Example of performing an Enterprise Scan
Severin is a Service Designer. The agency Severin works for has won the bid to help improve and bolster the digital offerings of Intersections Railways. Severin has been chosen by the agency to lead the initiative.
Note: the designer in this example is an external, working for a consulting agency, but there is no reason Severin could not have been an employee of Intersection Railways.
First meeting
Severin starts by holding an introductory meeting with Mary, the internal lead of the project, who is from Marketing and Communication. In the meeting, they discuss their initial thoughts and ideas, as listed below.
Background
With environmental consciousness increasing in the world, we believe there is an opportunity in the market to reintroduce night trains. We believe we can target this product not only towards current train users but also as an alternative for customers of our more indirect competition, such as planes and private cars.
Solution
We believe that the key to reaching our potential customers is through offering the best possible customer experience based primarily on a world-class digital experience. We need a new killer app, something like an “Apple iTrain”.
Initial thoughts
Severin finds reintroducing night trains an appealing proposition. It revolves around premium customer experience and environmental issues, which Severin is very passionate about. What he is worried about is the strong focus on the digital aspects, without an equal focus on the more physical aspects of the suggested product. When he shared his concerns with Mary, she told him the physical side was being handled by a separate team, more focused on the trains themselves. There will, of course, be some coordination between the teams, but they are run separately, because of their different focus, competences and disciplines involved.
In addition, Mary tells Severin that the primary focus is on the digital service and the customers' experience in the company’s digital channels. Digital is currently high on the leadership’s agenda. The company recently adopted a new Digital Strategy that is expected to guide all future developments.
Severin understands the situation but is a little sceptical, as he has encountered similar situations several times before. In his experience, results are better when all aspects of a product are co-designed collaboratively among people who represent all aspects of the enterprise involved in the new product.
To address this issue, Severin proposes to kick off the project work by performing an Enterprise Scan.
Severin tells Mary that the scan’s primary purpose is to ensure a holistic understanding of the product and alignment around what is to be delivered. What he doesn’t say is that he has a secondary purpose in mind, which is to broaden the discussion to get a better understanding of how the more physical aspects of the product can and must be included in the project's scope. He is thinking of customer support, for example, and the night train itself, including the coaches, cabins and on-board services.
The Scan
While the Scan is new to Mary, she is intrigued by the idea and agrees to try it. Based on Severin’s introduction to the Scan, Mary proposes that it be done with those currently engaged in the project.
Select
- Monica: Head of Sales, marketing and communication, sponsor
- David: Digital Strategist, owner of the digital strategy and co-ordinator of all digital initiatives
- Peter: Product Owner for the Intersection Railways app, accountable for the Intersection Railways app functionality and experience
- Petra: Product Owner for the Night Train product, accountable for the new Night Train Product and accompanying services
- Earnestine: Enterprise Architect, accountable for IT infrastructure and integrations
- Mary: Marketing and communications strategist, internal lead for the initiative to develop digital functionalities related to the new Night train product
Severin is a little hesitant about the participants. While they seem to be a powerful group, it is only Petra who represents a function other than communication or Digital. As the Night Train product is primarily a physical product, he raises this concern with Mary, but she assures him that this group can represent all aspects of the project they have been assigned. They are primarily focusing on the digital aspect and if questions come up regarding the more physical aspects, Petra can address those.
As this is the first iteration of the Scan, Severin accepts. After all, if there are any gaps in representation, it is better they come up in the Scan. That is likely to lead to more clarity on what is missing. It also means the participants will have reached that conclusion themselves, rather than hearing it from Severin.
Answer
Severin sends out the Enterprise Scan questionnaire in advance to all participants, who promptly (with a little supportive push from Mary) answer and send it back to Severin a good two days before the planned workshop.
