SAP Community - Design Thinking

Our Innovation Journey in SAP.iO - SAP Live Shopping Platform

2022-12-26T09:27:48+01:00

This blog is co-authored by Makesh Gupta and Rena Yu Ning Wang, and it is about our journey participating in the SAP.iO journey, with the idea of building a SAP Live Shopping Platform.

Context:

It was a late Friday evening and I was bored and so I did what I always do when most of us feel bored – pick up the phone and started scrolling through my social media feed – Facebook, instagram and then my latest favorite – TikTok. And something there on TikTok caught my eye. There was this lady selling watches on TikTok. This brought back memories of the good old days when we used to walk into a bazaar and see all kinds of wares being hawked. That’s exactly what this lady was doing – hawking her goods (which happened to be some sort of watches), only she was doing that live on TikTok. For the moment, it seemed interesting and then with as with everything else on social media, I continued to scroll away.

A couple of days later, when I was doing some research on trends in retail (for a meeting I was planning to host for the Retail Industry special interest group that I convene), I stumbled upon a news article about Li Jiaqi and how he sold 15000 lipsticks in a 5 mins live stream (a record of sorts till then). This now caught my eye. I started researching this a bit more and found out that during the pandemic lockdowns, many retailers got their retail associates (specially in china) to keep selling their products using their personal WeChat and other social channels.

The more I read about this trend, the more it felt like this is an important trend playing out and one that has tremendous upside potential. According to a McKinsey article, Live Commerce (or social commerce) sales in China already reached 170 Billion Dollars in 2020 and expected to cross 400 Billion Dollars by 2022. And this is only China. Add to this the Korea, Japan, Singapore, India and the other early adopters of this trend and we can see that this can become. growth engine for retail like none other seen in a long time.

As part of the preparation for the Retail Special Interest Group meeting, I tried to find if SAP has any solution that could enable its customers to ride and benefit from this trend and realised that we didn’t have any thing to offer. It made sense. Most of the sellers on these Live Commerce platforms were individuals or small businesses and they didn’t need this from SAP. The platforms (FaceBook, Instagram or TikTok) were able to satisfy their needs. So, that was that.

It was about a week later, when I was hosting Gunter for a conversation around Low Code, No Code solution that SAP has to offer for the SAP India User group, that I shared this idea with him and see if this could be a use case for developing the app quickly using the Appgyver platform. He liked it and agreed that we can try.

It was at this time that SAP launched a cohort for the SAP.io program. This program was designed to find and fund ventures within SAP. When I asked Gunter if this is an idea that we can submit to build as part of the program, he loved the idea. He then shared this thought with Yu Ning (Rena) and connected us. I loved the energy she brought to the idea and we had a word and decided to apply to be part of the SAP.io cohort.

Design Thinking Session:

Our team started discovering our ideas through two rounds of Design Thinking Session following the human-centered approach to innovation, which we used to understand user’s needs, and generating creative ideas. For these Design Thinking sessions, we have invited members from Digital Labs, including designers, developer, and innovation project manager.

We were able to brainstorm together, shared and prioritized our ideas in the first session. We were able to create detailed personas and journey map in the second session.

Market Research:

After deciding our problem statement, our team had done in-depth research on the live shopping platform already existing in the markets. We were able to map them according to the available functionalities on the x-axis, and degree of engagement with the viewer on the y-axis, whether it is public or targeted & exclusive.

On the top left corner, we have observed live shopping platforms such as YouTube Live, Facebook Live, and Instagram live, they are generally very open, public, but include minimum functionality related to upstream transparency. On the bottom left corner there is also Zoom and LinkedIn, which is targeted and exclusive, with no functionality related to supply chain. Mature live shopping platforms such as amazon live, Rakuten live, and Alibaba.com are listed in the top right corner. We can also observed that a lot of start-up such as bambuser, shopify, livescale, are listed in the middle, they are public and contains some degree of upstream transparency.

Even though there are already many live shopping platforms in the market, but most of these established platforms have their own limitations. We see a gap, and a lack of customization in these live shopping experiences. The blue highlighted area, representing where our team saw an opportunity in and decided to focus for our initial MVP.

Problem statement:

Our problem statement was: how might we bring customization of Live Shopping for SAP retailers and customers to create a new sales channel

User Journey:

Our team has once again finalized our user journey upon selecting the specific problem statement as well as persona. In this storyboard, we can see the whole flow of user journey in the image below.

From this user journey, we are introducing a B2B2C user group. There are two side of the user, enterprise, and viewer. Enterprise will be the customer that is paying money for this platform, they will customize the live shopping service based on their requirement and integrate this to their e-commerce website. During the live shopping session, invited influencer, or sales of the enterprise brand, will introduce the product details to the viewers. Viewers can ask question in the chat and immediately get the response, viewers can also make a purchase during the live shopping session.

UX screen and key features:

We have also designed the UX Screens for both enterprise and viewers. Viewers will see the live directly on enterprise’s website, or they can use a downloaded app to track different live sessions.

Enterprise has their own Live Shopping analytics dashboard, for them to monitor the performance of the live shopping session. Enterprise can prepare the list of products to sell and the corresponding product link, they can see the real time list of order and the warehouse information, real time analysis of total sales, total likes, viewers, and real time performance analytics. Enterprise can also see the real time chat and answer question in the chat. After the live shopping session has been finished, enterprise can come back to this dashboard and see the record of their session and analytics anytime.

Architecture Diagram:

Support:

Special thanks Jay Adnure, Declan Lee, Gunter Albrecht, and Christian Schonauer for being the technical advisors and contributing to our team.

Thanks to Anil Bhaskaran for the feedback and inspiration received throughout the entire SAP.iO Journey.

As well as our mentor Yuta Kanbe, Abhinav Singhal, Phipps Xue, and Alexandra Begue, without your support, we wouldn’t able to made this far into the journey.

Feedbacks:

One of the reason for us to write this blog is to reflect on what went well and what could have been done differently. Here is my reflections:

What went well:

I think we did a good job of validating that the need for the problem to be solved exists. We did that by having conversations with potential customers and with the internal product teams.

The solution idea was developed keeping mind the strengths of SAP and planning to answer the key question that we were consistently being asked – What is SAP’s right to win?

What could have been done better:

I think we could have done a better job of helping the jury members understand the scale of the opportunity.

Though we were not expected to have built anything in this phase, in hindsight, I think having a technical prototype would have helped our case.

We should have anticipated the fact that the jury might have never experienced LiveCommerce. So, it would have helped our case to show them how LiveCommerce functioned and simply used more of our time to get them to experience it and spent less time on the way we wanted to solve the problem as this would have to change anyway once we started to build it.

One of the official reasons we got from the jury was that they felt that the time to market would be long and SAP might benefit more from a partnering strategy rather than creating the solution in house.

Learning:

Personally, I learnt a lot from the process.Here are my key learnings about Corporate Venture programs: I learnt first-hand, how the corporate venture process functions – both its strengths and flaws.

The success or failure of the corporate venture program lies in the way the ideas are evaluated. In the startup world, a VC not giving the funding to a startup idea, does not necessarily lead to the team to stop working on the idea. However, in a corporate venture program, that is exactly what happens.

Rejection of an idea, almost always leads to the teams to stop working on the idea, irrespective of how much potential the idea might have had. So, instead of rejecting the idea, the programs would benefit a lot from using a “can if” mindset. Which means that instead of rejecting an idea, they can ask the teams that they can continue to work on the project if, they are able to do 1, 2 or 3 and set up another milestone to check in with the teams. At least some teams, which are passionate about the problems that they are working on, might be willing to continue their work. As I have written earlier, creative and breakthrough ideas are not easy to accept in a corporate environment.

The 5 mins to pitch and 5 mins for Q&A might be a great model for consumer ideas or when the jury members fully understand the context of the idea or the problem being presented. If they don’t understand the context, truly creative or breakthrough ideas will not have a chance to succeed. So, ensuring that the people who have been invited to the jury round are well prepped with respect to the context of the various ideas being presented is super critical to get a breakthrough idea (which is the whole purpose of the corporate venture program) through the process.

The program could benefit even better, if the jury is a mixed jury – some people from the industry or the Line-of-business where the idea could fit and who understand the context and some from the venture program team itself, who understand the venture model. I know that this is a lot more work for the venture team but the payoff for this could be significant. IF nothing else, the product teams would get to know people who are deeply thinking about a problem that they themselves are thinking about and the program could then become a talent place from where the product teams can recruit from.

Another area where I think the Intrapreneur team could have done better was to talk about SAP’s product lifecycle – from idea to development to pre-sales to sales to adoption and what the teams working on the different ideas need to keep in mind, specifically with regards to how do you take a product to market and what parts of the SAP organization will they be able to leverage and how. I saw that many teams (specifically those that did not have this insight) struggled on this topic.

Fluid Tele-collaboration in Virtual Reality using the Metaverse Today: An SAP Recruitment Event Case Study

2023-01-12T12:21:19+01:00

Fluid Tele-collaboration in Virtual Reality using the Metaverse Today:

An SAP Recruitment Event Case Study

Authors: Nikolaos Mavridis, Kai Wussow

Especially during the pandemic, the question of creative collaboration through virtual means became a key element for the future of companies, which was why we created a series of experiments concerning Virtual Reality and the Metaverse. A full-blown business simulation exercise was designed and implemented together with SAP Skill Management in order to test creative collaboration in the metaverse. It was implemented as a case study exercise, utilized in a recruiting event, adressing “How it feels to be an SAP consultant.” The results were quite encouraging, informative, and in some respects also surprising!

Introduction

Although Virtual Reality (VR) has existed in basic forms since more than 25 years, today with the advent of new affordable high-quality devices such as the Oculus Quest 2, which cost a few hundred euros, it is starting to reach increasing maturity. And together with this development, the "Metaverse", as a concept but also as a buzz-word, has started to be everywhere around us; including, the famous renaming of the very successful Facebook company, into "Meta". But beyond the buzz, these two developments, might well start to fundamentally change the way we work, we socialize, we interact with professionals, we collaborate, and more: And might even create a much stronger distribution of activity across the physical-virtual “realms” as well as within their fuzzy border areas: The physical realm, where humanity primarily existed since its beginnings, with the virtual realm - which we are just starting to "physicalize" more and more realistically but also to move beyond physical limitations, and also, the "augmented" / blended realm - where blended physical/virtual reality starts to exist, sometimes even blurring the boundaries between the two.

Figure 1: The Oculus Quest II Virtual Reality Headset

Figure 2: From Physical Reality towards Virtual Reality passing through Augmented Reality based on Paul Milgram [1]

Further developments might increase the blending variations of the physical-virtual world, when combined with the ever-increasing physical sensing taking place through the Internet-of-Things (IoT), and with the creation of increasingly extensive, detailed, and accurate Digital Twins, as well as with more fluid blending of Artificial with Natural Intelligence as well as Individual with Collective Intelligence.

For example, when speaking to an Avatar in the Metaverse, one might be speaking to an AI-driven entity, or to a human-driven (in real time) entity, or to a Hybrid-entity which is sometimes algorithmically driven but sometimes relinquishes control to a human (for example, when the AI is incapable of addressing a specific request): a technique that is already widely used in customer-service chatbots. Furthermore, such a technique enables the creation of situated “training sets” which through Machine Learning can then increase the autonomy of AI agents. Also, note that through the right collaboration of teams consisting both of human as well as AI elements, interacting in real-time or off-line, and then assisting a single human, one might also blend effectively individual with collective intelligence.

Figure 3: A text message conversation (Left) and a conversation with a Metaverse Avatar (Right): Am I speaking to a human, to an AI, or maybe both? (some sentences from AI, some from human)

The big question though is: In what ways can these developments be beneficial? And what are the foreseeable next steps and viable-feasible-desirable applications that will massively start to be used? Towards that direction, SAP, already a world-class leader in IT and especially in ERP and transactional systems, but also with a strong presence in innovative technologies through its Business Technology Platform (BTP), is starting to experiment towards using Virtual Worlds:

Together with the SAP Practice and Skills Management Team we looked for a use case that would allow us to test the potential of VR technologies for creative collaboration. In recent years virtual meetings and workshops have gained a lot of attraction and quite some success due to the pandemic, but also showed clear restrictions in terms of creative quality and and social engagement in teams. For SAP creative collaboration in Design Thinking, Life Centered Design and other collaborative formats is of high value. We therefore settled for creating an SAP Recruitment Event Case Study. It involves a collaborative team effort, includes an active review by Jurors by definition and has a controllable setup in terms of participants, contents available and also clear experimental Peers, since this type of creative collaboration had been repeated in many formats of presence and in virtual formats. Our experimental study took place with Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) students, which had the form of a Business Simulation Exercise, in the form of an: “Introduction to what it feels like to be an SAP consultant”. Importantly enough, the event took place twice, in two versions: One in the Physical World, and the second in Virtual Reality, so certain direct comparisons can take place.

It is worth noting some of the other relevant activities at SAP regarding the Metaverse, for example, the "Metaverse One" page and the relevant parts of the "Oven Innovation Enablement" program, as well as the (not really Digital Twin, yet interesting Simulation) "Clover" program, and the "Metaverse Global Challenge" of the d-shop. [Kind note to readers: Some of these links might not be yet accessible outside SAP]

In this post, not only will we discuss both the structure as well as the key findings of this event, but we also provide a wider background, as well as a wider discussion including the future. This post is structured around a number of key questions, namely:

Q1) What was he Purpose of the event?

Q2) What are Relevant Ideas on the future of Recruiting leveraging the Metaverse

Q3) What are Relevant Ideas on the future of Team Collaboration?

Q4) What were the Methods used in the Experimental Event? (including Software and Hardware Choices, Process Design: Temporal & Organizational Structure of the Event, Roles and Team Structure, Expected Deliverables, Juror's Evaluation and Live Feedback, Results Derivarion)

Q5) What were the preliminary Take-Home Messages from this experimental event?

Q6) What is the wider Discussion around the event, including Future Steps?

Q1) What was the Purpose of the event?

On the 22nd of June of 2022, a prototype event was organized by SAP, which took place in the Metaverse, and more specifically in the Raum.APP space, and was accessed through Oculus Quest VR Headsets. This event had the form of an:

“Introduction to what it feels like to be an SAP consultant”

through an appropriate simulation exercise (the “Brews Brothers Coffee Company”) which was administered to KIT students (through fuks.org) that might also be prospective recruits for SAP. A somewhat-analogous physical event took place (some days before).

Figure 4: Some screenshots from our Experiment: The Recruiting Case Study using the “Brews Brothers Coffee Company” case – where you can get a first glimpse of the space, avatars, objects

The purpose of the experiment was to get experience in how such events (as well as with a wider scope of purposes) can take place in Virtual Spaces in the Metaverse, through designing a specific timeplan and stages, and recording various evidence/log materials including:

M1) AV-recordings from various angles and

M2) Specially designed questionnaires administered at key stages, and also following up the event with a

M3) 1-hour interview session where the participants freely voiced their opinions and gave important feedback.

As a result of this, a number of interesting take-home messages arose, as well as enhancements to the process; and most importantly further events are planned in order to obtain further experience, achieve statistical significance in some of the findings, and test the v2 of the event (as improved after the first run), towards creating a further improved v3.

Q2) What are relevant Ideas on the future of Recruiting leveraging the Metaverse?

Recruitment of appropriate potential full-time employees, as well as part-time, or even interns, is of primary importance to companies worldwide. Especially in IT, where tele-working can nowadays cover an impressively large fraction of required working activities, the advantages of international workforce can be numerous; and the need for physical relocation of this workforce are starting to decrease, even more so as several of the legal and taxation-related obstacles are starting to be resolved.

On the basis of the above developments, but anyway even within national- or even city-boundaries, moving recruitment events to the virtual realm, has started to become increasingly attractive; if not for the totality of such events, at least for a good fraction. In the past, beyond for example physical university-campus events or job fairs, SAP has utilized videoconferencing tools with break-out room functionality in order for small teams to collaborate and then rejoin the main session, and even online design-thinking tools such as Mural, as part of its virtual recruitment events.

