What next?
Blog 10/10
Blog 10, the last of our design thinking journey and what a journey it’s been. To think we started out not knowing what the problem was or how we were going to solve it. Our goal was to create a simple, people-centric, data-driven solution. Have we done that? Yes — after a few failed ideas, lots and LOTS of reiterating and testing, we finally have a solid plan to take forward.
Out of our four original ideas, we’ve decided to take two forwards for definite. The other two need exploring further. On reflection, it’s fascinating to see how much the ideas have evolved since they first came to light. Having our customers on the journey with us has meant we could quickly squash all the incorrect assumptions we’d made along the way, and design something they want and need.
What will the next few months look like? Let’s just say the journey doesn’t stop here. One of our ideas involves a tech platform, designed to help employees find opportunities more easily. But before we go full steam ahead for a company-wide roll out, we’ll be putting the platform through its paces with some UX testing. Employees who’ve never seen or heard of it before, will be interacting with it to test that the functionality is simple, user friendly, and that it solves the problem we set out to fix from the start.
Once we’re happy with the results, we’ll move into a pilot phase with a larger group of employees. I’m under no illusion that we’ve seen the end of testing and reiterating, because we definitely haven’t. We’ll continue to test and reiterate at every step of the way with both our customers and our stakeholders — it’s the most crucial step of the design thinking process.
And for anyone contemplating using design thinking to solve an employee problem — here are my three biggest bits of advice:
- Get used to the feeling of ambiguity and being out your comfort zone — I’ve felt more out my comfort zone the past few weeks than I have in it. And that’s a good thing! We as a project team don’t need to know or have the answers, but that’s why it’s so important to bring other people with different experience and perspectives on the journey with you. And that leads on to my next point…
- Stay close to your customers — When you test an idea with a customer that YOU think is brilliant, only to realise you’ve made a very incorrect assumption, it’s frustrating. But that’s part of the process and it means in the long run you’ll end up with a solution that clearly answers the problem you set out to solve. And finally…
- Bring your stakeholders on the journey with you — We’ve had a group of stakeholders involved in this project since day one. It’s had its challenges (everyone has an opinion), but that’s why you stay close to your customers — at the end of the day you’re designing the solution for them, so their voice matters most.