You can find an Excel/Sheets document, including the individual answers here: Enterprise Scan Example Answers
Analyse
The answers to the Scan do not surprise Severin. As he feared from the initial introduction to the project, on the surface, the participants appear to be relatively well aligned. Going through the answers, however, Severin sees things are not that simple. Participants gave considerably different answers to multiple questions, for instance, questions 5 (Tasks), 13 (Capabilities), and 17 (Organisation). Even for questions where the participants gave similar answers, such as questions 2 (People that deliver), 8 (Channels), and 15 (Processes), the complementing answers show that the participants' interpretations of the initiative are not that aligned.
Severin concludes the participants base their understanding of the initiative and its scope on assumptions stemming from their individual perspectives only, without consideration or understanding of the context of the other participants. Another insight he gets from looking at the results is that critical points of view are missing in the group of participants and certain important capabilities are not represented at all. This results in the participants making unfounded assumptions about the way those unrepresented capabilities work.
Another thing that worries Severin is how much Monica, Petra and Earnistine are misaligned. He considers them to be key stakeholders. Monica represents the deciders in the initiative, as well as those accountable for the funding. Petra represents all the business stakeholders, as well as those accountable for the outcome of the overall Night Train. Earnestine represents the total technical environment, and therefore the people and infrastructure that are critical to delivering the digital product. Whereas Monica seems to assume that the initiative is reasonably clear, Petra has identified multiple issues that require further analysis, whilst Earnestine seems to be in the dark about most aspects of the initiative.
While this is not uncommon in the early stages of an ambitious project like this, it begs the question as to what Severin is actually expected to deliver. The original “Request for Offer” that got him hired certainly did not adequately answer this question!
Reflect
Severin is not sure how to set up the reflection workshop. He wants to address the results effectively without causing negativity or taking an excessive amount of the participants' time. The answers give him reasons to fear that some participants might take some reflections personally, or see others' views in a negative light. He doesn’t want the discussion about some of the questions to spin out of control.
Severin discusses this with Mary and together they decide it is best simply to address the questions one at a time. The focus will be on encouraging an open and honest dialogue among all participants, with a little extra focus on Monica, Petra and Earnestine as key stakeholders. Severin makes some changes to the order in which the questions will be discussed. While following the order of the survey for People, Experience and Purpose, he decides to address Product and Brand (questions 18 and 19) before Architecture and Organisation (questions 13 - 17). The initiative is about a new customer offering, so Severin feels it will be difficult to discuss architecture and organisation before there is a reasonable understanding of who is to be served, with which tasks, why, what is to be offered, and what principles must guide the design process.
Mary has booked a conference room at the main office. It has both a large screen and a whiteboard. This allows Severin to display the results and document the discussion for all to see. Mary initially booked two hours, as getting time with their stakeholders is difficult. After looking at the results, however, Severin convinces her to add another hour, to have enough time for all perspectives to be raised for each question. With some effort and persuasion, Mary manages everyone to agree and commit.
The workshop
Severin opens the meeting by going through the setup and setting some expectations.
Severin will first give a brief introduction to the Enterprise Design Facets which form the basis for the questions in the Scan.
They will then collectively go through each of the questions. Severin will present the results, share some initial thoughts, and then lead the discussion, ensuring that each participant's perspective is considered. This is extremely important for the co-creation aspect of the work, as each participant brings a unique perspective and competence to the initiative.
There are 19 questions to go through in the planned three hours. This leaves them about seven and a half minutes per question, after accounting for this introduction to the workshop, a fifteen-minute introduction to EDGY, and a fifteen-minute break. Seven and a half minutes is not much time per question, so Severin will tightly control the discussion to ensure that the discussion is productive and doesn’t venture too far off course.
Severin sets the following as the primary goals of the workshop: to
- collectively gain a more holistic understanding of the initiative;
- evaluate the scope and the validity of the current setup;
- identify areas most in need of further analysis and design work;
- see if any competence gaps within the current project group need to be filled;
- better align everyone’s expectations of what is to be delivered.
Severin specifically emphasises that this workshop is about collective understanding and alignment of the problem, the scope, the requirements, and the expectations. They will not be going into any solutions or design decisions. Severin will stop any discussions going in that direction to ensure focus and effective use of time. Solutions and design decisions will be addressed in future workshops and Severin promises the participants will be involved in those as well.
