Visualization

The first tool which I learnt was the tool of Visualization, or Visual
Thinking, to achieve a shared understanding of a problem while trying
to identify and define possible solutions to the problem. I believe that
this approach often with the customers is the best, who are
government agencies, which may be U.S. citizens, businesses, and non-
citizens.

Application:

Visualization techniques can help executives see why the production

problem occurred, enabling them to get to the root cause of the issue
and take action swiftly. Of course, data visualization tools and
techniques can be applied to any number of business issues as they
arise. For instance, a multistate outbreak of E.coil leads public health
and agriculture officials to identify the source of the outburst and a
means of responding to it. After gathering medical records – and the
ages, locations, and recent dietary patterns of patients who have been
treated – visualization tools can help bring to light that the majority of
persons suffering from E. coli illnesses had eaten romaine lettuce that
was sold primarily through the same grocery chain across different
states.
From there, public health and agriculture officials are able to identify
the farm, or farms, where the lettuce was produced to ensure that farm
workers, distributors, and grocery staff are educated on the proper
produce handling and hygiene recommendations.
Let’s consider an altogether different scenario: Executives for a national
clothing retailer discover that profits for a popular line of blouses have
suddenly plummeted in the Midwest. Data discovery and data
visualization techniques enable business leaders to quickly ascertain
that a four-day-only discount on the blouses wasn’t properly reset for
nearly 250 stores in a six-state region. This forced store managers to
accept the marked (discounted) price on the garments.
By quickly identifying the nature of the problem and making the
necessary price corrections in the company’s point-of-sale system and
across its affected inventory, the retailer is able to avert any additional
losses.

Insight and approach:

What I have learned from conducting this exercise with several groups
is that while the graphic – especially the revised graphic that
incorporates their feedback – is important for reinforcing their
understanding of the problem they are working to solve, the more
valuable aspect of the activity is the shared insights and shared learning
that occurs while they are working to define their problem space. The
graphic gives the diverse group of stakeholders a focal point for
discussion that allows them to share their perspectives and develop
insights into potential root causes of their problems. While they could
create the graphic from a blank slate in a collaborative manner, starting
with a straw man jump starts the conversation for them. They can
quickly identify where they are in the graphic – or if they are missing –
and can more quickly gain new insights about relationships between
key entities instead of taking time to identify them. They can also
identify variables in the problem space – that is, it helps them to
identify what they don’t know, in what areas they need to obtain
information or data to provide the values for the variables. Since I
discovered that the most valuable aspect is the shared insights and
learning, next time I would use the visualization activity as a starting
point for a series of design thinking activities. Then the revised graphic
that incorporates their combined feedback can serve as a reference
tool throughout the remainder of their work.