“Most failures in industry are not that people can’t solve problems; it’s that they’re not always great at identifying the right problems to solve.” – John Kembel, Stanford d.School
When John Kembel, founding member of the prestigious Stanford d. School, spoke those words at the recent Boulder Innovation Executive Forum, you could almost hear the hiccup in the audience’s train of thought! It certainly stopped me in my tracks! How about you?
How great is your organization at identifying the right problems to solve? Furthermore, what do you think is the best method for identifying and ultimately tackling those problems? We invite you to leave a comment and share your thoughts on this.
Here is our take… At Touchpoint Dashboard, we think the best answer to that question is Design Thinking.
If you’re not familiar with Design Thinking, you may find it helpful before reading further to take a minute to review our introductory post, “Ignite Innovation with Service Design Thinking.”
Design Thinking methodologies and tools can propel the bright minds in your organization to become problem solving prodigies. It can equip you to detect trouble and strategically focus in on and confidently tackle the most important issues with your products, processes and customer experiences.
Customer journey mapping is one of the most powerful and deceptively simple instruments in the Design Thinking tool box. Journey Mapping is incredibly approachable and stunningly productive in terms of uncovering initiatives worth working on (i.e. “the right problems”).
If done with the right approach, Customer Journey Mapping can help you visualize customer experiences and problems from both a customer and company perspective. It can uncover insights that are sure to ignite innovation in your organization and prompt the development of new and improved experiences and solutions.
Touchpoint Dashboard, a provider of customer experience management software, encourages you to explore how you can use customer journey mapping to identify and tackle the tough problems in your organization and strengthen your customer experiences.
Journey Mapping Resources
Touchpoint Dashboard offers a host of Journey Mapping resources on our website to help you get started and then guide you as you continue using your map to monitor and manage customer experience at your company. It’s critical to keep in mind that journey mapping works best when it’s approached as an ongoing discipline, not a one-and-done project!
We could sing the praises of journey mapping all day and provide countless examples of how it can and is being used to solve problems and design innovative experiences. But don’t just take our word for it!
Check out this video: http://vimeopro.com/user4796113/bolder-innovation-executive-forum-2013/video/65824751
It features Stanford d.School’s John Kembel and provides a crash course in customer journey mapping.
The mapping tutorial is excellent, but the best thing about the video is the real-life stories of how organizations like GE and Embrace are using journey mapping (and here’s the key point…) and how they are running the design thinking process on top of the map to identify and solve some of their toughest problems.
The resulting product and experience innovation is astounding!
