EA Use Case, Applying Design Thinking to Improve Collaboration and Communication
As I have mentioned in my last blog “Enterprise Architects and Design Thinking” that I will be discussing an Enterprise Architecture example of applying Design Thinking.
Here is the use case I am presenting where an Enterprise Architect team applies Design Thinking to solve a large organization challenge of addressing culture and communications that had slowed down this organization.
Scenario
A large enterprise ‘The Famous Technology Organization” is experiencing communication and collaboration challenges between different verticals, departments and teams, especially post-Merger & acquisition activities of that Organization. The lack of effective communication leads to misunderstandings, duplicated efforts, and delays in project deliveries.
The first and foremost thing affected is the Organization’s culture. As Peter Drucker’s famous quote, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast”, if the culture is not addressed appropriately when on time and needed, the Organization’s strategy goes for a toss. It affects every horizontal and ventricle function leading to organizational chaos.
The Enterprise Architect of the Organization, John Doe, a Design Thinking expert, is tasked with finding a solution to enhance collaboration and communication to address this challenge. John applied the Design Thinking Approach to solve this issue in the Organization.
John and his Enterprise Architects Team started the mission to solve the collaboration and communication problem by applying empathy through conducting Contextual interviews and workshops with representatives from various departments, teams, and stakeholders. They observed how their colleagues use the systems and how a day looks at the workplace.
They listen to their perspectives, pain points, and experiences related to communication and collaboration. Through empathy mapping and journey mapping, architects gain a deeper understanding of the challenges faced by different stakeholders.
Based on the insights gathered during the empathy phase, the architects then defined the core problem areas related to communication and collaboration. They identified common pain points, such as unclear communication channels, lack of cross-functional interactions, and outdated tools hindering effective partnerships.
John and his team used the insights generated in the empathy and define stages into the ideation phase. The architects facilitated brainstorming sessions with cross-functional teams, including IT, HR, operations, and business unit representatives.
The team has encouraged all the stakeholders to add as many as ideas possible, in this stage the team needed to collect different ideas, perspectives from the cross functional teams.
Based on the insights gathered during the empathy phase, the architects then defined the core problem areas related to communication and collaboration. They identified common pain points, such as unclear communication channels, lack of cross-functional interactions, and outdated tools hindering effective partnerships.
John and his team used the insights generated in the empathy and define stages into the ideation phase. The architects facilitated brainstorming sessions with cross-functional teams, including IT, HR, operations, and business unit representatives.
They encourage participants to generate creative ideas to improve collaboration and communication. The brainstorming sessions create volumes of ideas, some of which are as follows:
- Implementing a centralized communication platform.
2. Organizing cross-functional workshops.
3. Promoting open knowledge-sharing forums.
The architects selected the most promising ideas and created prototypes or proof-of-concept (PoC) implementations for each prioritized idea.
For instance, they may set up a pilot project with a department chosen to test the effectiveness of the proposed centralized communication platform.
Prototyping allows the architects to gather real-time feedback and make improvements based on user reactions.
Finally, in the testing phase, the architects collected feedback from users and stakeholders in the Design Thinking Pilot. They observed how the prototypes perform in real-world scenarios and identified challenges or limitations. Feedback from users provides valuable insights to refine the proposed solutions further.
The architects finalized the solutions and prepared a comprehensive implementation plan with insights from the testing phase. They worked closely with IT teams to deploy the selected communication platform and establish guidelines for cross-functional workshops and knowledge-sharing initiatives.
Design Thinking promotes an iterative approach, and the architects of the Famous Technology Organization continued to gather feedback and make improvements as the solutions were rolled out across the Organization.
Continuous monitoring allowed them to adapt to changing requirements and ensure the solutions remained relevant and practical.
By applying Design Thinking, Enterprise Architects successfully addressed the communication and collaboration challenges within the Famous Technology Organization.
The user-centric approach ensured that the proposed solutions resonated with the needs of employees and stakeholders. The iterative nature of Design Thinking allowed John and his Architects to refine and fine-tune solutions based on real-world feedback, resulting in a more effective and sustainable improvement in collaboration and communication across the enterprise.
In my next blog, I will discuss how Design Thinking can help to improve healthcare services, enhance the overall patient experience, and create innovative and effective solutions, in the healthcare industry, especially in a hospital setting.
