Introduction & Challenge
In my role as a Lead Product Designer, I often encounter the challenge of aligning multiple teams with diverse perspectives and data sources towards a common goal. Each team operates with its own set of data, ideas, and assumptions, leading to varied angles on which problems to prioritize and solve. To bridge these gaps and foster a unified approach to problem-solving, we introduced a creative and collaborative process known as Lab sessions.
Our organization generates a substantial amount of data and ideas aimed at improving various internal processes. However, the problem each team focuses on solving can differ greatly due to their unique perspectives and data inputs. Despite having a shared end goal, the lack of alignment and understanding between teams often hampers our progress and efficiency.
Our Solution
Lab Sessions
To address the challenge mentioned before, I designed and facilitated (hybride) Lab sessions — a structured yet flexible 1.5-hour creative process. The primary objective of a Lab session is to bring together diverse stakeholders, align on one single, specific topic, and collaboratively dive into the problem from all angles. This process aims to brainstorm and develop a quick measureable solution that meets the needs of all involved parties.
The process
0 - PreparationIdentify and pick a specific topic to tackle and gather all relevant stakeholders and insights to the issue. Because of the small amount of time this step is being done before hand.
1 - Discover
Discuss all gathered insights about the specific topic and make sure all stakeholders are heard and seen because first we need to understand before we can be understood.
2 - Define
Clearly define the topic and objective of the session. Ensure all participants understand the problem and the desired outcome. To really capture the problem we're trying to solve I use the 5 Why's Method.
3 - Brainstorm - Divergent Thinking
Encourage brainstorming from all angles. Allow each participant to share their data, perspectives, and ideas without judgment. I used methods like Reversed brainstorming, Step-ladder brainstorming and Round-Robin brainstorming.
4 - Prioritize - Convergent Thinking
Synthesize the ideas generated during brainstorming. Identify common themes and potential solutions that address the problem comprehensively.
5 - Actionable Solution
Develop a small, implementable solution that has the support of all stakeholders. Assign responsibilities and create a roadmap for execution.
Case Study
First Time Right Annual Figures
Entrepreneurs often apply for loans using provisional annual figures instead of final annual figures, which can not be used to get an offer. This leads to challenges for multiple departments.
Operations; a high time-spent per prospect due to the need to manually follow up for the correct documents, resulting in increased operational costs.
Customer Service; a high time-spent on calls and emails of frustrated (potential) customers due to the need of uploading the right documents.
Customer Experience: a low Customer Effort Score score in the uploading document to getting an offer stage.
Marketing: a big drop-off in the conversion funnel after requesting a loan and signing an offer.
Stakeholders:
Customer Experience
Operations
Marketing / Acquisition
The Lab Session Objective
Understand why users don't upload their final annual figures and develop a small solution that encourages the submission of accurate documents from the start, reducing manual follow-ups and associated costs.
Session Outcomes
Identifying barriers: through the session, we identified several barriers, including lack of awareness, misunderstanding of requirements, and system usability issues.
Brainstorm: we used the Reversed Brainstorm technique to think of solutions for the barriers. At first, using reversed brainstorming was challenging. It felt counterintuitive to think about how to exacerbate the problem rather than solve it. Our team struggled to shift their mindset from constructive thinking to deliberately creating obstacles. However, once we adapted to this unconventional method, it proved highly effective. By identifying actions that would ensure users never upload the correct documents—such as creating confusing instructions or hiding the submission button—we gained insights into what not to do. Reversing these negative strategies led to clear, straightforward instructions, a user-friendly interface, and automated reminders.
Solution: based on the 5 why's method to define the problem and the solution brainstorm, we decided to focus on user awareness for the need to upload final annual figures directly, with adding an 'I'm aware of' checkbox on the upload page. This small experiment which can be A/B tested immediatly after implementing. Of course we filled in a experiment template wich also encounter the possible negative effect on the data.
