Challenge 

 The challenge I applied design thinking to was report production within my office workgroup . 

 The procedure for generating a report involves compiling and processing data , analyzing and   interpreting it to derive meaning , then synthesizing the results into an easy to understand report .   Because these reports are the basis of strategic decisions by my organization ’s leadership , clarity and   accuracy are the most important aspects of production . Secondary considerations are timeliness . If   information is provided after a decision needs to be made , that information is effectively worthless . I   used journey mapping to identify areas where the process could be accelerated or condensed , without   affecting quality . 

 Selection     Journey mapping is a visualization tool that helps design thinking practitioners understand 

 “ what is ” the current state . To create a journey map , I asked workers to describe their work processes   and wrote down each individual activity . Arrows between each activity represent the flow of work .   While all steps are sequential , they do not all begin the moment the previous step ends . Capturing delay   between steps is also an important aspect of journey mapping . 

 Application     I prefer to start visualization exercises in a physical form : whiteboards , post - it notes , or large 

 sheets of paper . Whiteboards lower the perceived permanency of ideas , because anything written can   be easily erased or modified . Post - it notes are even better in my experience , because multiple people   can write their ideas simultaneously , and no ideas end up discarded . Large rolls of paper have the   advantage of being easy to set up anywhere , and easy to transport afterwards , but participants are   sometimes hesitant to write half - formed ideas for fear of ruining what ’s already been diagrammed .   Whatever physical representation is chosen to initiate the visualization exercise , converting it to a digital   format is important for archiving and referencing in the future . Powerpoint is my choice for digitizing   journey maps . 

 Insight     I conducted an hour - long meeting with the relevant subject matter experts , and produced a 

 current state map of the production process . We compared this actual state to an ideal production   workflow , and some insights emerged . We were conducting some quality checks too late in the process ,   which required corrections to flow backward through multiple steps . This wasted time and effort could   be eliminated fairly easily by re - ordering our order of operations . Implementing these steps did not   speed up the normal workflow process , but it did significantly improve how quickly defects could be   corrected . 

 Alternative Approach     An alternative approach I could have used was to ask production workers what their ideal 

 journey map would look like , essentially doing a clean - sheet redesign instead of an incremental   improvement . This approach is attractive to me because of the potential for exponential improvement ,   but clean - sheet design is very disruptive to existing business practice . Unless there is a clear need to do   so , or a need is created , disruptive innovation will not be the first choice for many business managers .   That said , journey mapping is a useful tool for all types of innovative efforts . 


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: Challenge 

 The challenge I applied design thinking to was report production within my office workgroup . 

 The procedure for generating a report involves compiling and processing data , analyzing and   interpreting it to derive meaning , then synthesizing the results into an easy to understand report .   Because these reports are the basis of strategic decisions by my organization ’s leadership , clarity and   accuracy are the most important aspects of production . Secondary considerations are timeliness . If   information is provided after a decision needs to be made , that information is effectively worthless . I   used journey mapping to identify areas where the process could be accelerated or condensed , without   affecting quality . 

 Selection     Journey mapping is a visualization tool that helps design thinking practitioners understand 

 “ what is ” the current state . To create a journey map , I asked workers to describe their work processes   and wrote down each individual activity . Arrows between each activity represent the flow of work .   While all steps are sequential , they do not all begin the moment the previous step ends . Capturing delay   between steps is also an important aspect of journey mapping . 

 Application     I prefer to start visualization exercises in a physical form : whiteboards , post - it notes , or large 

 sheets of paper . Whiteboards lower the perceived permanency of ideas , because anything written can   be easily erased or modified . Post - it notes are even better in my experience , because multiple people   can write their ideas simultaneously , and no ideas end up discarded . Large rolls of paper have the   advantage of being easy to set up anywhere , and easy to transport afterwards , but participants are   sometimes hesitant to write half - formed ideas for fear of ruining what ’s already been diagrammed .   Whatever physical representation is chosen to initiate the visualization exercise , converting it to a digital   format is important for archiving and referencing in the future . Powerpoint is my choice for digitizing   journey maps . 

 Insight     I conducted an hour - long meeting with the relevant subject matter experts , and produced a 

 current state map of the production process . We compared this actual state to an ideal production   workflow , and some insights emerged . We were conducting some quality checks too late in the process ,   which required corrections to flow backward through multiple steps . This wasted time and effort could   be eliminated fairly easily by re - ordering our order of operations . Implementing these steps did not   speed up the normal workflow process , but it did significantly improve how quickly defects could be   corrected . 

 Alternative Approach     An alternative approach I could have used was to ask production workers what their ideal 

 journey map would look like , essentially doing a clean - sheet redesign instead of an incremental   improvement . This approach is attractive to me because of the potential for exponential improvement ,   but clean - sheet design is very disruptive to existing business practice . Unless there is a clear need to do   so , or a need is created , disruptive innovation will not be the first choice for many business managers .   That said , journey mapping is a useful tool for all types of innovative efforts .
### Output: 