Q3) What are relevant Ideas on the future of Team Collaboration?

Yet design-thinking techniques are just one form of team collaboration (among many others!), which are usually utilized towards brainstorming and deliberations. There is a wealth of design-thinking techniques that exist in the literature; a classic selection being part of IDEO's "The Field Guide to Human-Centered Design". Can we try to create a Metaverse-version of this handbook, without just copying the physical analogues, but rather by optimally adapting them to the Metaverse, and even creating new techniques which have no existing physical-world analogue?

Figure 5: “The Field Guide to Human-Centered Design” – the classic reference book from IDEO. Can we create an analogous guide for the case of the Metaverse?

But thinking beyond just design thinking, and centering on team collaboration, one can ask a fundamental (yet broad) question: How can one facilitate effect team formation and collaboration in different settings, i.e. moving from physical co-location in a room, to traditional tele-collaboration using audio or video-conference and offline tools, to immersive tele-collaboration using VR in the Metaverse?

And here, it is important to note the differences between the Physical World and the Metaverse: at its current state, but also at its future states. It might be true, on the one hand, that embodied co-presence in the Metaverse certainly still lacks many of the qualities and capabilities of physical embodied co-presence (for example, fluid haptic interaction, fidelity-realisticity of visual percepts, and much more!), but it is also true, one the other hand, that the Metaverse also contains capabilities that go beyond the limitations of the physical world (for example: instant tele-portation; absolutely accurate "memory" through replay of past situations; fluid change of embodiments and human-object interactions which are not physically possible, and more!). But then the key questions arise:

KQ1) So how can we utilize these extra "affordances" that only the Metaverse has, in order to facilitate better team collaboration, while at the same time compensating/modifying so that the physical qualities that the Metaverse lacks do not create disadvantages? (i.e. Maximize the utility of the capabilities that the Metaverse has but which the Physical World doesn't, while Minimizing the negative effects of the capabilities that the Physical World offers that the Metaverse doesn't)

And then, other relevant questions follow:

KQ2) So how can we create the right team-collaboration setups (layout, objects and their interactive capabilities, UX capabilities for users, toolboxes of multiple kinds, process flows / ceremonies etc) in order to create highly effective tele-collaboration in the Metaverse?

KQ3) How should the above be "tailored"/"customized" to specific types of tele-collaboration?

KQ4) And given the choice, which types of collaborative work should one choose to do in the Metaverse vs. the Physical World vs. other media and all their hybrid combinations?”

Yet another direction is concerned with measuring, describing, and enhancing team structures, patterns, and collaboration effectiveness. There is a wealth of existing results in relevant scientific disciplines; yet only recently have we been able to create very detailed logs of team collaboration using electronic means and to effectively start to analyze them. For example, one could mention the pioneering work of Sandy Pentland's group at the MIT Media Lab: Tanzeem Choudhury's "Sociometer" wearable devices [2] which analyzed interactions between team members, and generated link structures of groups - showing the way towards the empirical augmentation of existing theories of organizational behavior and social networks. Furthermore, numerous results exist when it comes to e-exchanges between group members and their patterns: For example, Peter Gloor's work on "Collaborative Innovation Networks" [3] from the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence, and subsequent work on finding collaborative innovation networks through correlating performance with social network structure. But by following the stream of the above three lines of research, one can notice that the Metaverse enables us to have very detailed logs of interactions of the team members with one another as well as with objects, and also logs of their bodily states. Therefore, a new set of key questions arises:

KQ5) Can we have identify the relations between (A): {bodily and interaction measurables} and (B): {team collaboration types, stages, significant events during teamwork, leadership styles}? (And many more such types of "team analytics" as well as interpretations/classifications)

KQ6) Can we utilize the above analytics towards increased self- and team-awareness and improving team-members individually as well as team collaboration as a whole?

KQ7) Can we thus evaluate and improve individual- and team-level collaborative skills, and can we predict and measure the effectiveness of combinations of specific individuals in teams, thus aiding towards effective team-building too?

Interestingly enough, for other simpler tasks (for example, training people to deliver talks and presentations to an audience seated on a meeting table), tools have started to exist that operate along similar lines - for example “VR Easy Speech” offering rhetoric and presentations coaching through Virtual Reality. However, such tools aiming towards team building and team collaboration offering measurable analytics and guided-tracked improvement training, are yet to appear; although, arguably, they could have immense importance towards optimizing the leap from individual intelligence & effectiveness, to team collective intelligence & effectiveness.

Figure 6: “VR Easy Speech” offering rhetoric and presentations coaching through Virtual Reality

Q4) What were the Methods used in the Experimental Event?

In this section, we will cover Software and Hardware Choices, the Process Design - i.e. the Temporal & Organizational Structure of the Event, The Roles of different participants and the Structure of the Team, Expected Deliverables, the specially-designed Questionnaires for the Juror's Evaluation and the participants as well as the Live Feedback session, and we will close with the qualitative and quantitative results derivation.

Q4.1) Software and Hardware Choices

In terms of the choice of Virtual Reality (VR) World supporting tele-meetings and tele-collaboration, initially there was some experimentation taking place with "Spatial". Quite importantly, some of the manipulable-object-creation capabilities of this choice, were appreciated. Later, for a mixture of not necessarily so technical reasons, it was decided to switch to "Raum" - which was somewhat inferior in the aforementioned capabilities, but nevertheless was preferable is certain respects. A beautiful two-floor-plus-terrace villa surrounded by sea, and containing various rooms, some of which with glass doors, as well as staircases, was used as the chosen environment: This was nicely mapped to the need for break-out rooms for team collaboration, as well as an area where the "interviews" with the simulated client would take place, and also areas for the initial "introduction and training" session, among others. Special objects were also created, for example to be used as referents to indexically pointed to while the "Introduction to SAP's Business Technology Platform" is taking place and the presenter is speaking about it, potentially with small dialogic segments from the participants.

Figure 7: The “Raum” office where the event took place; A beautiful two-floor-plus-terrace villa surrounded by sea, containing various rooms as well as manipulable/reformable objects

In terms of VR Headsets the choice of the Oculus Quest 2 was made, and SAP acquired a number of these devices in their stripped-down "business" version, and these were distributed to the participants.

As per deliverable M1 in section Q1, audiovisual (AV) recording of the sessions was one of the deliverables that could also be used for further cross-analysis. Two different forms of recording were used: Classic AV screen recording (through screen video capture software), as well as in-VR recording through special avatars that played the role of "Cameramen", both in fixed positions (for example in suitable places in the break-out rooms of the teams), as well as actual walking cameramen controlled by humans that had that role.

Moving from deliverable M1 to M2 as per section Q1, specially designed questionnaires were administered at key stages, and also following up the event. In more detail, the following questionnaires were administered (through Qualtrics) and analyzed later (through Qualtrics and through exported files that were imported in appropriate BTP products):

Qu1) Initial participants questionnaire

Qu2) During-the-event short progress questionnaires

Qu3) Main Participant Questionnaire (16 questions, including leadership-style questions as well as TMX, the “Team Members Exchange” standard questionnaire measuring the quality of reciprocal exchange among team members, as per [4])

Qu4) VR-Only Questionnaire (administered only in Metaverse event and not in Physical Event)

Qu5) Jurors Questionnaire (16 questions)

Qu6) Post-Event Questionnaire

Finally, as per M3, freeform end-of-event interviews took place, in which the main interviewer was Kai Wussow, but also judges and other organizers participated, and a fraction of the participants took part. The total duration was on the order of one and a half hour, and some of the questions asked, starting with open questions such as: “How was your experience?”, “What were the good things and the negative parts?”, and both the participants (8 of 13) as well as the two jurors took part in the interview.

Q4.2 Process Design:Temporal & Organizational Structure of the Event

In order to limit the actual VR recruitment session to less than four hours (which actually, as we found out, was already quite lengthy regarding comfort levels), an introduction and training workshop regarding the Oculus headset and Raum software took place earlier (in March 2022), and had a duration of 1.5 hours, while the actual events took place in June 2022, with the Metaverse version having a duration of 4 hours, while the Physical version lasted 3 hours.

The detailed agenda of the Metaverse event can be seen below:

Figure 8: The Detailed Agenda of VR Metaverse Case Study Event

Q4.3 Roles and Team Structure

The different roles that existed in the event were R1-R5:

R1) Participants

The participants were 13 students of Karlsruhe Institut of Technology (KIT). All of them were affilieated with the organization fuks.org. During the day of the event, one could not attend, and another one had a hardware crash early on after joining the meeting, so the remaining 11 were the fully active participants, and were organized as 3 groups.

R2) Judges

There were three SAP personnel serving as judges (a Strategic Advisor, a Consulting Director and an Intern for Human Factors Research).

R3) Brews-brothers CEO & CTO Impersonators

Kai Wussow, Chief Enterprise Business Architect at SAP played the role of CEO of the fictional companmy “Brews Brothers", which was the client of the consultancy simulation, while another SAP employee played the role of the CTO of the fictional company “Brews Brothers”.

R4) Coaches & Introducers

Three SAP personnel, played the roal of participant team “coaches”, while Nikolaos Mavridis and another SAP person introduced the participants to the fundamentals of the Intelligent Enterprise of SAP and to the SAP Business Technology Platform, its purpose and products, so that they can use these in the proposed solutions for “Brews Brothers”.

5) Cameramen

Last but not least, two externals at SAP, served as human “cameramen”, moving around the virtual space and performing video recordings, in conjunction with the fixed cameras that were placed in the rooms.

Also, it is worth noting that other senior members from SAP were also invited in preparation meetings, and that Dr. Evanthia Dimara, Assistant Professor at Utrecht University, also helped significantly during the experimental design.

Q4.4) Expected Deliverables

The expected deliverable that each team was preparing was a presentation to be given to the “Brews Brothers” C-level executive impersonators, to be observed by the judges too. This presentation was prescribed not to simply be a “powerpoint” presentation given in VR; but rather to utilize a toolchest for creating 3-D elements that will then form the “referents” to be pointed at while the teams are narrating their presentation: And this toolchest we called the “Walled Garden”. Notice that this is one of the most important differences for VR presentations as compared to videoconference and real life: It is much easier to create and utilize complex (and sometimes even interactive) 3D objects that will then serve as “prompts”/”referents” around which the presentation can be structured, and around which the participants/audience as well as the presentation givers/presenters can be physically walking around and examining/interacting with while the presentation is taking place. Of course, the appropriate content and capabilities of such a toolchest, remains to be optimized; as well as the skills and knowledge required by the creators, in order to utilize it effectively.

The total duration of each team’s presentation was fixed at approx. 12 minutes, including time for Q/A from the jurors. In Figure 9 you can see a scene from the presentation of one of the teams:

Figure 9: A scene from the presentation of one of the teams

It is worth noting two different types of elements constructed from the “walled garden” that were used in this presentation: 2-D notes (like giant “Post-It” stickers that are often used for design thinking sessions), as well as 3-D floating elements (in this case “floating rectangles”, such as the ones in the right corner of the room).

Figure 10: Other elements from the “Walled Garden” that can be used in presentations: Cartoon characters, “spoken word” bubbles, paper drawings, and walking paths

There exist many more elements that can be used, beyond these two: For example, in Figure 10 you can see cartoon characters, with “spoken word clouds” above them, and paper pictures, arranged in a an area where a “virtual tour guide” can walk client’s avatars around while narrating, and making stops at each cartoon character. The cartoon characters could represent personas; and they could even become interactive and dialogic, and replaced by AI- or human-controlled avatars, thus enabling memorable interactive “walk-through” experiences to the guests.

Q4.5) Scenes from the event

Now, let us move to some screenshots from the actual event, together with some basic descriptions and commentary (note that the RAUM office where the event took place was shown earlier in Figure 7):

Figure 11: A scene from team building, where each team member posts a note on the wall, with their photo and their name – here you can see all three groups in the left, middle, and right areas.

Figure 12: A scene from the case study intro: Jacob (CTO) presenting the case study, as taken through the eyes of Kai (CEO) upper left, and the participants watching

Figure 13: Introducing the Intelligent Enterprise Strategy: Narrator presenting, participant audience around the “referent” 3D elements that had been created beforehand in order to liiustrate basic concepts of the SAP Intelligent Enterprise

Figure 14: Learning more about SAP Solutions

Figure 15: Teams start working on the Case Study

Figure 16: Coming Closer to the final solution

And finally, as shown before in Figure 9, the teams gave the Final Case Study presentations.

Q4.6) Juror's Evaluation, Participant Questionnaires, and Live Feedback

The questionnaire Qu5 (which can be found in Appendix 5) was completed by the jurors around session 05 (as per Figure 8), following the participant teams presentation and the Q/A. Numerous more Qualtrics questionnaires were administered, namely: The Initial Participants Questionnaire (Qu1), administered at the beginning of the event, the during-the-event short progress questionnaires (Qu2), tracking team progress and sentiment, administered in two points during the period allocated for the teams to prepare their presentations. Most importantly, also a post-event questionnaire was submitted (period 07) as well as two lengthy questionnaire, namely the main participant questionnaire (Qu3, at period 08) and the VR-only questionnaire (Qu4, at period 08). It is noteworthy that the VR-only questionnaire, which was designed by Kai Wussows, was not administered in the physical version of the event, and aimed towards explicating the differences between the physical-world vs. virtual-world versions. Also that the Main Participant Questionnaire (Qu3), contained 16 questions, including leadership-style questions as well as TMX, the standard “Team Members Exchange” standard questionnaire measuring the quality of reciprocal exchange among team members, as per [4].

Q4.7) From Videos and Questions to Results

Following the conclusion of the events, the analysis process started. SAP Qualtrics software was used to administer and to perform the initial analysis of the questionnaires:

Figure 17: The Questionnaires design screen, in SAP Qualtrics software

Figure 18: Example of the automated answer analysis available through SAP Qualtrics

Furthermore, comments were collected by all the people playing roles in the event, if any such comments existed, and the 1-hour post-event interview was digested (*link to Interview!*)

Most importantly, Data Science techniques using Python and SAP HANA were used in order to analyze the questionnaires and find further statistical patterns. In the future, given richer movement/interaction data through logs derived from Mozilla Hubs (as Raum was not providing such logs), further data-science analysis will take place, in order to find connections between the behavioral/interaction data and the overall team and personal qualities.

Regarding the external-to-qualtrics Data Science analysis, csv files were exported and imported, and a correlation analysis of the answers of the relevant questions of the main participant questionnaire took place, among others. In Figure 19, the color-coded initial corellation results can be seen, in non-thresholded (right) vs. double-side-thresholded (left) versions.

Figure 19: Color-coded corellations between answers to questions: non-thresholded (left) versus thresholded (right) result matrices.

Q5) What were the preliminary Take-Home messages from this experimental event?

A number of interesting take-home messages arose from the events. In particular:

H1) 20% or so of the participants dropped out: They reported that this was due to headache or tiredness, and also sometimes due to technical problems (one VR headset stopped working due to overheating).

H2) Jurors reported that deliverables were better in VR than in the real-world, both in terms of content as well as in terms of appearance

H3) Participants reported that deliverables were of lower quality in VR as compared to the real-world

H4) Participants reported that they experienced a steep learning curve, as well as a satisfying feeling while doing the work in VR, and while filling the walls with content

Now, moving on the the 16-Question VR & Physical Questionnaire (Qu3, including TMX), and starting with the statistically significant differences between the Physical vs. Virtual cases:

H5) Suggestions about better work to other team members took place more often in physical

H6) In virtual, participants reported more understanding of their problems and needs by other team members, as compared to physical

H7) In virtual, participants reported more recognition of their potential by other team members, as compared to physical

Furthermore, in terms of correlations between answers:

H8) Other team members were more likely to recognize your potential if:

- Strongly concentrated non-consultative leadership did not exist

- More collective decision-making style existed

H9) The event was reported to be worth of the participants time when:

- Strong top-down leadership did not exist

H10) If there was flexibility about switching job responsibilities:

- Then you often volunteered your efforts to help others

H11) The more other team members asked you to help out in busy situation:

- The more did you volunteer your efforts to help others, and vice-versa

- The more collective the decision-making style was, and vice-versa

And now, let us move on to the 26-question VR-only questionnaire (Qu4):

H12) I believe VR Events to be more efficient to Physical Events:

- The more my learning curve & comprehension improved when actively engaged in the challenge

H13) I believe VR Events to be more effective to Physical Events:

- The more it was easy for me to walk around and understand the space in VR.

