Why Journey Map Is My Favorite

Why Journey Map Is My Favorite

by | Jan 20, 2020 | Tools 101

Choosing the right tool for your specific situation is an important first step, because trying to use the wrong tool can be frustrating and wastes time. One tool I find useful in a wide range of situations is the Journey Map, so this week’s blog post takes a look at what it is and how to use it.

Journey maps are a quick way to learn about a process from a user’s perspective – the actions they take, the questions they ask, the good and bad elements of the journey, and the opportunities for improvement. It’s a great way to identify bottlenecks, workarounds, and wins to improve a process.

It’s called a “journey map” because it illustrates a “journey” of one persona or user through the ups and downs of their experience. We often develop an “as is” journey map before making recommendations for a “to be” journey map, identifying what needs to change from one to the other.

While the journey map has many of the same qualities our other tools have – scalable, lightweight, high impact, and fun – it has a couple of characteristics that make it my MVP in the Toolkit.

Puts you in the user’s shoes. Like many of the ITK tools, this one puts the user at the center of our process. More than other tools, though, Journey Map allows you to really walk a mile in your user’s shoes. It starts with the Persona tool to understand the user’s background, goals, roles, and responsibilities, then inserts that user into the context of a process. It expands the scope of a persona so we can see what software they use, who is on their team, the struggles they face, and what keeps them up at night.

As humans, we’re natural-born storytellers. We like a beginning, middle, and end. Viewing a journey from the user’s perspective provides that and quickly creates deep understanding.

Helps you ask the right questions. Many of the tools provide a framework for asking the uncomfortable questions or those that we’re assumed to know (“What problem are we trying to solve?”). Often, processes are seen as obvious or are based on unstated (and unexamined!) assumptions. The journey mapping script I’ve drafted (included at the end of this blog) helps you glean expertise and knowledge from users from their perspective. This script can be used with your users to build your own journey map. I encourage you to adjust the script as necessary based on what you need to capture. Following the script makes the process feel more accessible and doable, compared to starting from scratch.

A polished output builds consensus. My favorite part about the tool is the polished, visual output, which can easily be built in PowerPoint or Word, and serves as an artifact to build consensus. When moving from your interview results to the finished journey map, using action verbs and descriptive language will encourage more people to understand the user journey.

You may want to use icons to add some visual interest to more quickly communicate your ideas. The end product is organized, accessible, and looks like it took a long time to create. I find a lot of good icons at The Noun Project

To show what I mean by a polished end product with impact, here is a sample journey map we developed to map the entire MITRE Travel and Expense process (with the details deliberately fuzzed-out). This map was used to determine if a new integrated solution would alleviate some of the identified pains and take advantage of some opportunities. Each colored box indicated different aspects of the journey – steps in the process, pain points, work-arounds, etc. By depicting it visually, we could see which parts worked well and which need to be improved.

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out to our team via our Contact form!

Generic Journey Map Script

Persona Development

  • What is your background in [service area]?
  • What are the responsibilities of a [role] at MITRE? What are your daily goals/challenges?

AS IS Journey

  • What is a typical timeline for your process from start to finish? Would you walk through the process starting with [point A to point B]?
  • What is each step in the process? What does it entail? How important is it?
  • Which steps in the process are most critical?
  • Who is involved (in every step?) Your team? Outside your team?
  • How long does each step take? How long does the overall process take?
  • What tools do you use to support your steps/process? e.g. artifacts, reports, software, communication

Issues/Challenges

  • How would you identify an issue in the process? How often do issues arise?
  • Where are the pain points in the process?
  • How soon into the process would you be aware of problems?
  • Are there hand-offs/bottlenecks in your process?

Reflection

  • What works well and what doesn’t in the process?
  • What opportunities do you see in the process? What has potential to be better?
  • Where do you see the need for improvements and how do you think these improvements will support your goals?

