Business Process Re-Design Through User Centered Innovation Practices The application of ethnographic research, rapid prototyping, participative design, and user trials

 

About Icnivad Corporation:

 

Icnivad Corporation was established fifteen years ago to bring outstanding value to customers by exercising the power of Innovation. Following a disciplined approach of user research, observation and rapid prototyping , Icnivad moves from concept to pilot in 90 days; providing functional visualization of the end goal that accounts for every critical assumption that needs to be tested in the real world.

 

Icnivad corporation has helped a fortune 500 company establish its Research and Development center and serves innovation needs for clients like Verizon, Pitney Bowes, Applied Materials, General Electric, and The Coca-Cola Company. Successes of Icnivad Corporation includes a portfolio of innovation generating well over $500 million of value for their clients, as well as a diverse patent portfolio ranging from telephones and robotics to novel business process designs.

 

About the speakers:

 

Jonathan Wolfman, Chief Imagination Officer, IcniVad Corporation.

 

Jonathan is a founder of IcniVad Corporation, a company dedicated to user centered innovation. He is a Certified Human Factors Engineering Professional (CHFEP) and has been working in the field of User-Centered Innovation, Usability, Human Factors, and user interface design for over 16 years. He is an expert in designing user experience, making sure that products, software, and processes are engaging, task-oriented, and easy to use.

 

Jonathan has worked for such companies as IBM Global Services, IBM Federal Systems, Lockheed Martin, and Loral Space & Communications. He has received numerous awards, published over a dozen professional papers, and holds several patents.

 

Howard Citron, Chief Innovation Officer, IcniVad Corporation

 

Howard, also a founder of IcniVad, Inc, is a driving force in focusing client's visions and transforming the vision into innovative products and services. His over 15 years of experience in such companies as Verizon, Robotic Vision System, Bell Labs has resulted in numerous design awards has been awarded 12 patents for his innovations in hardware and software technologies.

 

 

Workshop Description:

 

This workshop presents a proven user centered approach to business innovation and systems design. This disciplined approach delivers comprehensive requirements, minimizes risk and develops a visualization that accurately articulates the project for all users, designers, developers and financial stakeholders. The process harnesses the knowledge and experience of the employees who use the systems. By placing employees at the center of the innovation process, they become champions of the solution. Participants learn by walking though, step-by-step, the stories of two Fortune 500 clients.

 

Client A: The world’s leading mailing systems company

 

This client realized they had a problem – the call volumes into its customer care centers were seven times higher than its number of customers.

 

This company’s customers contact the Customer Care Centers to resolve billing problems, make changes to their account information, and cancel or change their service. The customer representatives have to work with 6 different systems to resolve customer problems. Essentially, the representative had to search around these systems for information to help confirm and resolve the customer’s issues, leading to long call and hold times. Our analysis showed that the complexity of the systems lead to resolution of specific issues, but often other problems remained in their account, leading to follow-up calls.

 

Client B: The world’s leading telecommunications company

 

This client has one on the largest mobile workforces in the country. Every day, over one-hundred thousand technicians are dispatched to customer residences, central switching offices, or outside locations to install and maintain the telephone network. A one percent improvement in dispatch efficiency saves the company millions of dollars and significantly improves customer retention and loyalty. Yet planning these dispatches to meet customer demand is a daunting task.

 

For both of these case studies, the workshop introduces a methodology for understanding the roots of the problems and to re-design these systems with the goal of reducing call handle time, reducing the overall number of calls, improving efficiency and effectiveness, and empowering customer care representatives. Through actual examples, the workshop will describe the details of each step towards process re-design and systems improvement. The workshop will present multiple forms of media to convey the process, including movies, before and after scenarios, and user testimonials.

 

Topics include:

 

o Managing the innovator / management / worker relationship o Establishing a baseline o Participative design methods and techniques

o Competitive analysis o Ethnographic research techniques o Rapid prototyping o User feedback o The business case