H14) The more it was easy for me to generate new ideas to problem-solving:

- The more I deeply enjoyed today’s workshops

- The less I needed guidance in the workshop

- The more I felt inspired to think outside of the box during the session

H14) My emotions in VR being amplified compared to Physical Events:

- Corellated with VR being a positive experience for me

H15) I had a strong feeling of working together and human interaction when:

- VR was a positive experience for me

- My emotions in VR were amplified as compared to physical events

Q6) What is the wider discussion around the event, including future steps?

First of all, it is worth considering the take-home messages H1-H15 above, as they arose from the analysis of the deliverables. Some of them are somewhat trivial, while other provide valuable insights. What is apparently highly important though, is to take the following future steps:

F1) Run the experiment more times, in order to gather a richer data set enabling more statistical strength in the observations, while making sure that the physical vs. virtual versions are as aligned as possible.

F2) Make sure that the automated behavioral/interaction log (possibly through Mozilla hubs, for example as per [5], is indeed taken, and appropriately analyzed, alone as well as in conjunction with the questionnaires and other observations, in order to reveal correlations and patterns across these two realms of data.

F3) Further refine the experimental setup, questionnaires, and activities, in order to provide further insights and/or test explanatory hypothesis for the observations that arose from the data so far.

F4) Extend the events from simulation-exercise student recruitment events, to other genres, such as purely team collaboration events, customer walk-through events, and so on, in order to derive insights towards the understanding and improvement of all of these cases

F5) Explore connections between this event’s setup and other relevant SAP activities in the Metaverse as well as in related 4^th Industrial Revolution technologies, for example digital twins, chatbots that could be driving interactive avatars within the Metaverse, and more

CONCLUSION

The design, running, and analysis of these experiments was a very pleasant experience for all involved, and the overall consensus is that this is a very promising first run, and we clearly did indeed learn a few things. Also, it was clear that further involvement of SAP in the giant steps being taken towards forming the Metaverse’s future and uses, should be of primary importance, and thus this initiative explores one of these directions, which can furthermore bring immediate utility.

Thus, with appropriate continuation of this initiative given the future steps F1-F5 outlines above, and in conjunction with other relavant initiatives, let us conclude with a hope (which also forms a reachable vision, and not just a hope!):

Let us continue our efforts, so that we can indeed reach a state in the near future, in which “Flexible teams from all over the world can have Natural, Effective and Exciting collaborations in the MetaVerse opening up avenues of Creativity and Innovation that were impossible before, creating new and fulfilling jobs, while achieving team-building and team-membership-skills improvement and ever-increasing self-awareness and other-awareness, and also widely-encompassing empathy and friendship with humans from all locations and walks of life!”

REFERENCES

[1] Milgram, P. and Kishino, F., 1994. A taxonomy of mixed reality visual displays. IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Information and Systems, 77(12), pp.1321-1329.

[2] Choudhury, T. and Pentland, A., 2003, October. Sensing and modeling human networks using the sociometer. In Seventh IEEE International Symposium on Wearable Computers, 2003. Proceedings. (pp. 216-222). IEEE.

[3] Gloor, P.A., 2006. Swarm creativity: Competitive advantage through collaborative innovation networks. Oxford University Press.

[4] Seers, A. (1989) Team-Member Exchange Quality: A New Construct for Role-Making Research. Organizational Behavior & Human Decision Processes, 43, 118-135.
https://doi.org/10.1016/0749-5978(89)90060-5

[5] Shamma, D.A. (2020) “VR Research Collection in Mozilla Hubs”, available online (as per 10/01/23) https://ayman.medium.com/vr-research-in-mozilla-hubs-63fd3002eedf

Figjam Project Management Templates

2023-01-24T09:45:56+01:00

How does your team handle work management through the Design Led Process?

We at SAP find many approaches and processes across different teams as they navigate Design Led Development phases. The Design Project Acceleration team is committed to helping teams work efficiently and effectively by making it easier to manage design project work.

If you are unfamiliar with the SAP Design Led Development (DLD), find more details here: Fiori Design Guidelines.

We have created the first batch of templates that map to the Discover and Design phases of the Design Led Development process to help drive project management best practices.

Below are 3 templates for the Discover Phase:

Image from the author herself

Below are 3 templates for the Design Phase:

Image from the author herself

These 6 Figma templates are available here, within each template you will find more details on how to use the template.*Please, note: If you don't have an account on Figma, it's necessary to create one to access the templates, you can create your account here. Besides that, viewers on Figma don't need a license, but it is necessary for editors, to know more, and access the Figma FAQ or contact us through this post.

You can adapt the templates to fit your team/project needs, copy and change as you see fit.

If you would like a more structured overview detailing how to apply these templates as a Design Project Manager, this guide is available: DLD-Project template mapping Figma.

We'd love to get your feedback on the templates or if you have any templates that are working well for your team, feel free to share. Reach out to me in the comments below.

The Design Project Acceleration team is looking forward to partnering with you to elevate design project management at SAP, feel free to add your comments and feedback below.

We are happy may see you in our community!

Leveraging an AI Chatbot in Design Thinking with ChatGPT

2023-02-02T13:11:47+01:00

An AI chatbot as Design Thinking team member?!

In Design Thinking the original input from users and experts who are experienced in the challenge at hand is a key input for a deep dive understanding and a thorough challenge definition. It is an indispensable foundation and provides the springboards and raw material for relevant creative idea generation.

Could ChatGPT impersonate a typical expert in an interview? In our team of DesignThinkers we discussed the idea and therefore decided to test the AI based chatbot ChatGPT and its abilities to generate meaningful content for design thinking practice.

Generative AI is a technology that enables machines to learn and produce data autonomously, such as text, images, sound and video. Generative AI´s are based on different Artificial Neural Network technologies including Recurrent Neural Networks, Convolutional Neural Networks, Transformers, to name a few, which are capable of learning patterns from large amounts of data. Generative AI is often used in natural language processing (NLP) applications, such as chatbots, machine translation and image captioning. Other potential applications include dialogue generation, music composition, image content generation and (soon) video and virtual reality content generation.

In particular ChatGPT is a chatbot service that uses NLP to understand customer queries and respond with answers. It is based on a very large data set that encompasses a relevant set of human knowledge based on text data from the internet, book libraries articles and structured text data such as scripts and tables.

In a chatbot dialogue it is capable of giving knowledgeable answers about even very specific fields like an expert in the matter.

For our purpose we chose a design thinking topic we have worked on a number of times during the pandemic with real experts from relevant industries: "The future of the tradefair business model".

Here is how our conversation went. The interviewer poses typical questions posed during a Design Thinking process:

Interviewer: You are the organizer of big trade fairs such as Gamescon. I will interview you about your job.

ChatGPT: I'm sorry, but as an AI language model, I am not capable of organizing trade fairs or being interviewed. However, I can provide information on what the job of an event organizer for a trade fair like Gamescon might entail. These might include tasks such as coordinating with exhibitors, arranging for transportation and lodging for attendees, arranging for keynote speakers, managing the budget for the event, and promoting the event to attract attendees.

Comment: Since it seemed to understand the job fairly well we went after more emotional tasks next:

Interviewer: What are your key pain points in your job?

ChatGPT: As an AI, I am not capable of having a job or experiencing pain points. But common pain points for trade fair organizers might include coordinating with multiple stakeholders, such as exhibitors, sponsors, and attendees, managing a large budget, and ensuring that the event runs smoothly despite unforeseen challenges. Additionally, dealing with last-minute cancellations or changes to the schedule can also be a source of stress for trade fair organizers.

Other potential pain points for trade fair organizers include:

Ensuring that the event complies with all relevant laws and regulations.

Coordinating with vendors and contractors to provide necessary services such as electricity, internet, and security.

Dealing with unexpected weather or other emergencies that may occur during the event.

Managing the logistics of setting up and breaking down the event, including coordinating with venue staff.

Addressing any complaints or issues that may arise from attendees, exhibitors, or other stakeholders.

Keeping within the budget constraints for the event.

Meeting the expectations of the event attendees and exhibitors.

Overall, organizing a trade fair is a complex and challenging job that requires a high level of organization, attention to detail, and the ability to think on one's feet.

Comment: Compared to our real world interviews this gives a good overview of the jobs key pain points. It misses specifics such as Corona effects from 2021 or the impact of digitization on the business model, which were a main motivators for us and our partners and clients to conduct such workshops.

Interviewer: With the pandemic virtual events, online events have become much more important. What changes to your job do you see?

ChatGPT: As an AI, I am not capable of having a job or experiencing the pandemic. However, with the ongoing pandemic, many events have been moved to virtual or online formats. This change has likely had a significant impact on the job of trade fair organizers. Some of the changes that organizers might have to make include:

Transitioning the event to a virtual format, which may require additional technical expertise and equipment.

Coordinating with exhibitors and sponsors to ensure that their virtual booths or presentations are of high quality.

Developing new ways to engage attendees and exhibitors remotely, such as through virtual networking or live streaming.

Creating new opportunities for sponsors and exhibitors to reach a wider audience.

Incorporating additional features like live chat, video conferencing and interactive sessions

Adapting to the new set of challenges that come with virtual events such as time-zone differences, technical difficulties, and internet connectivity issues.

Overall, the shift to virtual events has likely required trade fair organizers to be more adaptable and technologically savvy, as well as to think more creatively about how to engage attendees and exhibitors remotely.

Additional changes that organizers may have to make include:

Re-evaluating the event's budget, as costs associated with virtual events may be different from in-person events.

Creating a virtual platform that can handle large numbers of attendees and exhibitors.

Providing technical support to attendees and exhibitors to ensure that everyone is able to participate fully in the event.

Developing new ways to measure the success of the event, such as the number of attendees, engagement levels and feedback from the attendees.

Creating new ways to monetize the event, such as through virtual sponsorships or online ticket sales.

Finding new ways to create a sense of community and engagement among attendees and exhibitors, as the virtual format may not provide the same opportunities for networking and face-to-face interactions as in-person events.

Overall, the shift to virtual events has likely required trade fair organizers to be more adaptable and technologically savvy, as well as to think more creatively about how to create engaging, high-quality events that can be enjoyed remotely.

Comment: A pretty good list of issues one would get in real world interviews for the general changes. It is much less specific then real world situations of concrete actors from the tradefair business, but gives a good overview on the issues to expect in such interviews. So we tried to be more specific and digged deeper into the business model:

Interviewer: What future monetization formats will most likely succeed?

ChatGPT: It's difficult to predict exactly what future monetization formats will be most successful, as it will depend on a variety of factors such as the type of event, target audience, and industry trends. However, some possible formats that may be successful in the future include:

Virtual sponsorships: With virtual events, companies may be more willing to sponsor the event as they can reach a wider audience.

Virtual exhibitor space: Providing virtual exhibitor space for companies to promote their products or services, which can be a cost-effective way for small businesses to participate in trade fairs.

Virtual ticket sales: Virtual events can be more accessible for people in remote areas or those who are unable to attend in-person events, which can increase the number of attendees and therefore ticket sales.

Virtual networking and matchmaking: Virtual events can offer opportunities for attendees and exhibitors to network and connect remotely. Some events may charge a fee for these services as an additional revenue stream.

Virtual classes and training: Virtual events can provide educational opportunities like classes, training and certification program, that organizers can charge for.

It's important to note that all the above points are closely related to the type of the event, and the industry it's targeting. Some of the above options may not be suitable for certain types of events. Also, it's important to measure the success of the monetization formats based on the feedback and attendance numbers, and adjust accordingly.

Another possible monetization format that may be successful in the future is:

Virtual product or service sales: Virtual events can provide a platform for companies to sell their products or services directly to attendees. This can be done through virtual storefronts, online marketplaces, or other e-commerce solutions. This can be a convenient way for attendees to purchase products or services that they may have seen or learned about at the event.

Virtual Advertising: Virtual events can provide a platform for companies to advertise their products or services to a targeted audience. This can be done through sponsored content, banner ads, pop-ups, etc. This can be a cost-effective way for small businesses to reach a large number of potential customers.

It's worth noting that as the technology and virtual event platforms are evolving, new monetization formats may become available, and organizers need to keep an eye on the industry trends, and be ready to adapt to them. Also, it's important to test different monetization formats and measure their success to make sure they are generating enough revenue to cover the costs of the event and make a profit.

Comment: Again ChatGPT came up with a pretty complete set of the main ideas in the market compared to results of similar brain storming. So now we wanted to test its understanding of real world transformation problems:

Interviewer: What are key obstacles for a physical tradefair company to transform into virtual business models?

ChatGPT: There are several key obstacles that a physical trade fair company might face when trying to transform into virtual business models:

Technical expertise: Virtual events require a different set of skills and technical expertise than in-person events. Organizers may need to invest in new technology and software, as well as hire or train staff with the necessary skills to produce and execute virtual events.

Audience engagement: Virtual events can be less interactive than in-person events, and it can be difficult to create a sense of community and engagement among attendees. Organizers may need to find new ways to engage attendees and exhibitors remotely, such as through virtual networking or live streaming.

Adapting to new regulations: Virtual events may be subject to different laws and regulations than in-person events. Organizers may need to ensure that their virtual events comply with all relevant regulations, such as data privacy and accessibility laws.

Adapting to new costs: Virtual events may have different costs associated with them than in-person events. Organizers may need to re-evaluate their budget and find new ways to monetize the event to cover the costs.

Adapting to new attendee expectations: Attendees may have different expectations for virtual events than in-person events. Organizers may need to find new ways to meet those expectations and create a high-quality virtual experience.

Adapting to new marketing strategies: Virtual events may require different marketing strategies than in-person events. Organizers may need to find new ways to promote the event and attract attendees.

Overall, transforming a physical trade fair company into a virtual business model can be a complex and challenging process that requires a significant investment in new technology, skills, and strategies. Organizers will have to adapt to a new way of organizing events, and find ways to make the virtual experience as engaging and valuable as possible.

Additional obstacles that a physical trade fair company might face when trying to transform into virtual business models include:

Lack of previous experience in virtual events: Organizing virtual events may be a new area for the company and they may need to learn the basics of how to create, plan and execute a virtual event.

Virtual platform limitations: Virtual events require a platform that can handle large numbers of attendees and exhibitors, and may require features such as live chat, video conferencing, and interactive sessions. Finding the right platform can be a challenge, and it may require significant investment.

Logistics: virtual events have a different set of logistics that need to be taken care of, such as ensuring that the attendees have the necessary equipment and internet connection, and dealing with technical difficulties that may arise during the event.

Competition: The virtual event space is becoming more crowded, and companies may face increased competition from other virtual event organisers.

Measuring the success of the event: Virtual events may require different metrics to measure success than in-person events. Organizers may need to find new ways to measure attendance, engagement, and feedback.

To overcome these obstacles, a physical trade fair company may need to invest in new technology and software, hire or train staff with the necessary skills, and develop new strategies for audience engagement, marketing, and monetisation. They may also need to seek the help of experts in virtual events and collaborate with other companies that have experience in this area. It's important to start small, pilot test the new format, and measure the results to make adjustments as needed.

Comment: Again an impressive list or relevant topics for the question. We now choose to try a imprecise formulated question as in an engaged interview situation:

Interviewer: What gains do you see from this for you?

ChatGPT: As an AI, I do not have personal gain or loss. However, the transition of physical trade fairs to virtual business models could provide a number of benefits for the event organizers and attendees. Some of the potential benefits include:

Increased reach: Virtual events can be accessed by attendees from anywhere in the world, which can increase the number of attendees and exhibitors.

Cost savings: Virtual events can be less expensive to produce and attend than in-person events, as they do not require travel, lodging, or other costs associated with in-person events.

