01 See methods like Investigative rehearsal and Desktop walkthrough in #TiSDD 7.2, Prototyping methods, or the Bodystorming online method description.
02 This tip comes from Jürgen Tanghe. See more of his advice in #TiSDD Chapter 6, Ideation.
Teams can generate new ideas in a structured way by creating future-state journey maps. Starting with a current-state map, or using your research and experience, you create complete or partial new journey maps. On the way, you generate many individual ideas which may be diversified or prototyped. Use this with groups who are comfortable thinking in journeys and experiences. Working at the journey level lets you think about orchestration and expectations even at this early stage.
Step-by-step guide
- Invite the right people to work beside your core team for the exercise (this might include people who know the background, people with no preconceptions, experts, representatives of the implementation team, people who will deliver the service, users, management, etc.).
- If you have some current-state journey maps, let the group familiarize themselves with them and, if practical and desirable, with the research behind them. If you don’t have current-state journey maps, use storytelling, based on the experience of the people in the room. Of course, this is more assumption-based, but it can be useful.
- Take one map at a time and use the best information you have to identify critical steps in the journey. You might refer to your research, especially verbatim statements from customers or emotional journeys which you have already plotted. You might look at jobs to be done (JTBD) and consider different ways to do the same job. If you do not have these resources yet, then step into the figurative shoes of your personas and talk your way through the maps, looking for frustrations and opportunities. You could even use a desktop walkthrough or act it out. [01]
- Pin down some critical issues which need to be changed.
- Ideate around each of these points to look for alternatives. You could think about JTBD to open up your thinking away from the existing service model. Try other ideation methods, like brainwriting, 10 plus 10 sketching, or bodystorming. Record your insights, ideas, and any new questions.
- Choose some of the most promising ideas, perhaps using a quick voting method.
- Quickly draw some rough maps incorporating your new ideas. How do the changes affect the rest of the journey? How do the technology and process change? What about the experience and expectations? Use desktop walkthroughs or act it out, if that helps. Also, you might try a combination of different journeys.
- Identify the most interesting new journey features and incorporate them into one or more new maps to take forward, perhaps developing them into service blueprints to explore the frontline and backstage processes. Alternatively, go straight into prototyping these new journeys in more detail.
