A recent issue of the Harvard Business Review spotlighted “Design Thinking” with 5 articles on that topic. It appears that many executives are noticing that the practices of designers are being applied to business practices as well.
One use of design thinking they mentioned was the use of design thinking to plan for change.
A number of years ago I got to see this working at a large company that was using design thinking to create the change management plan for the roll out of a significant new software system that would impact a large percentage of the company. Not only was there a lot of new software, many business processes would need to change as well.
We started with observations and interviews of people who would be impacted by the changes to the software and the business processes. From that information, we created detailed avatars. Posters of each of the avatars were put around the building for everyone to become familiar with the people who would be affected.
Then for each avatar, we created a plan for how the roll out would work specifically for that person. We answered questions such as:
- How would this person be notified when the change was released?
- How would this person be able to get their questions answered about the impact on them of the change?
- What training would be available for this person?
- Did this person just need an informational meeting? Who was the best person to lead that meeting?
- What if this person would be changing jobs or retiring within a few months of the roll out? How would that change that person’s participation in the roll out?
- What is the best method to communicate with this person?
With answers to those questions, we could create a detailed change plan that addressed all the needs we discovered during the interviews and the creation of the avatars.
Like other good design thinkers, we did not assume we got it right! And so for any particular group of people, we tested the roll out plan on a few people and made adjustments based on what we learned. Our process was to do a little, test a little, get feedback, adjust, and try again.
By involving the users throughout the process, we had a very smooth roll out of the changes to the system and business processes, and it was accomplished with very little stress or anxiety. While the new software and business processes were not perfect, the users were invested in making it work and they helped to find solutions. That is the benefit of applying design thinking to business transformation.