TO BE Journey

  • What would be needed in a new process?
  • How could you make a revised process more efficient?
  • What will change from the “as is” process?
INTERVIEW: Jessica Yu

INTERVIEW: Jessica Yu

by | Jan 13, 2020 | Interviews | 2 comments

This month I sat down with Jessica Yu whose last name I sometimes interchange with Bourne or Wick. As a modern-day renaissance woman, once she learns to fly a helicopter, she’ll be one of my first picks for an apocalypse survival squad. Without her, ITK would have never reached lift. Her leadership, business acumen, technical chops, and emotional intelligence make her a highly sought-after advisor. Where others might use those talents for thing likes world-domination, Jessica commits herself to serving and empowering others which has become one of ITK’s core values. One of her greatest superpowers is being able to see something from a multitude of perspectives; today, I’d like to shine some light on her.

A: What’s one thing that people wouldn’t know about you from LinkedIn?
J: That I like to dance.

A: Any particular dancing?
J: Salsa and West Coast Swing. Also, I want to be a better hip hop dancer. I have also taken a handful of break dancing lessons, but not recently.

A: What’s your background and what brought you to MITRE?
J: My undergrad degree was in business management, but that was my back up major. I originally wanted to be a journalist. All the professional journalists and editors that I worked with at Union News (now The Republican) in Springfield, MA told me I shouldn’t major in Journalism. My dream of becoming an investigative reporter to uncover the truths I feel like the public need to know about, didn’t pan out because my mentors, at the time, weren’t sure what the internet was going to do to print journalism.
I stumbled into Human Resources and Talent Acquisition after college because I was interested in people. I came to MITRE to build and develop our College Recruiting and Internship and Co-op Program.

A: What do you do now?
J: I went back to graduate school and became a Human Centered Engineer. Now, instead of learning about people and matching them with a career that they will love, I study the way that people do things and interact with things or systems, figure out what works and what doesn’t work, and design new things that will make their everyday lives better.

A: How do you feel about the difference you’re able to make at MITRE?
J: Every time we interact with end-users on my projects and programs, my passion and desire to make things better for them increases. I think the struggle that I have is how long it takes to make changes that users will actually see and feel. But I know we are helping along the way even though government acquisition takes a while.
That may be one of the reasons I love facilitating ITK workshops. We help people make progress right away, in real time.

A: You’re one of the most adventurous people I know. What’s your drive there and how do you think that shows up in other places in your life?
J: I think we have a limited amount of time that we spend here – in an existential sense: in work and life. I am intentional about the way that I spend my time and energy. I am super curious about things and people and culture. And I get really excited, not just about wondering about things or doing thought experiments, but I want to go learn and do and try things. I think empathy is necessary and important but actually being in a place and doing the things and seeing things up close and in real life I think is something I find really valuable and satisfying. I think this perspective and greater understanding leads to better people connections.

A: How did you get involved in the Innovation Toolkit?
J: I think through you. The memory is a bit blurry now, but I recall thinking the concept of a toolkit made sense for MITRE and our sponsors. I think it’s something that I saw potential in… not just to add value but something that we could do. I was excited to jump in and help make something conceptual become something real. I love empowering people in a tangible way, so they can make their own impacts. That’s also one of the core principles of Team Toolkit. Individually we can’t take on everything, but together we can make a big difference.

A: What’s been your favorite part of working on ITK?
J: It’s an honor and a privilege to get to know and work alongside an amazing diverse group of individuals who knock it out of the park every day, and are also very kind and caring.

A: I know you’ve got a journalism/writing background. If you were to write a book or article (or exposé) about ITK, what would the topic be?
J: I’m really curious about how we were able to come together as well as we have. I would love to take an outsider look at how our team works. I would be amazing if I could bottle that up and give to other people. It brings me joy to work with this group of impressive individuals. I get excited to come to work and interact the team and when people go away on vacation, I miss them. I imagine that this is very different than on a lot of other teams.

A: Any books or materials you would recommend to folks?
J: I love podcasts. My top five, even though I listen to many more than this, in no particular order are:
RadioLab
TED Radio Hour
This American Life
The Moth
Hidden Brain

A: How would you describe your style of innovation?
J: I’m guided by my curiosity. I ask a lot of questions. I consider the big picture and details at the same time and look for the connections between them. There’s also an attitude of benevolence. I always want the novelty and impact to be positive. I know that can’t always be the case, but I want to consider and weigh the negative and positive implications to try to find the better one.

A: Everyone has a favorite tool. Name yours and why?
J: I think my go-to is premortem. Just because it’s a novel enough approach that it’s helpful in a variety of venues and domains and audiences. It gets teams to be vulnerable more quickly than others, which really helps accelerate progress. Also, a lot of teams wrestle with the problem of prioritization and getting on the same page about what’s important, and this tool is great at tackling that.