Flexibility: Virtual events can be scheduled more frequently than in-person events, and they can be accessed on-demand after the event.

Increased engagement: Virtual events can provide new opportunities for audience engagement, such as virtual networking and matchmaking.

Increased accessibility: Virtual events can be more accessible for people with disabilities or those who are unable to attend in-person events.

Increased convenience: Virtual events can provide a more convenient experience for attendees, as they can participate from the comfort of their own home or office.

Overall, the transition of physical trade fairs to virtual business models could provide a number of benefits for event organisers and attendees, such as increased reach, cost savings, flexibility, and engagement.

Other potential benefits of virtual trade fairs include:

Increased efficiency: Virtual events can be more efficient in terms of time, as attendees can easily navigate through virtual exhibit halls and attend multiple sessions simultaneously.

Greater scalability: Virtual events can accommodate more attendees and exhibitors than traditional in-person events, as there is no physical limitations.

Increased data collection and analysis: Virtual events can provide more data on attendee engagement and behaviour, which can be used to improve future events.

Increased sustainability: Virtual events can have a smaller environmental impact than in-person events as they do not require travel or lodging.

Increased flexibility in terms of format: Virtual events can be delivered in different formats, such as live streaming, pre-recorded sessions, webinars, and more.

Increased post-event reach: Virtual events can be accessed on-demand after the event, which can increase the reach and impact of the event.

While virtual trade fairs may have some limitations, for example, lack of face-to-face interactions, the benefits that they offer can be significant. As the technology and virtual event platforms continue to evolve, trade fair organisers can expect to see even more benefits from virtual trade fairs in the future.

Comment: Again an impressive result. We decided to test another topic deep dive, Sustainability:

Interviewer: Which impact on sustainability of trade fairs on local communities in terms of risks and benefits do you see?

ChatGPT: Trade fairs can have both positive and negative impacts on the sustainability of local communities. Some of the potential benefits include:

Economic benefits: Trade fairs can bring economic benefits to local communities, such as increased tourism and revenue from ticket sales and local businesses.

Exposure to new ideas: Trade fairs can bring people from different cultures and backgrounds together, which can expose local communities to new ideas and perspectives.

Job creation: Trade fairs can create jobs for local residents, such as in security, hospitality, and transportation.

However, trade fairs can also have negative impacts on the sustainability of local communities, such as:

Environmental impacts: Trade fairs can have a significant impact on the environment, such as increased pollution from transportation and waste from the event.

Displacement of residents: Trade fairs can lead to the displacement of residents, as local communities may be forced to make way for event venues and infrastructure.

Strains on local resources: Trade fairs can put a strain on local resources, such as transportation and emergency services, which can be overwhelmed by the influx of visitors.

Virtual trade fairs can reduce some of the negative impacts on the sustainability of local communities. For example, they can reduce the carbon footprint associated with transportation and lodging, and they can avoid the displacement of residents. However, it's worth noting that virtual trade fairs also have their own set of environmental impacts, for example, the energy consumption associated with the internet servers and devices used for the event.

Overall, the impact of trade fairs on local communities in terms of sustainability is complex and multifaceted. Organizers should consider the potential benefits and risks and develop strategies to minimize the negative impacts and maximize the positive impacts. This can include taking steps to reduce the environmental impact of the event, engaging with local residents and businesses, and investing in infrastructure and services that can help mitigate the impacts of the event on the community.

Another impact on sustainability of trade fairs on local communities in terms of risks and benefits is:

Community engagement: Trade fairs can provide an opportunity for community engagement, as organizers can involve local residents and businesses in the planning and execution of the event. Community engagement can help mitigate the negative impacts of the event and ensure that the benefits are shared equitably among the community.

Cultural preservation: Trade fairs can also have an impact on cultural preservation and can provide opportunities to showcase local culture and heritage. This can help raise awareness and appreciation of the local culture and promote tourism.

Infrastructure development: Trade fairs can also provide an opportunity for infrastructure development such as the construction of new event venues and improvements to transportation and communication infrastructure. This can have a long-term positive impact on the local community.

In conclusion, the impact of trade fairs on local communities in terms of sustainability can be complex and multifaceted. Organizers should take a holistic approach to assessing the risks and benefits, and develop strategies to mitigate negative impacts and maximize positive impacts. This can include engaging with the local community, promoting cultural preservation and investing in infrastructure development.

Comment: Again ChatGPT offered thorough input for a design thinking fact collection, versatile deep dives where needed seem always possible. We now decided to switch perspective from trade fair organizer to the persona of an exhibitor:

Interviewer: How would you evaluate the opportunity and risks from virtual formats from the perspective of an exhibitor?

ChatGPT: From the perspective of an exhibitor, virtual trade fairs can provide a number of opportunities and also have some risks. Some of the potential opportunities include:

Increased reach: Virtual trade fairs can provide exhibitors with the ability to reach a wider audience, as they can be accessed by attendees from anywhere in the world.

Cost savings: Virtual trade fairs can be less expensive for exhibitors than in-person events, as they do not require travel, lodging, or other costs associated with in-person events.

Flexibility: Virtual trade fairs can be scheduled more frequently than in-person events, and they can be accessed on-demand after the event.

Increased data collection and analysis: Virtual trade fairs can provide exhibitors with more data on attendee engagement and behavior, which can be used to improve future events.

Increased sustainability: Virtual trade fairs can have a smaller environmental impact than in-person events as they do not require travel.

However, virtual trade fairs also have some risks for exhibitors to consider. Some of the potential risks include:

Technical challenges: Virtual trade fairs may require exhibitors to have a certain level of technical expertise and equipment, which can be a challenge for some companies.

Limited interactivity: Virtual trade fairs may not provide the same level of interactivity as in-person events, which can limit opportunities for networking and face-to-face engagement with attendees.

Limited capacity for showcasing products: Virtual trade fairs may have limited capacity for showcasing physical products, which can be a challenge for exhibitors who rely on in-person demonstrations or product trials to generate leads.

Limited audience engagement: Virtual trade fairs may not generate the same level of audience engagement as in-person events, which can limit opportunities for exhibitors to build relationships with attendees.

Difficulty in measuring the ROI: Virtual trade fairs may require different metrics to measure success than in-person events, which can make it more difficult for exhibitors to measure the return on investment.

Overall, virtual trade fairs can provide exhibitors with a number of opportunities, such as increased reach, cost savings, and sustainability. However, exhibitors should also consider the potential risks, such as technical challenges, limited interactivity, and difficulty in measuring the return on investment. Exhibitors should evaluate the potential opportunities and risks and decide whether virtual trade fairs align with their business goals and strategies.

Additional opportunities and risks for exhibitors to consider include:

Virtual product or service sales: Virtual trade fairs can provide exhibitors with the opportunity to sell products or services directly to attendees. This can be done through virtual storefronts, online marketplaces, or other e-commerce solutions.

Virtual Advertising: Virtual trade fairs can provide exhibitors with the opportunity to advertise their products or services to a targeted audience. This can be done through sponsored content, banner ads, pop-ups, etc.

Virtual networking and matchmaking: Virtual trade fairs can provide exhibitors with the opportunity to network and connect with attendees remotely. This can be done through live chat, video conferencing, and interactive sessions.

Limited personal interaction: Virtual trade fairs may not provide exhibitors with the same level of personal interaction as in-person events, which can limit opportunities for building relationships with attendees.

Limited ability to showcase the product: Virtual trade fairs may have limited ability to showcase the product, which can be a challenge for exhibitors who rely on in-person demonstrations or product trials to generate leads.

Lack of ability to create an immersive experience: Virtual trade fairs may lack the ability to create an immersive experience for attendees, which can limit opportunities for exhibitors to showcase their products or services in a unique way.

Limited ability to gauge interest: Virtual trade fairs may have a limited ability for exhibitors to gauge interest in their products or services, which can make it more difficult for exhibitors to follow up with potential customers.

Limited ability to gather leads: Virtual trade fairs may have a limited ability for exhibitors to gather leads, which can make it more difficult for exhibitors to follow up with potential customers.

Limited ability to generate foot traffic: Virtual trade fairs may have a limited ability for exhibitors to generate foot traffic, which can make it more difficult for exhibitors to generate leads and sales.

In conclusion, virtual trade fairs can provide exhibitors with a number of opportunities, such as increased reach, cost savings, and sustainability. However, exhibitors should also consider the potential risks, such as technical challenges, limited interactivity, and difficulty in measuring the return on investment. Exhibitors should evaluate the potential opportunities and risks and decide whether virtual trade fairs align with their business goals and strategies.

Comment: Again this was a very good input for a Design Thinking process. We now decided to go one step deeper and ask a typical question we would during the creation of a Journey Map exercise. We wanted to see wether ChatGPT could really stand in the shoes of a exhibitor persona specifically in the "after event" phase:

Interviewer: What are your main goals and tasks as an exhibitor of a tradefair after the event?

ChatGPT: As an exhibitor of a trade fair, some of the main goals and tasks after the event may include:

Follow-up with leads: The trade fair may have provided the exhibitor with a number of leads that need to be followed up with. This can include reaching out to potential customers and scheduling follow-up meetings or calls.

Measure the ROI: The exhibitor may want to measure the return on investment of their participation in the trade fair. This can include evaluating the cost of participation against the number of leads generated and sales made.

Gather feedback: The exhibitor may want to gather feedback from attendees, staff, and other exhibitors to evaluate the effectiveness of their participation in the trade fair and identify areas for improvement.

Prepare a post-event report: The exhibitor may want to prepare a report on the trade fair, including information on their participation, feedback and results to share with their team and management.

Share the results: The exhibitor may want to share the results of the trade fair with their team and management, and also with partners, suppliers and customers.

Follow-up with contacts: The exhibitor may want to follow up with contacts made during the event, such as attendees, other exhibitors and partners, and schedule follow-up meetings or calls.

Update the CRM: The exhibitor may want to update their customer relationship management (CRM) system with the information gathered during the trade fair, including leads, customer information and feedback.

Evaluate future participation: The exhibitor may want to evaluate whether they want to participate in future trade fairs, and if so, what steps they can take to improve their participation and increase their return on investment.

Share learnings: The exhibitor may want to share their learnings and best practices with other teams or departments within the organization, to help them improve their own participation in trade fairs.

Repurpose content: The exhibitor may want to repurpose the content used in their trade fair booth, such as videos, brochures, and presentations, for use on their website or social media.

Networking: The exhibitor may want to continue networking with other exhibitors, attendees and partners met during the trade fair, and maintain those connections for future collaborations.

Optimize online presence: The exhibitor may want to optimize their online presence, such as their website, social media and online marketplaces, to capitalize on the leads generated during the trade fair.

Overall, the main goals and tasks for an exhibitor after a trade fair can include follow-up with leads, measuring the return on investment, gathering feedback, preparing a post-event report, and updating their customer relationship management system. Additionally, exhibitors should also evaluate future participation, share learnings and best practices, repurpose content, continue networking and optimize their online presence. By following up on leads, measuring the ROI and gathering feedback, exhibitors can gain valuable insights on how to improve their participation in future trade fairs. Additionally, by repurposing content, continuing to network and optimizing their online presence, exhibitors can capitalize on the opportunities generated during the trade fair and maximize their return on investment.

Comment and conclusion: Clearly a Chatbot AI such as ChatGPT is able to stand in the shoes of a real persona and give expert input even along single phases of experience journeys. It can not add very much though to the very important emotional, empathetic part during the early phases of Design Thinking, namely the research and observation phases: It is missing real world experience for the interviewer´s and observer´s own emotional learning. Design Thinkers need empathetic immersion into the challenge to be able to create compelling results during ideation and conceptual phases.

But to our own surprise: We would definitely invite ChatGPT to become an additional expert team member during a Design Thinking process adding content, insights and ideas!

If you are interested in advancing Design Thinking or to discuss your next steps in digital transformation towards a sustainable, intelligent enterprise, contact us to learn about potential ideas for your organisation. Also, please share your feedback or thoughts in a comment below.

Also may I encourage you to follow my profile if you are interested in updates on these topics.

Disclaimer:
SAP notes that posts about potential uses of generative AI and large language models are merely the individual poster's ideas and opinions, and do not represent SAP's official position or future development roadmap. SAP has no legal obligation or other commitment to pursue any course of business, or develop or release any functionality, mentioned in any post or related content on this website.

Creating a Culture of Innovation: The Key to Successful, Continuous Process Transformation

2023-03-14T14:30:09+01:00

As head of SAP AppHaus Network, I have spoken with many business leaders about their process transformation initiatives, which are focused on helping their organizations run faster, be more agile, and operate more efficiently. But usually, conversations quickly shift to their prior process transformation experiences. They share how in the past, they had deployed a promising new technology, but then not much changed. Not much value was realized. They don’t understand what went wrong – and what they can do differently.

SAP AppHaus Heidelberg

When we dig a little deeper, it’s often the same root cause: they used a new technology to automate old ways of working. What they don’t realize is that automating inefficiency doesn’t result in true transformation.

To illustrate, consider a customer we worked with some time ago. They had a mobile team that builds mobile apps for this business. They had uncovered a new opportunity to leverage a mobile application in the manufacturing plant. Inside were massive boilers that had to be cleaned and inspected on a regular basis. For the maintenance teams doing this work, the most frustrating part of the process was completing pages of paper forms to close out the process. The mobile team’s approach was to lead with technology first: “Let’s create a mobile app so they can complete these forms on their mobile phones and just hit submit. Wouldn’t that be better?” And indeed, doing away with paper and capturing data digitally is a big step forward. But it’s not a meaningful transformation – the kind that frees up a lot of time for higher-value work, cuts the time and effort in half or more, and translates into happier, more productive employees.

At SAP AppHaus, we took a different approach: SAP’s Human-Centered Approach to Innovation. It starts with Design Thinking, empathizing with the end user to discover their true needs. As we design and iterate, we combine Design Thinking with Architecture Thinking to create a solution that is experientially desirable, technologically feasible, and financially viable. The interplay between Design Thinking and Architecture Thinking allows you to hit the sweet spot between great user experience and business value.

In this case, we went on-site and talked with the maintenance crews to learn about their work. We watched them put on bright yellow uniforms and gloves, enter the boilers, and come out covered in black crud, head to toe. This was a dirty job, we realized – not a place for a mobile device, let alone paper – and getting out of the boilers faster was a priority for these workers. Then we asked about the forms: What kind of information did they have to enter? Why was it needed? Where did this information come from? And low and behold, we learned that about 90% of the information they entered was just master data that they looked up in the company’s systems. These workers were spending most of their time typing in preexisting master data every time they cleaned and inspected the boilers!

Leading with these human-centered insights, we collaborated with them using Design Thinking to transform this task to eliminate paper and repetitive data reentry. Maintenance crews had direct input into the shaping of this process and how the use of digital technology would work best in the real world. Together, we streamlined the “paperwork” so that the mobile form involved just a few online fields that could be completed on an industrial handheld device. Data entry was reduced from five pages to five fields, and a lot of time was saved for data processing and corrections, which everyone was happy about.

This is the power of human-centered business process transformation that connects user journeys (in this case, the job of cleaning and inspecting boilers) to back-end systems and technologies (like mobile tech) that support processes and data to deliver the desired outcome.

It’s also an illustration of why every business needs to foster a culture of innovation that aligns people, processes, and technology to help grow and improve the business. To this end, we’re seeing SAP AppHaus customers create their own “creative spaces” where interdisciplinary teams can collaborate on how to switch from complex business processes causing major slowdowns (for example, to modern business processes powered by smart automation, intelligence, and instant insight). Anyone can suggest new use cases (in fact, the best ideas come from the bottom up, not the top down) and be a part of leading change.

This approach isn’t just a “nice to have” today – it’s vital to success because top-down initiatives tend to move slowly and struggle with adoption. When empowered employees take the lead and are supported by leader-coaches and partners like SAP AppHaus, which can help teams quickly align user journeys to build solutions with SAP Business Technology Platform and SAP S/4HANA Cloud, successful transformation happens faster, scales easily, and can be updated and maintained over time.