Having set the expectations, Severin dives into the workshop, addressing one question at a time.
Minutes from the workshop
Severin is very happy with the results of the workshop. All participants were active in the discussion and open to sharing their thoughts and ideas, as well as listening to and considering the perspectives of others. There was some debate when participants did not completely agree with each other. At moments, the discussion even got a little heated. But they worked through those, with a couple of issues put on hold and planned for further discussions in a separate forum.
Question 1: Is there a common understanding of who will benefit from the Outcome?
There was not much debate about this. There was some discussion about the focus and the question whether it was primarily about mobile users who prefer to use apps or if it was broader. Some participants felt they had found no documented definitions, and thus lacked clarity. Petra took it upon herself to better define this and Severin agreed to assist her with documenting it.
Together they decided that the current status for this question is “Partially”.
Question 2: Is there a common understanding of who is required to deliver the Outcome?
This sparked a rather lively debate as it opened up the discussion about the scope. While most discussions so far revolved around the app, the debate around this question showed that what was expected was a complete digital experience. This was highlighted by David and Mary. However, Monica, and especially Petra, highlighted that while the digital experience was important, it is still only one aspect of a much larger and more complicated product, which includes multiple aspects of the enterprise, both digital and physical.
To Severin's relief (since this meant he didn’t have to raise the issue himself) Earnestine strongly questioned why they didn’t have more people involved, if the service was so broad. The selected participants were primarily from marketing and communications or IT and digital. This raised the question whether Petra could effectively represent all other capabilities involved, such as sales, scheduling, catering, couch management, etc. To provide a good digital experience, a very good understanding is required; not just of these individual capabilities, but of their role in the overall Night Train product, and of how they interact with each other. Convinced by Earnestine’s reasoning, it was agreed that both the scope and the selection of participants likely need to be extended.
Petra agreed to give Severin and Earnestine a better insight into the Night Train product in its entirety. This would allow Severin and Earnestine to define which areas and capabilities they needed more information about. Petra would then put them in contact with the right people. If someone needed to be added to the workgroup, Monica would coordinate and align with the relevant executives.
Together they decided that the current status is “No”.
Question 3: Is there a common understanding of who is accountable for the Outcome?
This question was intertwined with the discussion of question 2. The more it was discussed, the clearer it became to Monica that, while she was accountable, she needed additional executive support, at least from IT, but probably also from some of the other business units involved in delivering the Night Train product.
Together they decided that the current status is “No”.
Question 4: Is there a common understanding of who else might affect, or be affected by, the Outcome?
Everybody was expecting this to be rather straightforward. They didn’t expect any other stakeholders to be involved until they heard Petra’s reflections about the possible involvement of unions. While the app itself is unlikely to affect employees and partners in a way that requires involvement from other stakeholders, the digital services overall will require substantial educational efforts. They are also likely to cause changes in employee responsibilities and possibly some organisational changes.
This made Monica wonder if they might need some support from HR, both concerning unions and employee agreements, and regarding learning and personal development.
Together they decided that the current status is “Don’t know”.
Question 5/6: Is there a common understanding of the Tasks we are helping People accomplish? / Is there a common understanding of the relative importance of each Task?
Here, the discussions became interesting. After the previous discussion of question 2, some participants questioned the documented requirements, especially why so much emphasis had been put on an app. Peter noted that if the scope is the whole Night Train product, and the goal is to support as many customer and employee tasks as possible using digital services, a more detailed requirements analysis will be required for them to build a digital experience within the app. Earnestine then noted that to identify the requirements, they needed a more detailed stakeholder analysis, as well as a task analysis for each stakeholder group. That applies to both the customers who are being served, and the employees who are doing the serving, as both are expected to act and operate within the digital environment. Peter agreed to that, noting that only with deeper insight into people, tasks, and intended overall experiences can we spot opportunities for digital products, which then can lead to the requirements.
Petra agreed with this and committed to putting Severin and Peter in contact with the head of the service design team working on the Night Train product.
Together they decided that the current status is “No”.
Question 7: Is there a common understanding of the Journeys we expect People will go through?