A: Any advice for first-time premortems?
J: I think two points of advice,
1) Take it seriously even though it’s a hypothetical failure. Dig in, feel the feelings, identify the risks.
2) Have a plan to scoop the team back out of the disappointment and sadness that comes along with failure, even if it’s just imagined failure. The risk mitigation and updated goals area the bottom of the canvas help, but I think they need to be reinforced by team members and leadership. Someone needs to rally the group and point to how things are going to get better.

A: What are your hobbies outside of ITK and MITRE?
J: Community service and working with non-profits, traveling, cooking, baking, dancing, riding a motorcycle, learning new things (currently languages and how to play the guitar)

A: If someone was interested in using the Innovation Toolkit, how would you suggest they get started?
J: I would say get started right away, either by yourself or with a group. Without putting a lot of pressure on yourself, start using these thinking tools to attack whatever problem comes to mind. Then ask us for help if you get stuck or lost.

A: Where do you see ITK in the future?
J: I hope these approaches become the way that MITRE and others do things. I hope that the tools help to remind problem solvers that people are involved in most problems and need to be considered. I hope that the toolkit and using these types of tools becomes regular practice vs. something that’s unusual. For innovation toolkit’s faraway future, I hope the toolkit and the team continued to evolve and grow. I would love the toolkit to continue to be useful for those that need a different approach, to get unstuck, or to come up with something new.

A: Anything else you’d like to tell readers or think they should know?
J: That no one really asked us to create the Innovation Toolkit. We saw there was a need and problems that needed to be solved and we couldn’t be there to personally help out for all of them. We created this resource to get people started. I would encourage others to look around, in their own context, to see what small and simple things they can begin to do to make change. Taking initiative and inviting others to come along with you, is a great place to start leading and making the changes you want to see.

Customizing Tools

Customizing Tools

by | Jan 6, 2020 | Uncategorized

Our previous blog post looked at the Rose, Bud, Thorn canvas, one of the most popular tools in the kit. This week’s post continues on that theme, but with a bit of a twist.

Photo by Ben Weber on Unsplash

A few months back one of our ITK facilitators received an interesting request from a potential toolkit user. They said they were open to the idea of using the Rose, Bud, Thorn with their team, but only if we could create a militarized, hypermasculine version. They said the floral imagery inherent in this tool made them uncomfortable, and they suggested perhaps something like “Gun, Knife, Bomb” might work better.

Um, that’s a big nope. We’re not doing that.

As a general rule, Team Toolkit aims to meet people where they are. We customize tools all the time, to make sure they fit well with the specific language, preferences, and inclinations of the people we are trying to help. We think it’s good to modify our vocabulary and make sure our language choice is as clear as possible. If a word has different meanings in different domains, we make every effort to ensure we’re using the right one for the environment.

For example, with some folks we might talk about mission and purpose rather than objectives and goals. Similarly, when working with military organizations we tend to not use terms like “profit” or “sales,” because those terms aren’t generally relevant within DoD organizations.

However, changing a tool’s name to accommodate narrow biases and insecurities does not do anyone any favors. And to be quite clear, this team was not asking to rename RBT because they come from a post-agrarian society and can’t relate to botanical metaphors. No, they asked for the change because they explicitly felt flowers aren’t manly enough.

Here’s the thing – if you can’t handle a flower-based metaphor because it seems too girly, you’re going to have a really hard time doing anything innovative. I promise, accommodating this team’s request would have limited their ability to be innovative, not enhanced it.

Team Toolkit’s mission is to “democratize innovation.” We are here to help people understand what innovation is and how to do it. This necessarily involves expanding people’s horizons, introducing new metaphors, building new connections, and taking teams beyond business-as-usual methods and symbols. Allowing teams to stay in their narrow comfort zone is the very definition of non-innovation.

So yes, we love to customize our tools, but not if those changes make the tools less effective. Not if the changes narrow people’s mental aperture rather than expanding their horizons. And definitely not if the change reinforces lame stereotypes.

And for those of you who ARE open to a flower-based innovation tool, can I suggest also checking out the Lotus Blossom?