{"id":9004111224166867,"date":"2022-11-09T18:21:26","date_gmt":"2022-11-09T22:21:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pragmaticinstitute.com\/?post_type=resources&#038;p=9004111224166867"},"modified":"2022-11-23T15:01:43","modified_gmt":"2022-11-23T19:01:43","slug":"6-steps-for-designing-solutions-to-ambiguous-problems","status":"publish","type":"resources","link":"https:\/\/www.pragmaticinstitute.com\/resources\/articles\/design\/6-steps-for-designing-solutions-to-ambiguous-problems\/","title":{"rendered":"6 Steps for Designing Solutions to Ambiguous Problems"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This article draws on<\/span><\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/diana-deibel-8454b64\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Diana Deibel<\/span><\/i><\/a><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2019s recent conversation on <\/span><\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.google.com\/feed\/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkLnBvZGJlYW4uY29tL2Rlc2lnbmNoYXRzL2ZlZWQueG1s\/episode\/ZGVzaWduY2hhdHMucG9kYmVhbi5jb20vYzI3ZDQ1NGMtY2Q1Yy0zMTZlLWE1YmQtYjI1NzFmNGY1N2Rl?sa=X&amp;ved=0CAgQuIEEahgKEwjY55rxyp_7AhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQqgE\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Design Chats<\/span><\/i><\/a><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. She is the Chief Design Officer at<\/span><\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/www.grandstudio.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Grand Studio<\/span><\/i><\/a><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and co-author of <\/span><\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/rosenfeldmedia.com\/books\/conversations-with-things\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Conversations with Things<\/span><\/i><\/a><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Big ambiguous design problems are both exciting and daunting. On one hand, the possibilities are endless. There is no solution in mind\u2014it\u2019s pure exploration. On the other hand, it can be difficult to know where to start.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For example, I worked with a large healthcare institution in the U.S., and they were growing fast through acquisition. Hospitals work a bit like individual entities and do things their way because they need to serve their community, which makes sense. So, if you have more than one hospital under your umbrella, you have more than one way of doing something.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With all of the acquisitions, each of the locations in this hospital system were approaching the same work differently. The system wanted to make changes and streamline operations so that if someone walked into a hospital in Illinois and another hospital in Texas, the experience would be similar.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Here is the process we used to approach this big, ambiguous problem.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Step 1: Narrowing the Scope of a Design Problem\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To start tackling this problem, we had to narrow the scope, and the organization settled on surgical scheduling. They knew they wanted to build the solution\u2014not buy or partner. Those were the only two elements we knew going into this project.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Step 2: Discovery Work\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">After those initial conversations, we had to get on the ground and see what happened at these hospitals and uncover the actual problems that needed solving, not just what the stakeholders said needed to be solved.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While trying to understand the current process at these different locations, we talked to the surgical schedulers, surgeons, nurses and anybody that had a hand in the process, from getting the patient diagnosed to the patient going back home after the surgery.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We were trying to answer questions like &#8220;What are the pain points?&#8221; and &#8220;Who are the pain points for?&#8221;\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To help communicate this web of what was not working, we created a service map to show problems that were happening, technologies that were being used and people who were involved. By understanding where the pain points were, we could focus on solving these key issues and significantly improve the surgical scheduling process.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Step 3: Stakeholder Mapping\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As part of discovery, we often do stakeholder mapping.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You want to do stakeholder mapping for a number of reasons, including understanding what could impact your work, who you\u2019ll need to involve to ensure all points are considered and so that the people affected by the design work don&#8217;t feel like you&#8217;re springing things on them and taking over workstreams they\u2019ve previously been in charge of.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Because a project&#8217;s organizational and political elements can be one of the most challenging aspects to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pragmaticinstitute.com\/resources\/articles\/design\/designing-better-products-faster-through-client-collaboration\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">navigate<\/a>, we can better plan and execute our project by understanding the stakeholders&#8217; interests.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For example, there&#8217;s always someone funding the project, and they have a specific need in mind. But to solve that specific need successfully, you may have to coordinate with other stakeholders to move a project forward. This can be particularly difficult when competing interests exist or the large and complex project involves multiple departments or groups.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There are many different ways to approach stakeholder mapping. We usually start by mining the people that we&#8217;re working with to identify any potential stakeholders. Then, we reach out to those stakeholders to better understand their interests, how our project might impact them and find any other potential groups we may want to connect with.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Step 4: Communicating with Stakeholders<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Getting back to the hospital project, after we\u2019d gathered input on who should be involved and did our research to compile our service map, we brought the stakeholders into a share out to talk through what we\u2019d learned and where we might go from here. To do this, we brought our service map and some concepts and sketches.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The sketch concepts outlined some directions we could go to solve the problems but kept the ideas at an intentionally low fidelity to ensure people felt like they could still change things. We\u2019ve found that, overall, this approach helps with stakeholders who haven\u2019t been involved in the design process before and with whom design artifacts may not resonate.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The clinicians we worked with in this project were, of course, used to running the hospital\u2014that&#8217;s important. So the sketches helped ground the bigger ideas we were discussing. And our clinical stakeholders were able to respond to them in a way that allowed them to prioritize both the problems as well as the potential concepts.