Peter and Petra assured Severin and the others that there is suitable material and a good understanding of customer journeys. This understanding is based on existing products and previous experiences of similar efforts. No journey work has been done specifically related to the current Night Train initiative. Peter and Petra agreed to let Severin take a closer look and see if any gaps need to be addressed. They told him he would need to do so in close cooperation with the head of the service design team.
Together they decided that the current status is “Partially”.
Question 8: Is there a common understanding of the Channels we serve People through?
The group agreed the app is a critical channel. The app is not the only channel, however. Customers are expected to get services through multiple channels, so this needs to be expanded further. Channels to be considered include websites, and physical channels, such as the sales locations, customer support, and catering and onboard services. Some channels might even be outside of Intersection Railways' direct control, like third-party booking sites, travel agencies, and travel-related search engines. The digital experience must also apply to employees who support customers, both when going through the physical channels and when needing help in the digital channels.
David agrees to put Severin in contact with the people accountable for the website. Earnestine said that she can talk to the group accountable for service-related APIs used by third-party channels. Mary agreed to find relevant contact people for Sales, Customer support, and Catering and onboard services. Petra says that she will also discuss this topic with the central project group to see if there are any additional channels that they might be missing.
Together they decided that the current status is “Partially”.
Question 9/10: Is there a common understanding of the Purposes being strived for? / Is there a common understanding of the relative importance of each Purpose?
There was some debate about this. The participants agreed that the main reasons for reintroducing the Night Train product were to demonstrate Intersection Railway’s commitment to environmental responsibility and to provide customers with a more environmentally friendly alternative to other forms of travel. Beyond that, however, things were not that clear. Each participant appeared to have a spin on the purpose, based on their context and understanding.
David stated that expanded digital services were required to comply with the digital strategy. Monica highlighted the ability to provide better customer services through digital channels. Petra talked about reaching environmentally conscious customers who currently select other transportation methods, such as planes and cars. Peter stressed that the two initiatives - the Night Train product and the digital services - should have their purpose defined separately.
The issue was not that the participants were not in agreement but that they were unclear about the scope of the purpose under discussion, how that purpose related and contributed to the enterprise’s overall purpose, and what the scope for the co-designers was intended to be.
Petra, Peter, and Mary agreed to take the lead on this topic. Severin offered to support them with the documentation.
Together they decided that the current status is “Partially” to question 9 and “No” to question 10.
Question 11: Is there a common understanding of the Stories that need to be created?
None of the participants had given this much thought. On reflection, they all agreed that multiple stories would be helpful. For example, to define the initiative, to convey its purpose, to describe expectations and requirements, and to position the initiative in relation to the scope and purpose of the enterprise. All agreed that it would be good to have some centralised coordination of the story-collection effort.
Mary offered to take the lead on this. She said she would coordinate with the people leading the communication for the overall Night Train initiative. Severin was asked if it might be possible to use EDGY tools for the preparation and documentation of the stories, something he said he would be glad to test in cooperation with Mary.
Together they decided that the current status is “No”.
Question 12: Is there a common understanding of the Content that is required?
Mary held the view that some content exists but that she would look into this in relation to her work on the stories.
Earnestine believed there was no lack of content. While they may not have the full documentation of the technical architecture, a lot of it was documented. For example, there are basic capability maps, some system diagrams, an ongoing effort to map information assets, as well as marketing material and guides, manuals, and other learning material for employees that might be easily adapted to this work.
Peter and Petra added that a lot of work had been done a couple of years ago on mapping and diagramming primary processes.
According to Mary, there was also a lot of material from customer research and service design initiatives, such as, for example, service blueprints and journey maps. There was no such content for a night train, but the participants agreed there are enough similarities with existing trains to make the existing content reusable to base night train-specific content on.
Mary also noted that there was a lot of marketing material, guides and user manuals. Primarily related to other products, but possibly even related to previous Night Train initiatives, which would be adapted and reused.
David pointed out that a key problem with the available content was that it was all done separately, using context-specific languages and diagrams. It will take some effort to merge the information found in different maps and diagrams.
