Trying out

After my earlier (2nd) post, it dawned upon me that we go through so many experiences (the process or fact of personally observing, encountering, or undergoing something) as customers every single day. But I often wonder how much thought organisations have put in to think about (1) what they want their customers to experience their product/service and (2) how they intentionally design their product/service offerings, processes and environment to make that happen. If you are like me, you are likely to be shaking your head now too.

So when I heard that some of my friends are embarking on a project in their organisation to create a beautiful learning experience (see my first post), I thought it would be quite neat to invite them to share their thoughts now and then as my guest bloggers as they go through the progress. Out of respect for them, I will maintain the anonymity of their organisation since they are doing it as a pilot project now and are just trying a new methodology. Rest assured though, that they do exist!


These folks are from the training and development industry. Recently they have decided to take a second look at their customers' learning experience. They want to find out what their customers go through, how they feel and how well do they learn when they attend their courses and events, and how some of those aspects can be improved to really serve the needs of their customer and making the experience beautiful. In doing so, they are trying out an approach called design thinking (DT).

I've looked up this design thinking approach and my simple understanding is that it is about applying design principles to look at a problem, i.e. diving in to understand the customer's deeper needs (applying empathy) and trying out quickly and early (prototyping), so that you can learn from your mistakes and make sure you fix them before going live. To me, it sounds like that's just going back to the basics of focusing on the customer (aint it supposed to be so in the first place?). Maybe that is really needed because we've gotten lost in the busyness of "doing" and increasing our efficiency. So this shift back to the customer shouldn't be too hard to do, right? Or is there more beneath the surface? Hmm... I'll find out more and share about it some other time. In the meantime, go on to the next post for some of my guest bloggers' thoughts about what they have done so far!

~ Susie