How do you sort out when your friend is in need?
"George needs a mobile phone to establish contact with his friends and family members around the world."If George is your friend or family member, what would you suggest? You may ask the following questions and get clarified on his needs.
1. What is the budget of buying mobile phone and preferred Operating Systems?
2. Does he have any Brand or Model preference?
3. How frequently Internet is being used?
4. What are the most frequently used applications?
5. George's expectation on Photograph and Video Quality?
6. Usage of Gaming, Songs and Social Networking requirements?
7. Expectation on Battery back-up and Storage requirement clarity?
8. What is the time frame for upgrading his next mobile phone?
9. Whether need to buy immediately or wait for a whole for latest release?
10. Phone handling mode of George whether it is soft or hard?
In my view, these answers can provide the clarity on the need of buying a new smart phone. Yeah! It must be a Smart Phone that we can decide based on the answers. It can also be a Smart Phone from XYZ Brand ABC Model which is currently available in Stores. Alright! Solution for George's mobile phone requirement is addressed or advised.
In other way, you would have suggested or insisted George to buy a Latest Smart Phone which is available in Amazon.com. It's also a kind of solution which can sometimes better than previously suggested solution.
George Only Knows!
In the first case, you are absolutely responded as a Designer or Design Thinker. Reason is that you understand the needs, budget and other parameters which are related to 'Interacting to the Solution' (Smart Phone).
Design Thinking: An Imperative Jargon For Innovators
In this article, I tried to brief about why Business Analyst Professionals can incorporate Design Thinking in their Process Improvement, Product Development and Application Services area to improve customer satisfaction through innovation. In Modern Era of Business Analysis, lot of challenges in addressing solutions for one or more requirements because of dynamic changes in customer needs. None of the solution designers can confidently confirm their ideas are the best because of frequent changes in the Context.
If Dynamic Change in Customer Needs and Change in Context are the problems,
Design Thinking is the best solution.
In Creative Problem Solving era, Design Thinking is a process of achieving solutions and it has a human-centred core which encourages organizations to focus on the people they're creating for, which leads to better products, services, and internal processes. Business Analysts will be forced to follow the design thinking principles to innovate the best solution in dynamic customer context in near future.
Empathy — Understanding the needs of those you’re designing for.
Ideation — Generating a lot of ideas. Brainstorming is one technique, but there are many others.
Prototype — Testing ideas with few experiments.
Innovation Born!
Design Thinking: Fundamentals
What is 'Design' and who is the 'Designer'? Designing is just finding a solution to a problem and defining the prototype to function of the solution. Designer is the one who plays vital role of innovating the best possible solution in Product R&D, Service & Experience, Business Process, Leadership Management and Organizational Change. Designers are curious on the people who is directly interacting with the solution and how the solution affects the context. Business Analysts who are playing Subject Matter Expert, Business Architect and Solution Designer roles can use Design Thinking principles for Creative Problem Solving opportunities.I have prototyped my own Creative Problem Solving pattern called '3I Design Thinking Process' which can be used as a framework to achieve an innovative solution for organization change context.
"I will describe this framework in a separate arcticle"
According to World Economic Forum, Fourth Industrial Revolution lists the Top 10 Skills in 2020. In this list, Design Thinking process can fit with top 3 skills like Complex Problem Solving, Creative Thinking and Creativity. Customer focused innovations and Context based solution designing are inevitable skill-set for Business Analysts in this era.
Yeah.. Got It!
Design Thinking - Implementations
Business Analysts are associated in Product Development and Service Industries as Designers to bring innovation on Product and Process Improvements. Most of the Software Product companies especially in Healthcare and Financial Industry, depending on Designers to provide customer centric solutions in this competetive world. They are focusing on Key and Unique problems or opportunities in these industries and create innovative solutions.Designers are responsible for creating the strategy of releasing a minimum viable product (MVP) which can be run independently in production system. An MVP provides a limited set of core features to meet the immediate needs of a target market and MVP development is a strategy to quickly introduce limited-featured products to narrowly defined markets, to manage the risk of creating things customers don’t want or no longer need.
The following picture shows an example of how Designer can create or architect the MVP Requirements and Solutions in customer context.
Wow! It's Amazing!
Building Design Thinking Capabilities
There are many courses available to train you and your organization Design Oriented. But I personally feel, we are all Design Thinkers in nature and I have started this article in this way. We use our Design Thinking skills in our personal life for making important decisions and we must extend the scope of Design Thinking into our professional life to make better organization culture.Journalists are extremely good in asking questions and they start practising with 4Ws. WHO? WHERE? WHEN? and WHY?
Business Analysts as Designers can ask these questions in the inception of Product Development Lifecycle to extract the users and their needs.
WHO - Who is going to use the product? What is their preferences? In which Context, they use the product the most? What do they do without your product?
WHERE - In your customer's ecosystem, where is your product going to sit? Is it a core service to the customer or just supporting service in their environment?
WHEN - "Done is better than Perfect" so Designers must find a way to identify the implementation timeline of your product and solution context. MVP modelling plays crucial role to achieve the timeline.
WHY - Why do you innovate the solution as a product and how it values the customer by creating impact in their Business?
Great! I'm no more an ordinary Business Analyst. I'm a Designer!
Summary
Apple, Honeywell, Capital One and GE are global pioneers of implementing Design Thinking approach in their organization. Apart from providing the highest chance of customer satisfaction, this approach limits the risk of developing a product no one wants, which may be an unintended consequence of a longer, more costly development targeting a broader market with extensive features and greater corporate investment. Design Thinking improves the quality of the product and our perosnal life.
Thank You! Have a good day!
Good
ReplyDeleteGood
ReplyDelete