Want to learn more? Join me for an upcoming Webcast, Modernize ERP: Business Process Transformation on April 20, 2023. Joining me will be Paul Saunders (head of strategy for SAP S/4HANA and host), Dee Houchen (SVP product marketing, SAP Signavio solutions), Phil Carter (IDC), and an SAP partner

Register today for the webcast!

How does UX Design help you and your businesses?

2023-04-05T21:19:17+02:00

This blogpost is all about UX Design and the value it brings to companies. It goes on to explain the importance of understanding users and some approaches to gathering requirements as part of user research. Finally, it discusses the process of creating wireframes and prototypes and offers tips for doing so. This is part 1 of my series on UX Design.

What is UX Design?

UX Design – also known as User Experience Design – is the process of designing digital products or services with the focus on improving usability, keeping users in mind. It is not just designing for a product to look beautiful but ensuring that the design allows users go through a pleasant experience to achieving their intended goals.

As a UX Designer, I create products that are intuitive, easy to use and delightful to interact with. It is important to first understand: Who are the users, what problems are they faced with, what are their needs and behaviors and what are their preferences. All this information is crucial to moving onto the next steps of creating wireframes and prototypes. The entire process of creating a truly usable product does not happen overnight – it requires time and effort to be executed adequately. And that is precisely why many companies do not see the need for UX Design/ers. But what they do not know is the true value it brings.

What is the ROI of UX Design?

UX Design is often overlooked by companies due to the lack of resources. Time and budget constraints limit a company’s resources to implement UX design. It is often sacrificed because it is misunderstood as a process that is “unnecessary” and “redundant”, and gets in the way of the development process. Companies tend to go right into product development to only realize in the end that that is not what customers want. This not only brings major rework and effort, but it also puts the brakes on the entire development process.

According to a study by Forrester, every dollar invested in UX brings, on average, 100 in return. This amounts to an ROI of over 9,900%.

UX Design, while often overlooked, is the key element in the entire product design process. It is all about making the lives of our users simpler. If the product is doing what it should be doing for the users – solving their problems – in an easy and efficient way, it is giving the ROI you need.

How to do UX Design?

1. Understand users

Since UX Design is all about bringing better user experience in a product, it is important to understand what challenges the users are facing and what their expected outcomes are. Then, not only will you be able to create a product that solves their problems, but also provide a seamless experience for them. Without understanding users, the entire design process will just be filled with assumptions and guesses.

There are a few ways where you can gather such information.

Interviews

This is one of the fastest and best ways to understand your users. It is where you sit down and have a 1:1 conversation with each of the users, asking them questions about the problems they are currently facing and what their goals are. Face-to-face conversations are extremely useful because you get to observe their verbal and non-verbal responses.

Focus Groups/Workshops

There are typically 5-8 participants in a focus group or workshop. This is where you have a discussion all together about their frustrations and feelings with a problem or an existing solution/product. You can make it more interactive by creating an activity-based discussion using a User Journey Map during workshops. The User Journey Map is a great tool for visualizing the process a person takes to achieving his/her goals.

Online Surveys

Online survey is a great way to gather information from a large group of users – it is also one of the most cost-effective ways. You can easily create a survey from online tools such as Wufoo, Google Forms or Jot Form.

2. Create Wireframes and Prototypes

Here is where you map all your ideas based on the information that you have gathered with wireframes and prototypes. We start off with a wireframe first – a low-fidelity wireframe. Low-fidelity wireframes are basic sketches of the initial visual representation you have for the actual product or website. It helps to give you an outline of the structure of the components (headers, images, text, space) intended for the website and layout of the pages. Once you are done with a low-fidelity wireframe, you can move onto putting in colours and images, creating an interactive prototype for users to test at a later stage.

What is important about wireframing and prototyping is that they are highly iterative. This means that you will not get the actual product on the first go, but you will have to redesign it again and again as you work closely with your users, to understand and uncover issues as you go.

There are a few approaches that can help you create iterative wireframes and prototypes.

Paper Wireframes

Paper Wireframes are extremely cost-effective and easy to use. You only need a piece of paper and pen – these two tools are comparatively cheaper than all the other software that would have been used to create wireframes. You can sketch wireframes in minutes and if not satisfied, you can simply scrap it off and re-sketch. Everyone understands paper wireframes and so, there is no limit to one’s tech savviness and everyone can participate.

Prototyping Software

If you are looking to create wireframes and prototypes that are more interactive, making it easier to envision the actual product, you can look into prototyping software such as Figma, Adobe XD and InVision. With prototyping software, your users can click through the pages and see animations in response. You can also add in elements like images, colours, typography and iconography easily and users are able to get a feel of how the actual product would look like.

SAP Build Apps

SAP Build Apps is a low-code/no-code application development software that is designed for anyone to create applications, regardless of role or skill level. This is a development tool but it is also another tool that you can use to create prototypes with the easy-to-use drag and drop interface. What I like most about SAP Build Apps is that it offers a way for users to preview mobile-based prototypes on actual mobile phones. This allows for more accurate usability testing results, where you can evaluate how end-users use the product, their behaviors and interactions, and if they can successfully navigate through the app, on an actual device. With prototypes created on SAP Build Apps, you can easily deliver your designs to the development team to immediately carry out the next steps, without having to reconstruct the entire design.

Conclusion

UX Design helps you and your business grow better. It is an essential part of creating successful businesses. It helps to ensure that your customers have positive experiences while interacting with your brand, which can lead to increased engagement, loyalty, and revenue. Whether you are a designer, a developer, an architect, a blogger or someone in an entirely different field, you can learn UX. It is important for us today to learn and acknowledge the value of UX Design, and adopt a mindset that places people before design, so that we can create solutions that solve problems for people, solutions that meet the needs of our users.

In the next blog, I will be showing you how I go through a UX Design phase with SAP Build Apps.

The UX Innovation Summit - An In-Person SAP Community Event in Bengaluru

2023-04-20T20:59:31+02:00

You are cordially invited to the UX Innovation Summit - an SAP Community event.

In the last couple of decades, user experience has changed tremendously as technology has evolved. Evolution based on these technological changes has helped SAP customers design processes and applications to make the life of users simple and exciting.

In this UX Innovation Summit, we would like to have active discussions, in the SAP Community, on how innovation using SAP and design thinking can help build solutions that exponentially enhance a user's experience.

Target Audience: Enterprise Architects, Technical and Functional Consultants, SAP Developers, Project Managers, and UX Designers for SAP projects

Cost: Free

Venue: Mindset Experience India, WeWork Galaxy, 43, Residency Road, Shanthala Nagar, Bengaluru - 560025

Agenda: Keynote Panel session: The importance of innovation for UX moderated by Parvathy Sankar with Leaders from SAP Partners, Customers on the panel.

Other sessions throughout the day:

Demo Track by SAP and Mindset (Sessions on; The All New Extended Situation Handling in S/4HANA; Business Process Automation; SAP BTP Mobile Services; Plant Maintenance Apps; Material Movement)

Track 1: Design Thinking (Coordinated by Jill Murray, Mindset Consulting)

Session 1: Design Thinking 101 - What, How, and Why | Description: In this session, understand the concept of design thinking. We will explain what it is, how it's done, and the business benefits.

Session 2: Beyond Design Thinking | Description: With Human Centered Design at the heart of everything we do at Mindset, come and learn more ways UX can influence business-driven outcomes with various UX activities.

Session 3: Design Thinking - Roll up your sleeves, let's do some work | Description: An interactive session to learn about the foundation of human-centered design and determine opportunities for your organization to implement these methodologies.

Track 2: SAP S/4HANA (Coordinated by Robb Neuenschwander, Mindset Consulting)

Session 1: How to Deliver a Great User Experience with SAP S/4HANA | Description: Discover best practices and recommendations to optimize your organization's user experience with S/4HANA.

Session 2: Discover Top Innovations in S/4HANA | Description: Learn how S/4HANA delivers exciting business innovations that drive value in process effectiveness and user efficiency.

Session 3: Warehouse Management 101: EWM and Stock Room Management | Description: SAP offers a variety of capabilities to manage warehouse operations. You can learn about the options available and how you might choose which your organization should use.

Track 3: SAP BTP (Coordinated by Abhilash Gampa, Mindset Consulting)

Session 1: Key features of SAP Build WorkZone Advanced Edition | Description: In this session, we will explain the capabilities of SAP Build WorkZone Advanced Edition and its usage.

Session 2: SAP Build Process Automation a working demo | Description: In this session, we will show the combined capabilities of the Business Process Automation toolset with a live demo.

Session 3: Understanding SAP Business API Hub | Description: This session will show the usage of Business API Hub and its capabilities with the integration options.

Track 4: Technology (Coordinated by Mahesh Palavalli, SAP, and Krishna Kishor Kammaje, ConvergentIS)

Session 1: SAP BTP Strategy and Overview - Speaker: Rajeev Gollapudi, SAP

Session 2: Choosing Fiori Elements and Freestyle: What? Why and How? | Description: When embarking on a Fiori project, one crucial decision is whether to build a freestyle application or a Fiori Elements App. But how do you determine which option best fits your project? Who are the stakeholders involved in this decision-making process? - Speaker: Krishna Kishor Kammaje, ConvergentIS

Session 3: SAP BTP Reference Architectures with Hyperscalers | Description: SAP's multi-cloud strategy is not only for running workloads on hyperscalers but also for building innovative solutions leveraging services from SAP BTP and Hyperscalers. Learn how to combine and create interoperable applications with SAP BTP and Hyperscalers - Speaker: Ajit Kumar Panda, SAP.

Register For the Event Here

UX Innovation Summit - Event Schedule

Register For the Event Here

Celebrating Women Creators: How BTP Experience Designers Solve Big Problems

2023-04-27T00:01:17+02:00

In recognition of World Intellectual Property Day 2023 -- and this year's theme of celebrating women creatives -- I want to detail below a huge problem that I handed the BTP Experience design team and provide an in-depth interview with two of our team's female creators, Wendy McGrath and Lara Valenti, who solved it. Added to this, I extracted a few takeaways on how best to work with design teams. Read on....!

To kick off, we need a big heading about the big problem…

THE BIG PROBLEM

One of my duties as Global Communications Director for the Experience team of Business Technology Platform (BTP) is to edit our quarterly newsletter, The Fist Bump. We distribute it via email with links to articles and special features on an internal portal.

According to our latest metrics, the most popular regular feature is Movers & Shakers, which introduces new colleagues to the organization. Before launching our newsletter last year, our research indicated that our people just love to read about other people -- not only technology-related topics -- and we've found this to be true in practice.

In a typical quarter, we might include up to a dozen people in the section. Entirely manageable in terms of effort and portal real estate.

However, here comes the problem: In our latest edition, we had to introduce a staggering 50+ people! Not so manageable…

How does a humble newsletter display 50 new names, faces and biographies? That is, without resorting to some kind of giant doom-scroll list. Or worse, an eye-poppingly ugly spreadsheet?

I certainly didn’t know.

Thankfully, I am lucky enough to work with several excellent design colleagues in the Operations and User Insights Centre of Excellence at BTP Experience.

So, I set them the task instead!

In essence, this is the problem that I dropped on their laps:

Hi Design Team - Please add tons of new people to the Movers & Shakers section, ensuring that the solution is elegant, doesn’t take over the whole portal, and really helps readers get the essence of every new colleague at a glance. Best of Irish luck!

Easy, right?!

If only there were some kind of process that an SAP design team could follow...

And there is! For this task, the team cycled through the various stages of the Design Thinking process, which is used by SAP designers to tackle big challenges.

THE SOLUTION

The Movers and Shakers section of the BTP Experience employee quarterly, The Fist Bump

The solution met all my expectations, and then left my expectations behind, to head for the stars. I thought it was beautiful and hugely effective.

Our normal neat list was turned into an interactive experience. For privacy reasons, we cannot show how all the people were displayed on the page, but the GIF at the top of the article shows how the elegant mouse-over reveals the bio beyond the profile image.

The solution also encourages readers to actively seek out information on their new colleagues because the photo-flip feature is such fun to use.

But enough from me, let's get some insights from the people who worked on the solution...

DESIGN TEAM INTERVIEWS

Taking up the story are the following super-talented colleagues, who both work on the Fist Bump newsletter as part of their many, many duties:

Wendy McGrath, UX Experience Manager & Communications Expert

Lara Valenti, UX Designer & Art Director

What was the biggest issue you had to overcome?

Wendy: "The sheer number of people and how the heck we were going to display them in a way that didn’t overwhelm the audience."

Lara: "Introduce all of our new colleagues, and make the solution easy to understand. Also, we wanted to add a joyful component to make the many pieces of information easily consumable. A technical limitation in our internal portal, over which we had no control, disrupted the flow a little. That was another problem to get around."

What was your timeframe?

Lara: "I'm not sure -- I've forgotten. Or have I blanked it out?"

Wendy: “It was four weeks. Tight for such a big job. So maybe Lara did blank it out!”

What methods and inspirations did you use to create the solution?

Lara: "Simply put, I combined several methods and inspirations. We already had this fun mouse-over effect on another portal page to display team names. However, this page only showed images -- in our solution, we wanted a text section with a biography after the image flipped over. Added to this, I discovered lovely sources of inspiration for team portraits while browsing smaller business and agency websites.

Who did you rely on for assistance?

Wendy: “We asked all the content contributors from the various teams across BTP Experience to gather all the names, images and biographies. A lot of text and pictures to work through.”

Lara: “Colleagues Carl and Dagi did the UI design work to implement the technical side of the solution on the portal. Writers James and Lukas shortened the text, and sub-editor Susanne double-checked that all names and bios were associated with the appropriate profiles.”

Wendy: “We had a small problem where colleagues didn’t provide a photo or a bio -- what do we display? Designer Viola had an idea. She created cute placeholder illustrations in keeping with designs elsewhere in the newsletter. This was incorporated very nicely into the design.”

As a user experience expert, what feelings did you experience yourself while trying to solve the issue? Any frustrations?

Lara: "Perhaps before I start working on a big task, I might feel anxious and tense. But when I'm actually working to solve a problem, I don't suffer negative emotions. I get absorbed in the work and find it enjoyable.”

What made you certain that your idea was the right one?

Wendy: “We went through a number of iterations, and at every stage, Editor-in-Chief Colin provided his notes. He was our in-house first-time user.”

Lara: "The Communications team provided good feedback before publication -- and after publication, we heard nice things from readers, who are mostly other designers. This convinced us that our solution was the right one. You might think you have a good solution, but the user is the only one who can tell you this, really.”

How important is positive feedback to you after good work?

Lara: “Honest feedback, rather than simply praise, boosts me the most. This is because it enables me to assess where my work stands, and aids in my personal development. It lets me know where I am strong and where I can improve.”

What did you learn overall?

Lara: “It's wonderful to collaborate in interdisciplinary teams. We share knowledge and work on a project with people who have very different skill sets, which is needed to make the project come together. I'm always happy when working with others with different skills, rather than working alone.”

Wendy: “A second pair of eyes, preferably of a designer, is vital. I’m often gobsmacked by what these folks see – one pixel off and they can’t live with it.”

5 KEY TAKEAWAYS ON HOW BEST TO WORK WITH DESIGNERS

Below is what I learned from working with the design team on this project:

Experienced designers should work on more complicated problems.

Designers think and act from the user's point of view. That is a great context in which to discuss ideas -- how best the solution will help the user.

Designers should be encouraged to work directly with team members with other skill sets, plus of course with other designers, rather than designing in a vacuum.

Set a high bar for quality. With clear direction, a good designer will meet it, and then some.

Honest critiques are one of the most important ways for a designer to improve. Note that we steer clear of value judgments of the work in our team to focus on what is best for the user.

I hope this is of use to you in your own design team work. Feel free to offer your own tips or experiences below on solving problems. Unless, of course, that causes a problem for you…

Coach's Corner - What Questions Do You Have?

2023-06-05T17:19:09+02:00

Is there such a thing as asking a bad question?