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As with most design work, the solution needed to work for the business overall while also solving the problems we saw at the specific locations where we were researching and we\u2019d be piloting. Getting this kind of feedback was crucial to helping us collectively build a design brief that made sense.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is important to bring the stakeholders along with specifics when the problems are so broad and ambiguous. <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is because it\u2019s a big jump from \u201cHere is the problem\u201d to \u201cHere is a specific solution.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Some stakeholders are more open and willing to participate in the process actively. But some are either not interested or don\u2019t have the bandwidth to participate. In this particular example, they were literally saving lives, so, fair enough that they didn\u2019t have time to sit in on concepting sessions with us.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Still, it is essential to ensure that all voices are heard and that everyone understands the implications of the project. This will help to avoid any surprises or disagreements down the road and will help to ensure that everyone is working towards the same goal. Milestone checkpoints are incredibly useful to this end and help make sure the train doesn\u2019t roll down the tracks too far without everyone being on board.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Step 5: Explaining the Problem in the Right Context\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When you do have those <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pragmaticinstitute.com\/resources\/articles\/design\/making-your-case-how-design-drives-innovation-and-growth\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">critical checkpoints<\/a> with stakeholders, it\u2019s important to focus on honing the <\/span><a href=\"\/design\/course\/influence-through-storytelling\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">story<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and relating it to their problems and the things that matter to them.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Share some of the things you heard and how they relate to what you were asked to do. Remember that they may not be familiar with the research and context you have. It is essential to summarize the key findings in a way that is easy to understand while also conveying the importance of the information.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Along the way, you\u2019ll probably need to share some things they may not know about, which will impact what they asked you to do. Sometimes these other things may feel like they are on a tangent, though they still impact the thing you are focused on. It\u2019s important to connect the dots so people can understand why what you\u2019re discussing matters to them<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you can, record the research through photos or video. Sharing documentation directly from research can impact how stakeholders understand the research, even if they aren&#8217;t actively present in the work.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Audio quotes are a great option if you want to avoid identifying a specific person but want the stakeholder to hear the emotion in the person&#8217;s voice. That can help bring people along and help them why you\u2019re focusing on a particular problem, recommendation or concept.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">By putting the findings into a human-centric context, we can help our stakeholders see the impact of our work. And when they provide feedback, it\u2019s important to have empathy for their situations and knowledge, since often they can impact the end user&#8217;s experience too.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It also generally just doesn\u2019t hurt to remember that we are all human and should treat everyone with respect to achieve our common goal of making things better.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Step 6: Designing Solutions Both for Now and Later\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When we think about solutions, we look at every possibility: organizational design, service design, conversation design or digital solutions. Then we start looking at the solutions and identifying which problems they are solving and where there are overlaps.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We have a working group that we check in with once or twice a week, so we never work too far from the client, because we don\u2019t want to surprise them with anything. That regular conversation also helps us understand the kind of solutions the organization can support.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For example, there might be an excellent digital solution, but it will take a year for them to implement it. In a case like that we&#8217;ll try to design a short-term solution for the immediate future while the longer-term solution is in the works.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Having this bend and flex between short-term fixes and long-term vision helps us create a roadmap of improvement that shores up the value of design across not just the group we\u2019re working with but often across the organization. (And you know what that builds you, right? Supporters!)\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the case of the hospital system, we were able to churn out a quick small-scope digital tool for the short term while building out more robust features that were going to take a little longer. Going this route helped the folks on the ground get a solution more quickly, as well as helped the organization set up their design and product practice in a scalable way.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To connect with Diana and the Grand Studio team about this or other work they do, reach out to \u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.grandstudio.com\/contact\/\">give them a shout<\/a>.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Want to increase your strategic impact?<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In Pragmatic Institute\u2019s course <\/span><a href=\"\/design\/course\/business-strategy-and-design\/\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Business Strategy and Design<\/span><\/i><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, you\u2019ll learn how to contribute to strategy conversations, measure and communicate design&#8217;s impact, and how to navigate potential conflicts between the buyer, user and business goals.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\/design\/course\/business-strategy-and-design\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Learn More\u00a0<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Big ambiguous design problems are both exciting and daunting. On one hand, the possibilities are endless. There is no solution in mind\u2014it\u2019s pure exploration. On the other hand, it can be difficult to know where to start.\u00a0Here is the process we used to approach these challenges. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9004111222834625,"featured_media":9004111224166920,"menu_order":0,"template":"","categories":[9004111223026768],"tags":[],"content-series":[],"content-format":[9004111223037711],"framework-box":[],"vertical":[9004111222976701],"ppma_author":[9004111224166936],"class_list":["post-9004111224166867","resources","type-resources","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-design","content-format-article","vertical-design","author-diana-deibel"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>6 Steps for Designing Solutions to Ambiguous Problems | Pragmatic Institute<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Big ambiguous design problems are both exciting and daunting. 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