David said that he was willing to help Severin coordinate the gathering of content that might be useful in the context of the Night Train product. They would then use EDGY to see if the existing content could be remodelled and combined with information from multiple sources.
Mary said that she would go through existing material for marketing and user adoption and see if any of that might be of use in the coming work.
Together they decided that the current status is “No”.
Question 18: Is there a common understanding of the Products to be offered?
Before the meeting, the participants felt pretty confident that they clearly understood the products to be offered. Now, however, they were not as confident.
The Night Train was clearly the core product. To succeed, however, this product requires an excellent digital experience based on strong digital capabilities. That experience would be offered primarily through an app on mobiles and desktop web browsers. But this app would also need to support, and be supported by, more physical channels such as sales, customer support, and catering and on-board services. All agreed that this topic needs to be re-visited when the customers, tasks and purposes have been better defined.
Together they decided that the current status is “Partially”.
Question 19: Is there a common understanding of the effect on the enterprise Brand(s)?
The participants agreed that the digital experience is going to be an important boost to the brand. When Severin probed a bit to better understand this assumption, they discovered different participants had different brands in mind. Some assumed the brand in question was the Night Train product, some assumed the brand was the Intersection Railway brand, and some assumed both brands were meant.
Most of the participants had not considered that the brand would affect the design of the product. But for a product to have a positive effect on a brand, it needs to be aligned with the brand’s personality.
Mary offered to look further into this topic to see if she could define better the relationship between the different brands and to look for specific principles needed to guide the design to better align with the brands' expectations.
Mary agreed to look further into this and see if she could better define the relationships between the different brands, and then if there were specific principles needed to guide the design so that it best aligns with the brand expectations.
Together they decided that the current status is “No”.
Question 13/14: Is there a common understanding of the Capabilities required? / Is there a common understanding of the relative importance of each Capability?
There was considerable debate and confusion about capabilities, what they are, and their differences from processes and organisational units. To facilitate, Severin gave a deeper introduction to capabilities from the perspective of EDGY, getting participants to agree to use that as a basis for the discussion.
After some discussion, Severin saw this topic was taking too much time. He proposed they revisit this discussion after getting a little further with the customer group and tasks. This will give him time to prepare and organise a separate meeting just about capabilities. Severin enlisted Earnestine to assist him. This would ensure the work would be based on existing capability maps and stay close to the definition of capabilities currently used within the enterprise. Everyone agreed with this proposal.
Together they decided that the current status is “Don’t know”.
Question 15: Is there a common understanding of the Processes involved?
David, Earnestine, Monica, and Petra assure Severin that most, if not all, as-is processes were documented in various process maps. Asking a few probing questions, Severin discovered that while this was true, the documentation was not always based on the same standards and language. That meant it might be difficult to combine processes from different sources without at least some work in adaptation. In addition, the documentation had not been effectively maintained since it was created. It is likely, therefore, that much of the documentation has become obsolete and no longer reflects the current reality. There is no way to know which process documentation is still correct and which is not without talking to the people working with the processes involved.
Earnestine proposed that she and Severin look into the current documentation, in parallel with their preparations for the capability session. The group agreed with this proposal. David, Petra, and Peter offered to help where needed.
Together they decided that the current status is “No”.
Question 16: Is there a common understanding of the Assets needed?
Petra thought this topic was pretty clear until Peter started asking about the different data objects, information systems, integration capabilities, etc. Earnestine said that most systems were equipped with API’s for data input and output, however, what assets are needed depends on what services are to be included in the digital parts of the products. Some services, such as parts of the train schedule, for example, are done in Excel. Making those available in the app or other digital services will require more work. Catering and on-board services are largely non-digital. While there is a form that customers can use to order services, the logistics are largely managed using paper and an old system with no integration abilities, at least onboard the trains.
Earnestine said she would be available to assist in this analysis once it was clearer what tasks need to be serviced, and thus what is possible, or not, from a technical perspective.
Together they decided that the current status is “No”.