Well, according to the teachings of Confucius, "The person who asks a question is a fool for a minute, the person who does not is a fool for life." What this tells us is that questions should be asked, because they help us gather information and gain knowledge, satisfy our curiosity, and helps us avoid making wrong assumptions. I'll take it one step further to say that asking questions is a fundamental skill in communication, because it lets others know we're interested and we're listening. By asking questions to those we engage, we are helping to build trust and strengthen the relationship.

However, not all questions are the same, meaning they offer different value depending on the situation. In coaching, where the value of questioning is to help our clients reflect and explore options, and decide on the appropriate actions that will help them achieve their goals, the question and how coaches ask it is paramount. I think you'll also agree that in all other walks of life there is such a thing as asking a better question.

Questions to avoid:

Low-value: "How are you?" My apologies if I've asked you this well-meaning, but useless, question before. This is a superficial question because most of the time, the person asking the question doesn't expect an insightful answer, and therefore the person who answers the question doesn't offer anything truthful or insightful.

Absolute or Leading: "Why do you always do that?" Using absolute terms like "always" or "never" puts others on the defensive, and this is not a good position to encourage others to share information. These questions restrict how others can answer, and how receptive you will be to their answers.

Self-Qualifying: "Does that make sense?" Questions like this make the speaker seem uncertain of what they just said. Worse, it makes the listener doubt whether they fully understood or appreciate what they were just told.

If you catch yourself asking these types of questions, ask yourself: How can I reduce or prevent myself from doing this? What alternatives can I use to accomplish my goal?

Better questions are:

Easy to understand. Try using simple and basic terms so others know what you're asking. Keep your questions short and succinct. Even 2-word questions like "What's next?" can be very impactful. Note 'easy to understand' doesn't mean 'easy to answer.' 🙂

Open to different answers. Curiosity drives learning and innovation, and is the 'appetite of our minds.' Without making assumptions or expectations, there is a time for Yes-No questions, and an even better time to be delighted by whatever response we get back.

More valuable for the person who answers the question. Coaches are trained and motivated to help their clients discover insights, revelations and self-enlightenment, and they do this by asking powerful questions. Perhaps everyone else doesn't need to be this dramatic, but adopting the coaching-mindset in our everyday lives through the practice of prompting pause and reflection can be a wonderful gift to others. "What haven't you thought of yet?"

The simple but powerful action of being impeccable with your words (from Don Miguel Ruiz' The Four Agreements) means we have a choice to either make a large or small impact on others. I advocate making a big impact by intentionally choosing the words we use to communicate with others. Crafting the questions we ask is a wonderful way of honouring those with whom we engage.

Let me know in the Comments section below: What is your most powerful question?

Related Coach's Corner posts:

Coach's Corner - How Did You Do That?

Coach's Corner - Words Matter

Coach's Corner - Curiosity is Courageous

Check out more blog posts in this series: Coach's Corner.

On the significance of a shared vision in software engineering

2023-06-16T12:55:40+02:00

When I read Sapiens A Brief History of Humankind by Harari a few years ago, the importance of a Shared Vision was one of the many things that stuck with me from it.

The most important insights I took away: a shared understanding is essential for people to work together in larger groups. This common vision is very powerful, but also fragile. For example, money, religions, states, corporations. These exist "only" in the human imagination. Not true? Then try to explain it to a dog. But the same is true for humans: some people share their understanding of them, others do not.

The relation to software development is obvious: when planning a new software or further developing an existing software, a vision of what should be developed has to be developed and the development team with different roles has to work together to make the vision become reality.

When planning a new software system, the first thing to do is to get different perspectives together and develop a common vision. One way to do this is to use Design Thinking to bring together Desirability (customer perspective), Viability (business perspective) and Feasibility (technology perspective).

In my department we document this common understanding in a Vision&Scope document. By means of this document, the common understanding is recorded. This makes it more stable - a shared vision is fragile. Additionally, it makes the shared vision shareable. Typically, in the planning phase only a few people are involved, for the implementation the vision has to be shared with all participants.

Is Design Thinking Still A Thing? My First DT Workshop At SAP

2023-06-22T17:58:44+02:00

Is design thinking still relevant? That's a question I recently found myself pondering. As a concept that's been around for a while, it can sometimes feel like just another buzzword. So, when Denise Wildner, my teammate and design thinking expert, mentioned there were spots open in an upcoming workshop, I saw it as the perfect opportunity to put design thinking to the test. Given Denise's excellent skills as a facilitator, I knew I was in for an informative and engaging experience.

Innovation is the key to any successful business. But, how do we ensure that our innovations truly meet the needs of our users? The answer lies in design thinking—a user-centric approach to problem-solving and idea generation (for more details on design thinking, I’d recommend reading Connecting Head-Heart-Hand).

Many leading companies, including Apple, Airbnb, IBM, Google, and of course SAP, have incorporated the design thinking approach into creating solutions that are perfect for us.

Diving into the Design Thinking Workshop: A Three-Day Journey

Day 1: Breaking the Ice and Charting Our Course in 360° Research

The workshop kicked off with a virtual meet-and-greet. With about 40 participants and 11 coaches, all having their cameras switched on, the atmosphere was exciting. It's not every day you see so many faces on an online call!

We were divided into teams and guided by design thinking coaches. Our task was to design the future of work at SAP in 2026 for SAP User Assistance (UA) and UX employees. Our team focused on User Assistance Developers.

We first needed to get to know the team and understand the challenge at hand by brainstorming and discussing the key phrases. Topics such as flexible work, automation, AI, customer contact, and stakeholders were mentioned.

We then moved on to creating an interview guide, focusing on open-ended questions to gain empathy for the end user.

Some questions we had:

Their typical tasks at work

Their pain points

Things they love doing

How do they stay in contact with customers

Whether they are familiar with AI tools (AI was a recurring topic in this workshop)

We felt nervous before the interview. What if we didn’t ask the right questions? What if our interviewee is shy? Fortunately, our interviewee, Tanja Wingert, a seasoned UA Developer openly shared her thoughts and experiences. In total, our group conducted 3 interviews, as we needed a substantial amount of data.

Day 2: Building Personas and Sparking Ideas

On the second day, we synthesized our interview findings into "golden nuggets"—key insights that would guide our design process. Some of the nuggets included:

“More customer contact”

“Improving tools to support the documentation process”

“Improving communication between UA and developers”

“Automate manual exhaustive tasks

“More space for creativity”

The need for creativity got me thinking. If repetitive tasks were automated, authors would have more time to craft creative ways to share knowledge, which in return would be more beneficial for our customers.

These insights were used to create a persona, a fictional character representing our user group. Our persona, Avo, a 45-year-old senior UA Developer, helped us empathize with our users and understand their needs and frustrations better.

Next, we formulated a problem statement: "How might we help Avo, a busy and experienced senior user assistance developer who struggles with communicating clearly with his developers, build a reliable framework for collaboration?" This statement guided our brainstorming session, where the real fun started.

One of the brainstorming exercises is a brain dump. You write down all your ideas—even those that seem unrealistic or silly—on sticky notes. There’s no judgment, and you only have 5 minutes.

On the first day, our group started off reserved, which initially made spontaneous discussions challenging. Yet, the workshop exercises soon ignited our creative energy. I learned that the coaches strategize to enhance teamwork, and their methods indeed sparked our idea generation. By the end, our diverse team was buzzing with vibrant discussions and innovative ideas.

Day 3: From Dream to Reality - Prototyping, Validating, and Iterating

The final day was all about bringing our ideas to life by creating a prototype of our solution. We could use Scenes by SAP AppHaus, which included sketches of characters, speech bubbles, and backgrounds, but we could also draw or insert images from the internet. Creativity knew no bounds.

Before regrouping, we learned how to pitch our prototype using storytelling techniques. We only had about 5 minutes to convince the audience of our persona, problem statement, and solution!

We then presented our prototype to the other participants. It was fascinating to see the diverse range of solutions other teams had come up with. Audiences asked questions making it feel a bit like being part of an episode of Shark Tank, only less intimidating.

The Verdict: Is Design Thinking Still a Game-Changer

Is design thinking still relevant? Undoubtedly. The workshop underscored its enduring importance in innovation. It highlighted the necessity of understanding users—their needs, their struggles—before even laying your hands on code. Global leaders' continued use of this strategy affirms its enduring relevance.

The session also showcased how collaboration and iteration on others' ideas could spark innovative concepts.

We recognized in our closing discussion that quality development requires time. However, by focusing on users' needs, design thinking can save time and resources in the long run. Despite the constant pressures of competition, a balance must be found.

We're not just creating services and products to have a market presence but to meet people's needs. This is why addressing their needs and easing their pain points is vital.

The workshop was just the start. Denise shared more methods within design thinking that can be applied to our daily lives. This approach allows us to understand a problem deeply and create a solution, rather than react blindly. Plus, fostering empathy can greatly improve the world.

In conclusion, design thinking is more than relevant—it's a vital tool for problem-solving in business and beyond.

Thanks to Design Thinking Coaches, Participants, and Interviewees

My heartfelt thanks to the knowledgeable design thinking coaches at SAP, whose expertise and dedication ensured a smooth, engaging learning experience. Equally, the unique insights and collaboration from my fellow participants brought the workshop to life, making it a dynamic and rewarding journey. I also appreciate the interviewees, who kindly shared their time and insights, enriching our design process.

I’m looking forward to the next workshop!

Coaches:

Denise Wildner
John Julian
Viktoria Klement
Johannes Hefft
Mengbing Guo
Carsten Schmitt
Michael Kronfeld
Annika Gonnermann
Petia Nikolova
Florian Schnarr
Benjamin Kelsey

Enhance Existing Process Map

2023-07-18T06:58:48+02:00

A couple of years ago my former team and I faced the issue that we had to enhance an existing solution with additional functionality. The issue was that said solution spanned from Financial Transaction Creation, Maintenance, Valuation, Posting and Reporting with all the steps in between like Correspondence and such and we had to make sure that the required features are reflected in each of those steps – if required that is. But how to figure out which feature requires adaptions in which steps? How to make sure that the adaptions we do are correctly reflected in the following steps?

To overcome that challenge, I tried to figure out a tool that could help us to collaboratively visualize and work on the process. As a result of that the Enhance Existing Process Map tooling was created.

The target of the activity is to have technical and functional experts working together to make sure no required enhancement within the process is missed. Unlike User Story Mapping it is specialized towards enhancing an already existing complex solution.

Working on the Map should not be seen as a one-time activity, but instead it can be initially used for finding required changes, then for release planning, during the development phase to add missed points that were not spotted so far, and for testing as input on test scenarios and where to look for effects of the done changes.

Result of the activity would be a map that could look like below.

We see on it the different process steps and Features. Mapped to each of them is what we think needs to be done.

CHANGE means that we are certain, that for this feature we require to change something within the process step.

CHECK means that we are not quite certain, that for this feature we require to change something here but need to investigate it in more detail.

VALIDATE means that within this process step we should see some change in data as of our changes in a previous process step.

NEIGHBORHOOD means that we need to interact with a fellow team to make sure that dependencies between teams are managed correctly and activities are planned jointly.

Color coding those findings helps keeping it structured. Therefore, using different colors for the four types of findings makes sense.

But how to get to this map? I would suggest following those steps:

Gather technical and functional experts of the process and wished feature (Product Owner, Solution Architect, Technical Architect, Business Analyst, no matter how the roles are called in your organization)

Together write down the different process steps in the order they occur within the overall process.

Together list all the features that should be added within the process.

Together go through each individual process step for each individual feature and ask yourselves the following questions:
1. Do we have to change something here? If so, briefly describe the required CHANGE and stick it to the Map. If we are not sure, briefly describe why we need to CHECK and stick it to the Map.
2. Can / Should we validate some result of our change within this process step? Meaning do we expect that because of a change we do some behavior / data is visibly changed here? If so briefly write down what can be VALIDATED here.
3. If we are working in a bigger program with several teams or streams, we should also think about the neighborhood. Meaning: Do we know about dependencies? Are they working on data that we are about to change? Or do we require data from them? If so, we should also note that down and add that to the NEIGHBORHOOD.

In my experience when working on the Enhance Existing Process Map you will find additional steps while walking through the process. Especially if you do it for multiple features at once. In that case no worries. Add the just found step and after finishing with the current feature return to the features you already worked on and make sure to again ask yourself the above questions for the newly found – maybe also here relevant – process step.

Also try to not discuss whether a CHANGE is required or not. When in doubt simply add a CHECK note and follow up on it.

What do you think about the Tool?
Something you will give a try?
Personally, I think it gives you another option when looking for a suitable tool to gather requirements and while I would always prefer User Story Mapping over the Enhance Existing Process Map in a greenfield approach I think it is valid in its niche of brownfield process enhancements.

Advancing Sustainable Business Practices Through Sap Responsible Design and Production

2023-08-03T11:14:19+02:00

In the age of sustainability, it is important to consider how we can design and produce products responsibly and maintain Circularity . Sap responsible design and production is an important concept to consider, as sap-based production is an increasingly popular option for businesses and consumers alike. Sap responsible design and production can help to reduce environmental impacts and ensure that products are produced ethically and sustainably. This blog post will explore the concept of sap responsible design and production, the benefits of this approach, and the challenges of implementing it.

In this series I will publish blog on following products,

SAP Responsible Design and Production

SAP Sustainability Control Tower

SAP Product Footprint Management/ Sustainable Footprint Management.

SAP Sustainable Data Exchange

SAP Green Ledger

Overview

By utilizing SAP Responsible Design and Production, businesses can contribute to the health of
the planet and people, as well as increase their profits and customer loyalty. It is a
comprehensive system that helps companies create responsible and sustainable products. With
SAP Responsible Design and Production, businesses can make a positive contribution to the
world and have a long-term impact.

SAP Responsible Design and Production three types of business users are necessary

Administrator

Packing Expert

EPR Expert

Features

Data Replication: Based on the Requirement of the reporting from SAP S4 HANA using the API we can import the below mentioned data or using excel sheet file import we can do the import of this Data from any other system

Configuration data

Organization data

Customers

Products

Deliveries

Packaging elements

Packaging compositions

Material documents

Suppliers

Batches

Using the Configuration Cockpit app, you can create your own replication configuration to push data from an SAP or a third-party system to SAP Responsible Design and Production.

Viewing Data Quality Issues: As a part of the process we would need master data to be integrated to SAP Responsible Product Design and Production So as a part of the Process when the master data like Material , Batch, Packaging Material gets imported to the SAP Responsible Product Design and Production there can be issue with the master data setup and this data issue needs to be solved before we can proceed to the reporting

This View Data quality issue App is the providing us with the information what is the issue with the master and based on that either Packaging Expert can fix those issue's

Data Quality Issues App

Packaging Data/ Packaging Composition: Packaging Material Data is one of the important data that form the basis of the EPR reporting so the Packing Material need to be imported from the SAP S4 HANA or 3rd Party application . So the import of Packaging Material brings with it import characteristics of the material such as Weight , dimensions, type of material ( Plastic, Cardboard, Paper) .and UOM which is one of the important parameter as costing of the material for the Plastic taxes applicable .

Next important data element is the packaging composition which actually links the all the packaging material and groups the same type of packaging into same group which ease out the Plastics tax calculation

This packaging Composition can be created in SAP Responsible Product Design and Production using the App : View and Manage Packaging Composition

E.g Kraftpaper and the attributes define that it has

Color	Brown
Width	18 inch
Height	28 inch
Length	18 inch

Reporting: Based on the Reporting Categories which are already pre-filled by SAP we can choose to activate the Reporting category as per requirement . Based on the that we need to configure the Report with information like Report Name, Validity , Plant or company code ,delivery types and responsible user who can access the report , based on this information the report will the extracted for the organization

Then we need to activate the report and Run the report . Data in the Pre-filled format as per the PRO can be extracted in excel format .

EPR Dashboard

The following EPR reports are available as pre-filled reporting categories from SAP .

