Lenovo
Developing internal Protocol
BACKGROUND
As a researcher and lead facilitator on a team of six, this project was undertaken at Lenovo, the Fortune 500 computer manufacturing company. The brief was to study different collaborative issues the design team faced in their day-to-day functioning. During this briefing, the team developed an activity to visualize how the process of communication occurs within Lenovo’s global design team and the quality with which they transpire. The ultimate outcome of the consulting was a facilitated workshop concept complete with required resources.
Project developed with team of six: Charithra Sathyanarayana | Cosette Saliba | Cristina Morejón | Fernando Loza | Irene Kearney
THE PROBLEM
Departments across Lenovo locations find it challenging to communicate effectively due to timezone and language barriers.
THE VISION
There is an opportunity to streamline inter and intradepartmental communication and collaboration so as to aid in cross-departmental collaborative processes.
FUNCTION
Design research
Design consulting
Workshop design and execution
THE RESEARCH
To acquire a deeper understanding of how the process of communication works across the organization and not just within the design team, our team of six visited the Lenovo global headquarters located in Morrisville, NC, to conduct primary research. The research consisted of open ended, structured questions which were administered by a primary moderator. Our seek was to interview individuals from across various departments and hierarchies within the organization who were involved in the design and development of products as well as services.
SYNTHESIS
To understand interdepartmental relationships with respect to communication and chain of command the team utilized the 'From-To' matrix to comprehend how these complex interactions take place across the globe. The information the matrix yielded was utilized in the process of affinitization to unearth insights into the organization’s workings (and challenges). Eight areas of opportunity were presented to Lenovo's design team to measure and receive feedback on the issues through their perspective. Lenovo's design team rated the areas opportunity from "Nice to have" to "Should have" and "Must have", through an online co-creation session. After receiving feedback on quality of design concepts generated, our team carried out a week long brainstorming session to best tackle the issues the organization faced.
IDEATION
The brainstorming led to the development of a collaborative workshop administered in person, complete with branded print media (distorted for privacy) that consisted of from-to matrices, RACIs and other tools-sets to help product managers enable their teams in visualizing and tackling the challenges present in each others day-to-day workflows. The workshop was “dry-run” to test out it’s effectiveness at a local technology organization that works across time zones within the United States. Once validated to be effective at a small scale the final design solution was handed over to the Lenovo design team.
THE SOLUTION
The collaborative workshop being tested on a small scale before hand-off. Lenovo implemented the same with the help of teleconferencing tools later on in the year.
