Water Cooler Portal
Design thinking applied to an organizational challenge.
The INITIAL Challenge
How might we rethink
the way strategy is communicated
so that employees are aligned?
The Presenting Problem
Current Situation
- Several acquisitions over a 2-year period of companies in different locations across the United States
Current Approach
- All hands meetings, typically virtual, face-to-face in one office location
- Top-down cascade from leaders to their teams
- No written materials
Current Impact
- Poor understanding of how one’s job contributes to the strategy and overall company success
- Employee actions unchanged, some resistance, managers speculating about the cause
- Decreased talent retention
The Research
The Insight
Communications Must Come From Trusted Sources
The Challenge - Reframed
How might we build trust,
bridging thousands of miles between office locations?
The CONCEPT
Portal to other office locations, at the water cooler
In just one day, designers whittled more than 50 ideas into 3 concepts. They built and tested physical prototypes with stakeholders over the following three days. This was the stakeholder favorite.
The Solution
Continuous Video Conference
Designed to facilitate familiarity between coworkers in break rooms across the organization, with the intent of building trust naturally over time. Stakeholders imagined that they could view, wave to, or even chat with co-workers if desired. Stakeholders looked forward to connecting across levels of management and functional areas, with the potential to build a network of collaborators.
“I will be more likely to trust and interact with someone I’ve said hi to when they visit our office”
Want to see the Process?
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The Challenge
How might we rethink
the way strategy is communicated
so that employees are aligned?
Project Planning
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Stakeholder Mapping
After drafting a design brief and creating a research plan, kicked off research with stakeholder mapping, to understand each stakeholder's interest in the project and to identify interviewees. Map has two axes that describe communication priorities and style as related to functional role. Used Mural digital whiteboard app (now called Miro).
Stakeholder Interviews
Research
Research Method: Ethnographic interviews
Participants: from every level of the organization, and various functions and office locations
- Created discussion guide, crafting open-ended questions to uncover functional and emotional needs around communication, relationships, strategy, and behavior
- Listened carefully and observed, using curiosity, empathy, and intuition to uncover even unspoken needs
Personas
Analysis
First conducted affinity clustering of qualitative data from interviews using XMind mind mapping tool
Created personas to flesh out types of communicators and how they deliver, receive, and act on strategic goals
This grid maps personas to quadrants of the stakeholder map (a fifth persona was also identified: the Hub)
InsigHTS
Distilled four key themes from the interviews
Shared insights and direct quotes with design team
Team chose to work on the insight they felt provided the best opportunity to make a difference
The Challenge - Reframed
How might we build trust,
bridging thousands of miles between office locations?
Right-sizing the challenge: It became clear that the initial project scope was so large it would require several interventions to meet the initial criteria.
Re-framing turned an insight into an opportunity to address a challenge.
Key Design Criteria
The solution must meet these requirements:
In company's best interest
People feel trust and feel trusted
People feel valued
Does not require a user to go looking for it, for example open a browser or app
May be delivered through channels such as: in-person, email, link from email to intranet, training
Ideation
Design team generated 50 ideas and selected their top 3
Warm-up: Brainspin contest
Ideation: Did 3 rounds of 3-minute brainstorms. Started with a quiet individual activity, used trigger questions to dig into the topic, then branched out into alternate worlds. Followed up by clustering post-its, to focus ideas.
Facilitation: initially planned to use a creative matrix, but participants were focused, so chose to use trigger questions.
From a member of the design team: "This is more fun than I've ever had at work!"
Concept Development
After brainstorming 50+ ideas, the design/ideation team selected their favorites to use in concept development.
Each participant sketched a concept in the top section of the page, then passed it to the person on their left, who poked holes in it. The next person was charged with resolving the issue.
Rapid Prototyping
Made prototypes of three concepts, and showed them to stakeholders for feedback. Prototypes consisted of two physical models, a paper prototype, and an interactive digital mockup using Marvel app, all in a few hours' time.
The Solution
MVP Learning Launch
Next step is a live test to observe stakeholders using an inexpensive version of the solution, to test key assumptions, e.g. that people will use the water cooler rather than avoid it when the video conference is on. Further refinements would test whether the video should encompass the entire break room or focus on the water cooler, and explore scheduling and maintenance.
Credits
My Role:
Planned all activities
Conducted 12 interviews and secondary research
Facilitated ideation and concept sessions
Protoytyped, tested, and iterated
Other Team Members:
12 interviewees
5 ideators
Copyright 2016 Colette Brown