Country/Region	Report
Canada (Ontario)	Blue Box
France	Citeo
Germany	Dual Systems
Italy	CONAI EPR Report Form 6.2
Netherlands	Afvalfonds Verpakkingen

Conclusion

To summarize SAP Responsible Design and Production mapped Packaging Material to product ,tracked Product deliveries to various countries pulled relevant EPR data definition and automatically calculated the fees completed the necessary paper work to comply with local law. It focuses on the concept of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) can be simply put as "producer must pay" for the costs of collection and treatment of products after use. Under existing EPR schemes in many countries worldwide, producers of goods must declare the EPR-relevant volumes of different materials that they use in their products and packaging. Depending on the country, there are different reporting and fee structures, and this makes EPR very complex. Producers cooperate with a single or multiple PROs depending on the country/region. SAP Responsible Design and Production makes it possible to generate EPR reports. An EPR report provides the data that can then be entered into an EPR declaration, usually on the PRO's website.

5 ways User Experience Drives New Business

2023-08-10T19:28:23+02:00

User Experience (UX) is a domain that goes beyond the visual. It's more than just how something looks. At its core, UX develops empathy for end-users. UX designers leverage a methodology to build digital solutions that are easy to use and bring joy. UX can also be used in various facets to drive business adoption. In this post, I'll talk about five scenarios that help identify UX opportunities to drive new business and increase software adoption.

5 Ways UX Drives Business Adoption

Scenario 1: Improve Processes within Organizations

Have you ever worked on a project that required sharing an Excel sheet? Do you remember how difficult it was to ensure it remained up to date? Many of the world’s largest organizations manage elaborate and complex processes through Excel. The main problem here is a lack of digitization and a central source of truth. UX designers can help bring together stakeholders and guide them through exercises and workshops to gain a high-level view of the processes at hand. We’re experts at facilitating and identifying areas in a business that need process improvement. We then guide customers towards digitization.

Scenario 2: Get Started with Innovation

Have you ever been on the brink of a new idea but struggled to articulate it? Maybe there’s a new sector or technology that you’re passionate about but remain unsure on how to get started. UX designers bring new ideas to reality. A designer can sit with a product owner to translate their ideas into user flows (steps of a process), wireframes and user interface screens. We iterate until we end up with a workable and clickable prototype. Suddenly, you’ve gone from a concept to a real-world solution (a product). UX design is a low cost and low risk way to get started with innovation.

Scenario 3: Digital Transformation and Brand Recognition

In addition to helping companies overcome the challenges of manual processes, UX designers can steer organizations toward adopting new technologies and digital transformation (like Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence, etc.). Working with functional and technical consultants, designers walk customers through different business canvases (templates) to identify areas for transformation. In terms of brand recognition, UX designers focus on improving the usability of a company’s products, thus increasing positive brand sentiment. Consider a company like Apple, that has a tremendous amount of brand recognition for its easy-to-use products.

Scenario 4: Get to Market Quickly

Have you ever been involved in the development of software that didn’t go as planned? Perhaps the solution was difficult to use, or it didn’t meet the needs of your customer. You may have had to go back to the development phase with change requests that were costly and took time (while missing deadlines). UX design avoids these pitfalls by addressing them at the beginning of the software development cycle. Through our design methodology, including user research, wireframing and prototyping, we take an iterative approach that captures the customers feedback throughout. This results in fewer change requests and streamlines the development process, which ultimately means you’ll go to maker quicker. Not to mention, by involving the customer earlier, they are left with few surprises.

Scenario 5: Adoption and Usability

Have you ever developed a piece of software that took months to coordinate, plan and build, only to find that none of the end-users have adopted the solution? Or have you ever built a piece of software and found that for most users it was difficult to use, or even confusing? These are examples of low adoption and bad usability. Apple is famous for creating products that are easy to use and highly adopted. Ultimately the role of a designer is to use their toolkit to create world-class experiences for end-users of software. This means going through our methodology and ensuring that the real needs of an end-user are met.

Summary:

Keeping an eye out for the above five scenarios is an excellent way to drive new business with UX. Design is more than what something looks like. It’s an entire methodology that when applied correctly can drive results and increase business. Use the hints above and keep this list top of mind so that you can help your customers drive new business, improve their brand, and become design centric.

SAP S.C.A.L.E. in New Zealand

2023-08-15T01:41:43+02:00

The first SAP S.C.A.L.E. event happened in New Zealand on the 11th and 12th July 2023. The event stretched over 2 days with the first day at the SAP AppHaus Partner location of Datacom and the second day at the SAP offices in the City of Sails, Auckland.

What is S.C.A.L.E....? It is the SAP Cloud Accelerated Learning Experience, which embodies SAP's and it's partners' approach to on-boarding and engaging with young talent in our local markets.

Day 1 of SAP S.C.A.L.E. was hosted at the Datacom offices in Auckland.

It was awesome to be engaged and surrounded by some of the great young brains and solution experts from our local universities.

#datacom is proud to be the local partner who is championing this with #sap New Zealand. We welcomed the students to our amazing offices and covered how they could advance into the SAP ecosystem through early career planning and on-boarding with SAP or an SAP Partner like Datacom.

The topics for the 2-day event covered #designthinking, #sapbuild, #sapanalyticscloud and sustainability solutions to solve challenges with local public transport, food availability and affordable shelter for the people of Auckland.

Awesome to see the great ideas as the teams tackled sustainability and ESG challenges in our region around - Public Transport, Food Security and Homelessness.

Day 2 of SAP S.C.A.L.E. was hosted at the SAP offices in Auckland.

I loved the fact that each team was willing to take on a challenging topic and ideate around some great solutions. Kudos to the teams that built working prototypes and the mock-ups were fantastic, considering the short time line to work on framing the challenge, identifying the key pain point, working through a LEAN Canvas exercise and then providing a pitch for their solution or idea, along with either a wireframe or demo.

For many students, this was their first experience of what the Datacom SAP AppHaus is all about - solving "wicked problems"! The innovative solutions and thinking behind the team presentations showed us that there is a depth of talent coming through.

Well done to Team FABify (Fix Auckland's Buses) with their creative solution, gamification content and route planner. And a great effort from all the other teams as well, as each of them had to answer some challenging questions from the 4 judge panel.

Am looking forward to the next SAP S.C.A.L.E. event and more bright, young minds joining SAP!

Embracing the Circular Economy: A Paradigm Shift Towards Sustainable Prosperity

2023-08-24T07:49:09+02:00

Introduction

The Circular Economy, often hailed as a groundbreaking solution to the growing environmental crisis, has emerged as a guiding principle for businesses and industries worldwide. This innovative approach emphasizes system design, waste reduction, and sustainability as key components of a holistic business model. In this article, we will delve into the core concepts of the Circular Economy, highlighting the importance of system design, eliminating waste, integrating circular principles into core business processes, leveraging digital technology, and the steps companies can take to transition to a circular framework. Lastly, we will explore the road ahead as we collectively strive for a more sustainable future.

Pic credit: Circular Economy Guild

1. System Design: The Foundation of the Circular Economy

At the heart of the Circular Economy lies the concept of system design. Traditional linear economies follow a "take-make-dispose" model, where resources are extracted, transformed into products, and ultimately discarded as waste. The Circular Economy, in contrast, prioritizes system design that keeps resources in use for as long as possible. This means designing products, services, and supply chains with the end goal of reuse, refurbishment, remanufacturing, and recycling in mind.

2. Designing Out Waste: The Key to Sustainability

One of the central tenets of the Circular Economy is the elimination of waste. In a circular system, waste is not seen as a byproduct but as a valuable resource waiting to be reclaimed. Companies are encouraged to minimize waste by designing products for longevity, easy disassembly, and material recovery. This shift towards a waste-free approach reduces environmental impact, conserves resources, and often leads to cost savings.

3. Core Business Processes: Aligning with Circular Principles

To truly embrace the Circular Economy, businesses must integrate circular principles into their core processes. This entails reevaluating everything from procurement to manufacturing, distribution, and customer engagement. Companies should adopt practices like closed-loop supply chains, product-as-a-service models, and take-back programs. By doing so, they not only reduce their ecological footprint but also create new revenue streams and enhance customer loyalty.

4. The Role of Digital Technology

Digital technology plays a pivotal role in the Circular Economy. It enables businesses to track and trace products throughout their lifecycle, optimize resource use, and enhance the efficiency of waste management. Technologies like the Internet of Things (IoT), blockchain, and data analytics empower companies to make data-driven decisions that support circularity. AI helps in rapid prototyping & testing and speeds up the design process.

5. Becoming Circular: Steps for Companies

Transitioning to a circular business model may seem daunting, but it is a necessary step for sustainability. To become circular, companies should:

a. Conduct a Circular Economy assessment to understand their current practices and identify areas for improvement.

b. Redesign products and services with durability, recyclability, and reparability in mind.

c. Implement sustainable sourcing practices, prioritize recycled materials, and reduce reliance on virgin resources.

d. Collaborate with stakeholders, including suppliers and customers, to create closed-loop systems.

e. Invest in digital technologies that enable better resource management and circular process optimization.

6. The Road Ahead

As we move forward on the path to a Circular Economy, collaboration and innovation will be key to duccess. Governments, businesses, and consumers must work together to create an enabling environment for circular practices. This includes incentivizing circular design, establishing regulatory frameworks, and raising awareness among the public.

In conclusion, the Circular Economy represents a transformative shift in our approach to resource management and sustainability. By prioritizing system design, waste reduction, circular business processes, and digital technology, companies can not only reduce their environmental impact but also unlock new economic opportunities.

As we collectively embark on this journey, the road ahead is one of promise, where environmental stewardship and economic prosperity go hand in hand in a truly sustainable future.

Exploring the Intersection of Design Thinking and Life-Centred Design

2023-09-24T19:36:31+02:00

In a world full of complex challenges, where global issues such as climate crisis and social injustice demand innovative solutions, the confluence of Design Thinking and Life-Centred Design offers a promising approach. A passionate group of Design Thinking coaches recently gathered at the SAP AppHaus in Heidelberg to explore this intersection. We felt the compelling tension between our inherent desire to be user-centred and the deep realisation of the broader system at play.

Zoom In with Design Thinking

We started the workshop by introducing our challenge, which could be approached from a human-centred as well as a systemic perspective. Once everyone had the same understanding of the scope, we jumped straight into ideation. Ideally, we work with existing Personas that have been synthesised in previous research phases.

SAP Design Thinking Process

In the ideation phase of the workshop, we explored a wide range of ways to approach the problem from the perspective of the Persona. Some of the ideas that emerged already considered the wider impact of potential solutions on ecosystems, communities and the planet. We realised that taking a step back from our relentless pursuit of user benefits could lead to more sustainable solutions.

Zoom Out with Life-Centred Design

Life-Centred Design expands the scope of responsibilities for the longer-term health of all life, society, and our planet. It offers a holistic perspective to understand relationships across interdependent technological and living systems.

Principles of Life-Cented Design

We explored the current reality and emerging future possibilities using a 4D Mapping embodiment practice. The process started by looking at the challenge from a meta-perspective and collecting the main stakeholders of the system. Each stakeholder was then represented by a participant who made a shape with his body, expressing a quality of that role.

Once all the roles had been embodied, the participants were able to adjust their position, level or direction in the space to make it more accurate to the current reality. From there a movement in the sculpture emerged representing a possible future.

The practice helped us to examine our assumptions, intentions and the complex interplay of our actions within the larger system. Participants and observers were able to witness changes in the system and the dynamics that drove them.

System Innovation Canvas

We used the insights we gained in the 4D Mapping to populate the System Innovation Canvas which provides a structured five-step approach to envisioning a future with sustainable impact:

1. Problem Space: Identifying the issue requiring systemic change

2. Key Factors: Understanding the factors causing and affected by the issue and their interrelations

Society: Demographics, Family Living Patterns, Lifestyles, Education

Technology: Technological progress, innovations

Economic: Levels and distribution of economic growth, industrial structures, competition, finance, micro and macro economics

Environment: Sustainability, climate change, pollution, resource depletion, biodiversity

Politics: Political viewpoints, (in)stability, regulatory roles, lobbying, legislation

Values: Attitudes, preferences, culture, social relations, mental modelsIntervention Points: Identifying opportunities for interventions.

3. Intervention Points: Identifying opportunities for interventions

4. Solution Space: Determining the capabilities needed to implement impactful interventions

5. Desired Future State: Visualizing the desired future state resulting from these interventions

System Innovation Canvas

Conclusion

In the workshop, the fusion of Design Thinking and Life-Centred Design allowed us to move effortlessly from a human-centred perspective to a systems-thinking mindset and back again. This fluidity aligns perfectly with the core principles of Design Thinking, which encourages us to oscillate between broad exploration and focused execution. We have found that Design Thinking and Life-Centred Design can work seamlessly together as partners on the journey to creating a better future.

Originally published on my blog imagium.de

EMEA South Innovation Task Forces '23 Case Study

2023-10-11T22:23:46+02:00

Blended learning to maximize employee engagement and value creation

Have you ever participated in the dreaded 'death by PowerPoint' ritual? You all know the one I'm referring to, when a 'teacher' or 'expert' reads off the slides word-by-word without looking once at the audience, pausing to gauge for understanding, or even attempting to break the boredom with an activity or two. Perhaps this is not the best way to retain the attention of the audience.

Have you ever attended a team-building exercise where you spent the day playing mini-golf, building a racecar from cardboard, or solving the code of an escape room? Sure, it was loads of fun and great to get out of the office. But you may have wondered how it was relevant to your day-to-day role. Perhaps it would have been more effective to link the activity's outcomes to the team's objectives.

Have you ever been invited to a design thinking workshop and enjoyed the experience of scribbling on post-its, designing personas, mapping customer journeys, and building prototypes - only to be informed that there were no resources (people, technology and finances) to bring your idea to life. Some industry experts refer to this as 'innovation theatre' - where an enterprise just ticks off the boxes that they 'did' innovation, but there was no real value creation or real-world execution. Perhaps it would have been more impactful to ensure alignment, support and buy-in from key stakeholders in the organization.

When we designed and pitched the idea for a regional innovation task forces program in Q1 '22, we aspired to develop a structured program that utilized multiple tools, frameworks, and modalities to maximize impact for the participants and value for the enterprise. We had several objectives in mind:

To provide an opportunity for employees from across Southern Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA South) to directly support and co-create value around the three strategic pillars identified by our President.

To design a blended learning experience that enabled co-creation and leveraged proven tools from learning, design thinking, coaching, remote facilitation, and project management,

To align our team efforts with the organization's goals and secure a commitment to see these ideas through to execution (if they met the selection criteria.)

When we kicked off phase one of the program, more than 100+ participants from across our region expressed their interest in participating. Their engagement led to the creation of fourteen innovative value propositions that resulted in five high-fidelity validated solutions being brought to life to bring value to the organization, our customers, and our partners.

The program was designed to complement and enhance the participant's learning outcomes whilst ensuring a constant focus on value creation. We leveraged several distinct approaches to achieve this outcome:

Personalized Video Content: it was essential to build interest in the program and link to the three strategic pillars identified by our President. We used customized video messages from our three executive sponsors. This strengthened the campaign and allowed potential participants to understand the challenge space further.

Informative calls: these calls were designed for the whole group of participants. They were used to communicate details about key milestones, share messages from sponsors, align on OKRs and introduce essential mindsets/tools required for success.

Masterclasses: these interactive engagements were co-created in advance with the participants and allowed them to suggest topics they wished to learn more about. In response, we invited subject matter experts to share their insights on the topic and answer questions from the participants related to their specific challenges. It was no longer a one-size-fits-all approach like in the informative calls but had a level of personalization that supported the task forces with their particular challenges.

Design thinking workshops: we designed a standardized MURAL template based on best practices from our experience working with customers, partners, and internal stakeholders. We identified and enabled a community of twelve design thinking coaches who facilitated expert workshops over six weeks, leading the participants from discovery to ideation, to value proposition design. In these remote workshops, the role of the coach/facilitator was to support the task force to achieve their desired outcome without contributing to the content.

Pitch calls: at the end of the ideation phase of our program, the fourteen task forces pitched their final value propositions to a steering committee comprised of members from our regional leadership team. Their pitches were reviewed, and an anonymous scoring system was devised to enable us to consolidate the results to move to the execution phase.

