When starting a new project or service design, do you have a defined process that you or your organization uses to ensure it is delivered on time and on budget, while also delivering intended impact to users?
How do you know that your product or service is truly meeting your clients needs?
Sometimes, we follow normalized practices because things have always been done the same way throughout the life cycle of an organization. Other times, we are stuck with no clear way of moving forward or even a starting point.
Spring2 Innovation’s Deeper Clarity method can help get the ball rolling when the way forward is unclear by using proven tools and methods to gain a deeper understanding of users to ensure you build the right solution that truly address your clients’ needs.
The process begins with overall alignment at the outset of the project. This involves aligning your team and communicating the mission statement regarding goals and priorities. It also involves defining measurable success criteria to guide the process. These criteria provide the vision of what the mission’s success will look like in the real world. Alignment is sometimes easier said than done, which is why we follow a method that draws on both leadership and employee participation to determine measures of success and how to implement them.
Here’s a quick look at the structured approach:
Discussion with the leader
First, we have an initial briefing with the project leader to gain an understanding of the foundations of the project. Depending of the type of project, the following points may be discussed to gather more information:
- Project objectives
- Stakeholder identification
- Scope definition
- Project constraints
- Risk(s)
- Resource allocation
- Milestones for the organization or performance metrics
- Technology/tools
- Documentation/reporting format
Some of these points may be more pertinent for specific projects. For example, an IT initiative designing a digital tool may place more emphasis on KPIs or require an agreed-upon frequency/content of updates and reports, while an HR process redesign might focus heavily on stakeholders.
Obtaining team buy-in
Next, the team needs to get on board with the initiative as their commitment to the project’s goals significantly influences its success and effectiveness. You will want to foster a culture of open communication and collaboration where team members are more likely to share ideas, raise concerns, and work together effectively when they feel a sense of ownership and involvement in the project.
We ask teams to individually complete our 4-part self-assessment to reveal what challenges could be present at the beginning of a project. The questions help to reflect on current state of alignment, innovation, and how end-user focussed current processes are. The assessment can be done as part of a workshop with a guided facilitator where the focus is to complete the scorecard and discuss results as a team.
Facilitators guide discussions by posing relevant questions, encouraging brainstorming, and steering conversations toward the workshop’s goals. They ensure that discussions remain focused and productive. Participants may find that their scores are higher or lower than expected in some areas. These insights are captured as key insights, ideas, and feedback and generated on flip charts, whiteboards, or digital collaboration platforms to document and share the information.
The workshop is concluded by summarizing key outcomes following the scorecard exercise completion, addressing any outstanding questions, and clarifying next steps. The facilitator closes this part of the session so that participants have a clear understanding of what has been discussed and what comes next.
Ask team to identify potential challenges and measures of success
The next part of the guided workshop will be to gain an understanding of the problem you are looking to solve or to understand the challenges of your user or end-user. Participants will be asked to list what challenges the user is facing as they use the current product or service – or what challenge they hope to solve by developing a new product or service.
Next, ask what participants believe measures of success are. It’s important to bear in mind, especially across different business areas, who have differing stakeholders, unique business workflows and primary objectives, differing project lifecycles or industry-specific demands, may have significantly contrasting measures of success. For example, the marketing department may focus on brand awareness and customer acquisition, while the operations department may prioritize efficiency and cost reduction. The varying objectives naturally lead to different key performance indicators.
Key tip: Engage a Facilitator to Moderate Your Workshop
There are multiple advantages of guided workshops with a facilitator. First is that the facilitator is an unbiased third-party that can encourage open dialogue from all participants more easily than the direct leadership of the company. They ensure that all voices are heard and that the discussions remain focused while visually capturing the key findings that emerge from the session. Second, the outputs that are produced from each session can be shared and referred back to when needed. Third, by participating in brainstorming sessions, participants can refine their own skills and develop their own collaboration toolkit when working within their own teams.
Spring2 Innovation has developed a 4-part self-assessment scorecard to help organizations determine where the Deeper Clarity method can target problems within your systems or processes. Contact us today to obtain a copy of the scorecard to see where your organization excels and where it could benefit from the Deeper Clarity method.
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RELATED BLOGS
- Deeper Clarity Method: Aligning A Common Understanding For Projects
- Dynamic Mindset: The What, the Why, and the How
- How to Coordinate your Business and Development Teams
If you are interested in how Spring2 Innovation can help your teams thrive, contact us for more information.