Question 17: Is there a common understanding of how People need to be organised?
While the physical aspects of the product are taking form, the participants agreed that there was still too much uncertainty around the digital aspects. The group therefore agreed to postpone the organisation design until other aspects of the design were clearer.
Together they decided that the current status is “No”.
Workshop conclusion:
After the workshop, the participants joked that it probably took them further backwards than forwards. The discussions had raised more questions than they had answered and the scope and complexity had been increased rather than simplified. David jokingly pointed out that this could be clearly seen in the summary document, by comparing the individual answers before the workshop with the one they did together during the workshop. All joking aside, however, the group was very satisfied. They felt they had a better understanding of their different contexts, the complexity of the product, and the next steps to be taken. The participants also felt the questions and discussions had helped them gain a more holistic understanding of the initiative. They had identified the areas most in need of further analysis and design and felt they were better equipped to prioritise future work.
The participants have together agreed upon a current status for each question, which is documented with the summary (Excel) of the individual answers. Even though that status is just based on the participants' feelings after having discussed the questions, it is a common, agreed-upon status. This gives them a baseline current state they can follow up on and track progress against as the work progresses.
Severin overheard Monica and Petra discuss the need to expand the scope, further integrating this digital initiative into the main project. It had become apparent to them that the digital and physical sides could not be designed separately from each other. Monica was going to take that up with Patrik, the head of product development, and Petra was going to take it up with the product group leading the product design. While Severin was not getting any thanks for helping bring forth this insight, he gave himself a pat on the back, silently acknowledging that advancing the work is more important than personal glory.
Despite the participants being positive about the results, Severin himself was not completely happy. He felt it didn’t go quite as planned and that he should have been able to get more out of it. But he also realised he felt this way more often than not after a Scan workshop, especially the first one with a group of people that were unfamiliar with EDGY or the Scan. So he congratulated himself for getting through all the questions and getting a plan for most of them. He had even managed to establish clear accountabilities for follow-up tasks, something he could use when following up on them. This had not always been the case in previous Scan workshops he facilitated.
Document
While it has become a gradually easier with every scan he performs, Severin still finds it difficult to document the results. With so much information, there is no way for him to document everything. Choosing what to document and how is also different from Scan to Scan.
For this reason, Severin has made it standard practice to block as much time as possible in the days following a scan. He finds he needs at least 4-8 hours of focused time to go through it all. He knows that some enterprise designers mercilessly cancel everything on their calendars the day after to focus solely on the documentation. Severin, however, prefers to divide it up over a couple of days. He finds it difficult to cancel meetings booked by others. But primarily, he finds that taking a couple of breaks enables him to better absorb and process the material.
For the documentation, Severin finds it helps to use a mix of text and EDGY sentences and diagrams. It makes the documentation clearer and more accessible for the reader.
Current understanding
Even with many things still unclear, several things can be documented to represent the current understanding. These diagrams represent an as-is understanding and are primarily intended to be used as baseline diagrams to facilitate discussion and display progress.
People
There are four groups with different roles and stakes
Those who will benefit
The customers to whom the Night Train product is directed, and thus also the digital services intended to be built to support it. The current understanding of this group and its requirements is limited, at least amongst the participants of the workshop.
| Group | Description |
|---|---|
| Current customers | Looking for alternative times to travel |
| New customers | Environmentally conscious people that are currently using alternative and less environmentally friendly modes of transportation like air travel or personal car. |
Those required to deliver
The people required to deliver the Night Train product and experience. These are, for example, employees and partners from various disciplines and organisational units within Intersection Railways.
