics more explicit . It makes them clearer and more understandable . It allows to   communicate the ideas and sequence of thoughts . Many times , it helps to identify the hidden entity which   was overlooked by silos between the units .   I always start the process by specifying objective and creating   the drawing of business process flow from stakeholders ’ input .   This allows to create a document to work   collaboratively and brainstorm to find the many alternative solutions . 

 Application – 

 Step 1 - To start the process , I reviewed the existing business process flow documents and operational   training materials . I identified the various business unit and departments and the key stakeholders   involved in the process and impacted by the process to conduct the discussion session . I explained them   the objective of the exercise is   to improve the accounts receivable process .   We created groups of location   heads responsible for dispatch system and accounts receivable personal and asked to identify the   activities involved in AR process .   We created a drawing on board with identified entities involved in the   AR process and corresponding activity with each entity . During the brainstorming session , the groups   identified 5 different activities required to be optimized . 

 Step 2 – Establishing effective billing and cash application to invoices process was one of the activity   identified by group , we decided to focus on it . Using the visualization tool , we started drawing the   complete process . The process involved origination of service order , order dispatching , invoice   generation , payment collection and applying to invoices .   The organization used the Ride Dispatch System   at each location for providing the on - demand service and generated the customer invoices .   The payments   were also collected at location . The invoice and payment collection details are communicated by location   heads to central AR department and manually entered in ERP system .   The visual representation used   simple graphic to draw the picture of how the information flow from one system to another . 

 Insight -     Using the visualization tool , the stakeholders got the understanding of complete business   process flow which was not very transparent earlier . The graphic also helped to gain the insight of   relationship between different systems across organization and how the information is tightly integrated   with each other . It helped to work collaboratively to identify the improvement areas in business process .   The team got an insight of how the manual process created from two system created inconsistent report .    Using the feedback , the team developed a revised activity plan and decided to automate the invoice and 

 University of Virginia     Rupesh Kumar Ahmad 

 Design Thinking for Innovation 

 Reflection – Visualization 

 Page 2 of 2 

 payment information from dispatch system to ERP system .   The process automation also improved the   user experience . 

 Approach – I discovered that using visualization tool helped to break the silos barriers among the diverse   stakeholders and provided an insight to identify the improvement area . The stakeholders can see how   information flows across the systems and impact the operational activities and user productivity . I will be   using the visualization tool as starting tool for identifying the gaps in business process and improvement   areas . 


EMAIL: 
ID_NUM: 
NAME_STUDENT: Rupesh Kumar Ahmad, Rupesh Kumar Ahmad
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: University of Virginia     Rupesh Kumar Ahmad 

 Design Thinking for Innovation 

 Reflection – Visualization 

 Page 1 of 2 

 Challenge – Being a solution architect , my role involves providing solutions to achieve the operational   excellence by improving the business processes and user experience to our customers using the   innovative technologies .     Many times , the business process spans across the multiple business units or   departments across the organizations . The organization silos provide structure that allows expertise in   different area , but creates a barrier for information flow and lack of coordinated decision - making process .    My recent challenge was to improve the account receivable process for a mobility transportation   organization who operates in 100 + locations providing on demand service . This required breaking the silos   barrier , have a shared understanding of complete end - to - end business process and information flow and   then identify the process improvements opportunities before providing the possible solution . 

 Selection – I use the tool of visualization with our customers for scenario visualization . Visualization plays   a role throughout the design and development process . Visualization can materialize the concepts and   make their characteristics more explicit . It makes them clearer and more understandable . It allows to   communicate the ideas and sequence of thoughts . Many times , it helps to identify the hidden entity which   was overlooked by silos between the units .   I always start the process by specifying objective and creating   the drawing of business process flow from stakeholders ’ input .   This allows to create a document to work   collaboratively and brainstorm to find the many alternative solutions . 

 Application – 

 Step 1 - To start the process , I reviewed the existing business process flow documents and operational   training materials . I identified the various business unit and departments and the key stakeholders   involved in the process and impacted by the process to conduct the discussion session . I explained them   the objective of the exercise is   to improve the accounts receivable process .   We created groups of location   heads responsible for dispatch system and accounts receivable personal and asked to identify the   activities involved in AR process .   We created a drawing on board with identified entities involved in the   AR process and corresponding activity with each entity . During the brainstorming session , the groups   identified 5 different activities required to be optimized . 

 Step 2 – Establishing effective billing and cash application to invoices process was one of the activity   identified by group , we decided to focus on it . Using the visualization tool , we started drawing the   complete process . The process involved origination of service order , order dispatching , invoice   generation , payment collection and applying to invoices .   The organization used the Ride Dispatch System   at each location for providing the on - demand service and generated the customer invoices .   The payments   were also collected at location . The invoice and payment collection details are communicated by location   heads to central AR department and manually entered in ERP system .   The visual representation used   simple graphic to draw the picture of how the information flow from one system to another . 

 Insight -     Using the visualization tool , the stakeholders got the understanding of complete business   process flow which was not very transparent earlier . The graphic also helped to gain the insight of   relationship between different systems across organization and how the information is tightly integrated   with each other . It helped to work collaboratively to identify the improvement areas in business process .   The team got an insight of how the manual process created from two system created inconsistent report .    Using the feedback , the team developed a revised activity plan and decided to automate the invoice and 

 University of Virginia     Rupesh Kumar Ahmad 

 Design Thinking for Innovation 

 Reflection – Visualization 

 Page 2 of 2 

 payment information from dispatch system to ERP system .   The process automation also improved the   user experience . 

 Approach – I discovered that using visualization tool helped to break the silos barriers among the diverse   stakeholders and provided an insight to identify the improvement area . The stakeholders can see how   information flows across the systems and impact the operational activities and user productivity . I will be   using the visualization tool as starting tool for identifying the gaps in business process and improvement   areas .
### Output: 