As for what the product consists of, and what experience it should deliver, is still unclear. It is therefore also unclear who needs to be involved and to what extent. This applies especially to the digital aspects, as the parts of the product that must be supported by digital components are still to be identified. Below is an example of the different organisational units and disciplines that came up during the workshop, listing people that need to be involved in some way. This list is not exhaustive.
| People | Activities | Relevance to the design |
|---|---|---|
| Sales specialists | Handle the sales of the product to customer | Need to work with and support customers in any sales channels |
| Scheduling specialists | Manage Train routes and scheduling | Any digital services will rely on up-to-date information from them for planning and display of information |
| Catering and service people | Handle the sales and service food and beverages on board the trains | There is a question if customers should be able to order this through digital channels |
| Coach managers | Manage the Train coaches | There is a question of what coaches are available for the service and what sort of sleeping experiences they provide, and how they are to be displayed and presented in any digital services |
| Marketing and communication specialists | Handles all marketing and communication material | They are accountable for all text and imagery in the digital channels |
| IT architects | Accountable for all technical infrastructure, data sources, and integrations. | Handles all back-end systems and solutions, as well as integrations with both internal and external sources |
| HR specialists | Accountable for staffing and employee experience | They are accountable for training everyone that works on the Night Train product, as well as for ensuring that rules and regulations regarding employee regulations are complied with. |
| Product developers | Accountable for the product portfolio | Accountable for the products, what they contain, how they are positioned within the portfolio, etc. They manage both external products for customers (such as the Night Train product) and internal products (such as the app). |
Those accountable
The leaders and managers of the departments that are accountable for delivering the Night Train product and realising any goals set in relation to it and its various components.
For the digital services the workgroup is primarily working on, this is Monica only. While her accountability for the digital aspects of the Night Train product will not change, it is clear she needs additional support from at least the head of IT and potentially heads of one or more of the departments mentioned in the table of “those required to deliver”.
Who else?
While the Unions will probably not have to be involved in work around the digital services, they will need to be considered in the design work, and informed about decisions and progress.
Experience
Other than getting from point A to point B and being able to sleep through the journey, the task has not been defined. Not in a way that is clear to the workshop participants, at least.
No customer journey has been created for the Night Train. It is primarily a question of whether existing work for other products can be adapted.
The channels are clearer, though their role and importance are not clear.
Identity
There was some lack of clarity around the purpose, requiring it to be better defined and more concretely documented. Below is a basic diagram based on what came up in the discussions.
What stories and content were available or needed was even more unclear and needs to be further explored.
Architecture
The Architecture was set aside until other work has progressed further.
Brand
At least two brands need to be considered. Their impact on the design work is, however, unclear.
Organisation
Work on Organisation was set aside until other work has further progressed.
Product
Product is versatile and multifaceted. It will need to be further designed as the work progresses. Below is an attempt to visualise the currently known status of digital services.
Priorities
A new customer offering, such as the Night Train, requires a clear understanding of the customer (People) to be served and which of their tasks to serve. Without it, everything else is difficult to design effectively since they lack the general basis of what is to be delivered or what matters most.
It is clear from the workshop that clarity on this is lacking. It is proposed, therefore, that priority is put into further exploring the Experience and Identity facets. While some exploration into the activity and object elements can be done in parallel, the people and outcome elements must be prioritised. Once that work is done, the group will meet again to take stock and decide on the next steps.
Priority 1
Further explore who will benefit and which of their Tasks must be served, with the tasks that are expected to benefit from digital services specifically defined.
Responsible: Petra, Peter, Severin
Further explore the Purposes of the initiative and the people accountable their realisation.
- overall (the Night Train product)
- digital experience
- Contribution to overall Intersection Railway’s purpose
Responsible: Monica, Petra, Peter, Mary, Severin
Further explore the Brands involved and the principles they impose onto the design work.
Responsible: Mary, Severin
Priority 2
Explore existing material related to Journeys and Channels to see what can be reused in this initiative.
Responsible: Severin, Peter, Petra, David, Earnestine
Explore existing material related to Stories and Content to see what can be reused in this initiative.
Responsible: Mary, David, Severin
Explore which, if any, additional Stakeholders need to be included, or otherwise accounted for, in the design work.
Responsible: Monica
Focus is to be put on the priority 1 work. Work related to priority 2 can be conducted as long as it does not interfere with the work related to priority 1 activities.
It is beneficial to gather some information relevant to the remaining elements (Architecture, organisation, and product) during this time. However, no design work is expected to be done until at least the priority 1 work has progressed further.