In addition to the blended learning approach explained above, we also focused on core 'team' skills that were essential to the success of the program:

Execution team: the execution phase required essential 'skills' to be present in the task force to successfully deliver a functional prototype. We ensured that there was a clear understanding of roles and responsibilities, which included tasks like attending weekly SCRUM calls with the project manager (which was also a new role created for the execution phase), preparing weekly status and RACI reports, conducting research & testing, building prototypes, and most importantly aligning their value proposition with existing SAP initiatives.

Experts and specialists: we also brought in several experts and specialists (e.g., BTP expert, data scientist, and creative designer) to support the task forces in developing their final solutions and ensure a level of fidelity that demonstrated the functionality of the solution.

Project managers: we also identified and recruited a project manager for each task force that made it to the execution phase. This was essential for the program's success because we now had a single point of contact for each team who could communicate key milestones core deliverables and 'rally the troops' when needed. It was also very valuable to have the PMs in our weekly SCRUMs (one representing each of the finalists) and have a holistic view of the status of the teams, share updates and learn from each other.

When we first designed the program, we were adamant about bringing these solutions to life and ensuring they can grow and thrive within the enterprise. The program was designed to have two main convergence points. The first was at the end of Phase One, where we consolidated the ideas, agreed on which ones to take forward, re-formulated the teams based on their expertise and consolidated the value propositions based on desirability, feasibility, and viability. The second was at the end of Phase Two, where we aligned with internal stakeholders to develop execution plans to bring the solutions to fruition.

As an outcome of our leadership's trust and belief and as a testament to the team's great teamwork and disruptive thinking, we are happy to report that all five solutions are either being piloted, have received support from our global teams, or have been partially integrated into existing solutions that are in our '24 roadmap.

Through this combination of stakeholder-centric design, blended learning, and program management, we have increased employee engagement and maximizing learning outcomes while creating value for the organization.

"Knowledge is not power, but it is the understanding, and the application, of knowledge that truly unleashes our potential as individuals, teams and organizations."

Navigating the AI Landscape: A UX Designer's Guide

2024-02-14T11:01:22.387000+01:00

Introduction

As we stand on the brink of a technological revolution, AI is reshaping the way we interact with the digital world. I'm here to share my insights regarding this evolving landscape, offering observations into how AI, machine learning, and other related technologies can enhance our work in UX design.

Brief Overview of AI and ML

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the overarching concept of machines carrying out tasks in ways that we consider 'smart'. It's a broad discipline aimed at creating systems that can simulate various aspects of human intelligence. Machine Learning (ML) is a subset of AI, focused on algorithms that enable machines to improve at tasks with experience. Think of AI as the universe of intelligent computation, with ML being a planet within it.

Deep Learning, in turn, is a subset of ML. It involves neural networks with many layers (hence 'deep') that can learn and make intelligent decisions on their own. Deep Learning has been instrumental in achieving significant breakthroughs in areas like image and speech recognition.

Then come Foundation Models, a recent development in AI. These are large-scale models (like GPT-3) that are trained on vast amounts of data and can be adapted to a wide range of tasks without being specifically trained for them. They are called 'foundations' because they provide a base layer of understanding that can be built upon for various applications.

These technologies are interrelated, forming a hierarchy from broad to specific. AI encompasses everything intelligent that a machine might do. Under AI, ML is the method through which machines learn from data. Deep Learning is a further specialization of ML with a focus on complex, layered neural networks. And Foundation Models are the cutting-edge, versatile systems pushing the boundaries of what AI can achieve.

Generative Pretrained Transformer (GPT) and Transformer Architecture

GPT, or Generative Pretrained Transformer, is a type of language processing AI. It's built on the Transformer architecture, which is revolutionary in the way it handles data. Traditional models processed data sequentially, one piece after another. The Transformer, however, allows for parallel processing, looking at entire sequences of data at once. This is done through mechanisms called 'attention' and 'self-attention,' letting the model weigh the importance of different parts of the input data and learn the context more effectively.

GPT takes this architecture and applies it to language, learning to predict the next word in a sentence. It's trained on a vast corpus of text and then fine-tuned for specific tasks. This pretraining is what makes it 'generative' - it can generate text, not just understand or classify it.

Inception of Generative AI

Generative AI came into existence as a natural progression from earlier AI models that were primarily discriminative. While discriminative models could classify and understand data, they couldn't create new data. The inception of Generative AI marked a shift from understanding to creation.

This shift was fueled by advancements in neural networks and an exponential increase in computational power and data availability. Researchers began exploring how neural networks could not only recognize patterns but also use those patterns to generate new, similar data. This exploration led to the development of models like Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) and Variational Autoencoders (VAEs), and eventually to large-scale models like GPT.

Integrating Reinforcement Learning with Human Feedback

Adding to this is the concept of Reinforcement Learning with Human Feedback (RLHF). This approach trains AI systems not just on static datasets but on dynamic feedback loops. It’s akin to teaching a pet new tricks: the AI tries different strategies and, based on human feedback, learns which actions are desirable or undesirable. This human-in-the-loop methodology ensures that the AI’s learning trajectory aligns more closely with human values and preferences, making it particularly potent for personalization and adaptive learning scenarios.

Incorporating RLHF into the design of AI systems compels us to consider not just the initial user interaction but the ongoing relationship between the user and the AI as they adapt and learn from each other over time.

Various Approaches to AI

Understanding the various approaches to AI can be daunting, but it's crucial for harnessing its full potential:

Symbolic AI: Based on the manipulation of symbols and rules, this approach tries to mimic human reasoning.
Probabilistic AI: Focuses on using probabilities to make predictions and decisions.
Statistical AI: Uses statistical methods to infer patterns and make predictions.
Large Language Models (LLMs): These are trained on vast datasets to understand and generate human-like text.

Each approach has its strengths, and knowing which to apply can significantly impact the success of a project.

How Are Models Trained?

AI models are trained using large datasets. They learn by recognising patterns and making associations. For instance, an image recognition model might learn to identify cats by being shown thousands of pictures of cats and not-cats. Over time, it improves its accuracy through a process called backpropagation, where it adjusts its internal parameters to minimize errors.

AI and Design

In the realm of AI, as designers, we're tasked with shaping a human-machine relationship that is continually evolving. Unlike traditional design, where interactions are fixed, AI-based design involves a fluid, ever-changing dynamic. Non-AI systems interact in a consistent, unchanging manner. However, AI systems learn and adapt over time, leading to a constantly developing relationship.

As both the machine and humans learn and adapt, they engage in a reciprocal learning process, forming a dynamic feedback loop. This loop is characterized by an ongoing exchange of information, with both parties growing and adjusting to the interaction. Our role as AI designers is to foster effective communication within this vibrant human-machine relationship.

In this context, data becomes the pivotal element. Previously, data interaction was straightforward — a user command followed by a machine response. With AI, data is the foundation of learned behaviours, informing the machine and shaping its growth. Here, data inputs are about educating the machine with information, not just instructing it. Conversely, machine outputs are no longer fixed; they have generated responses that necessitate explanations of how the data led to a particular conclusion.

As designers, we are charged with orchestrating these interactions throughout the entire data lifecycle. This includes the initial data capture, guiding the machine's learning process, designing clear and understandable data outputs, and ensuring a seamless flow of information back into the system for continued learning. Our responsibility extends beyond creating interfaces; it's about crafting experiences that support this rich, ongoing dialogue between humans and AI, ensuring clarity, transparency, and a mutual growth trajectory.

A comparison can be drawn from the days when selecting a movie at a DVD store involved browsing aisles for a favoured title or relying on a recommendation from a salesperson. In contrast, platforms like Netflix now curate suggestions tailored to our tastes, informed by our viewing history.

Designers find themselves at the intersection of innovation, with three distinct yet interconnected realms to explore:

1. Designing with AI: Crafting Alongside AI

Designers are now partnering with AI in a collaborative dance of creation, where the output is a fusion of human ingenuity and machine efficiency. Imagine the synergy of a designer working with AI to conjure up ground-breaking architectural structures, much like Autodesk's venture in utilizing generative design principles to conceive their Toronto office. Here, AI becomes an ally in the creative process, providing new perspectives and solutions that push the boundaries of traditional design.

Moreover, designers harness AI to streamline repetitive tasks, freeing up creative energy for more complex challenges. Tools like Airbnb's system for transforming sketches into digital wireframes or Netflix's algorithm for adapting graphics across different cultures exemplify this trend. These innovations signify a new era where AI does not replace the designer but rather amplifies their capabilities.

2. Designing for AI: The Human-Centric Design Approach

Designing for AI requires a human-centred lens, focusing on crafting systems that prioritize user needs and experiences. It's about spotting those unique opportunities where AI can not only function but flourish in addressing real-world problems. Here, the designer's role transcends aesthetics, venturing into the realm of functionality and utility, transforming user needs into data-driven AI solutions.

Human-centered design makes AI effective. These are some ways:

1. Beyond Interfaces: Embracing Human-Centered Design in AI Algorithm Development

UX can aid in designing algorithms that mirror the decision-making processes humans employ, by considering their information, goals, and constraints. It can ensure that the decision environment, which encompasses both the algorithm and its human users should be thoughtfully constructed. Users should comprehend their AI tools well enough to use them effectively. Designers also aid in establishing guidelines and business protocols that translate algorithmic predictions into actionable insights, advising when human intervention is appropriate to supplement or override the AI.

2. To Translate User Needs into Data Requirements: A designer can aid in identifying the type of data necessary for training the model, considering various factors like predictive power (A percentage that refers to an ML model’s ability to predict outcomes given a certain input correctly), relevance, fairness, privacy, and security. Ensure the training dataset is comprehensive, reflecting the real-world scenarios the AI will encounter, and free from biases.

3. Knowing the source of the data & Tuning the Model: Evaluating data sourcing and collection methods for their suitability of the project is critical. Once deployed, A designer will assess if the AI meets the target user’s needs as per predefined success metrics. Provide feedback on adjusting the model’s parameters as needed to enhance its performance, focusing on metrics that reflect user experience, such as customer satisfaction or the frequency of users following the AI’s recommendations.

4. Addressing Bias, Fairness, and Transparency: UX designers can help analyze data with an understanding of the domain, Goal definition, possible and required outcomes and the process that generated it. This leads to designers being a crucial part of designing algorithms that are mindful of the environment they will operate in, avoiding controversial predictors. They aid in conducting usability tests or audits to detect and eliminate unintended biases.

5. Managing the Handoff in AI Systems: Designing for smooth transitions between AI and human control in situations demanding common sense or contextual understanding is very important. The accountability for any action in the real world still lies with human users as over-reliance on technology can leave users unprepared for instances where AI fails, necessitating more skilled human intervention. A UX designer can analyse such situations and will aid in designing smooth handoff processes.

6. Designing Reward Functions and leveraging User Feedback for Model Improvement: Designing the AI’s reward function is critical as it influences the user experience significantly. User feedback is essential in refining AI models and enhancing user experience. Designers analyse and optimize the reward data to enhance the model for long-term user benefits and anticipate the downstream effects of your product. This also allows users to contribute to the personalization of their experiences, thereby increasing their trust in the system.

7. Anticipating Errors and Designing Response Pathways: A Human-centred design prepares your AI system to facilitate user responses to inevitable errors, turning them into opportunities for learning and improvement.

8. Educating Users and Setting Realistic Expectations: Designers help communicate the capabilities and limitations of your AI product to customers. Help users develop accurate mental models and understand how their interactions train the system. It’s essential to balance user trust, avoiding both undue scepticism and over-reliance on AI.

9. Guiding User Trust in AI Systems: Users need to adjust their trust in AI systems appropriately, rather than relying on them implicitly in every situation. The phenomenon of 'algorithm aversion' is well-documented, where users may be sceptical of software systems. Conversely, there are instances where users place excessive trust in AI capabilities, expecting more than what the system can deliver. Designers help users develop a balanced level of trust, aligning with the system's actual capabilities and limitations by taking a human-centred approach.

For instance, openly acknowledging the potential inaccuracies in AI predictions can temporarily reduce trust in those specific outcomes. However, this honesty can foster a more sustainable trust in the long term. Users become more judicious in their reliance on the system, reducing the likelihood of disappointment due to misplaced expectations."

3. Designing of AI: The User Experience Frontier

When it comes to the design of AI, it's about envisioning and sculpting the interactions between AI systems and their human users. It's a space where new forms of engagement, like voice-activated assistants or image recognition software, become gateways to enhanced user experiences. The key challenge here is transparency: designing interfaces that not only serve but also educate. Users should be able to grasp, with just the right level of detail, how AI systems make decisions and learn over time.

An example could be the intuitive dashboards in our cars that provide real-time insights into the vehicle's AI, or the smart home devices that learn our preferences and conversationally explain their actions. These are no longer scenarios from a sci-fi novel; they are today's design challenges that call for a blend of technical knowledge, user empathy, and creative foresight.

In essence, the designer's canvas has expanded, not just in size but in dimensionality. As AI continues to intertwine with our daily lives, it invites designers to step into roles that are as diverse as they are dynamic, shaping not only how AI looks but also how it behaves and interacts in the fabric of human experience.

Understanding the Limitations of AI in UX Design

Incorporating AI into UX design comes with distinct limitations that underscore the irreplaceable value of human insight and direction.

1. Hallucinations and Reliability

AI "hallucinations" refer to instances where a model confidently generates an incorrect response. These can be caused by inconsistencies within a large data set or errors in the model's training methodology. In fields where precision is critical, such as financial reporting or legal documentation, these inaccuracies can introduce significant risks. Combatting this requires robust document structuring and advanced prompt design techniques to direct AI towards more dependable outcomes.

2. Prompt Sensitivity

Large Language Models (LLMs) are highly sensitive to user input. The nuances of how a prompt is phrased can lead to varied and unpredictable responses. This sensitivity necessitates a careful and strategic approach to prompt engineering, ensuring that the AI's responses align with user intentions. The evolving role of "Prompt Engineer" is a testament to the significance of crafting prompts that steer AI toward delivering consistent and accurate results.

3. Context Window

Limits The context window, the amount of information an AI can consider when generating a response, is a notable constraint. As the context window expands, so does the computational complexity. Despite improvements like GPT-4's extended context window, there remains a ceiling to the volume of data an AI can process at a time. This limitation is particularly challenging in tasks that require the review of extensive documents, where the AI must understand and analyze large quantities of text. Designing for AI in UX thus requires a thoughtful balance between the AI's capabilities and the complexity of the tasks it is expected to perform.

Things Designers Should Know Before Designing for AI

Technical Knowledge

Grasping the basics of data science and AI techniques like NLP and deep learning.
Basic Understanding of the AI toolchain and DevOps processes for AI development.
Access to clean data set.

Ethics in AI

Integrate ethical standards into the design and development process, ensuring accountability, fairness, and transparency.
Navigate GDPR/compliance mandates and be mindful of the financial and human impacts of design decisions.

Collaboration is Key:

Work closely with data scientists and engineers to understand the technical aspects and constraints.
Foster a shared vision across multidisciplinary teams and participate actively in the AI development lifecycle.
Engage in design thinking activities tailored to AI and address the needs of diverse users.

AI Strategy

Develop and communicate a user-focused AI strategy, explaining barriers to adoption and the business and user benefits.
Articulate your company's AI strategy, differentiators, and the journey toward AI success.

Designing AI Interactions

Translate AI model outputs into understandable insights for users and design interactions that capture human input for machine learning.
Prototype and test AI solutions frequently, and design for various stages of the AI lifecycle, such as model maintenance and data collection methods.

User Trust and Transparency

Build trust by making your AI interactions transparent and understandable.

In conclusion, AI is not just a tool but a new frontier in design. By embracing it, we can create more personalized, efficient, and engaging user experiences. Let's embark on this journey together, continuously learning and adapting to ensure technology serves humanity in the most beneficial ways.

Resources to Refer :

Generative AI at SAP: https://open.sap.com/courses/genai1
AI Ethics at SAP: https://open.sap.com/courses/aie1-1
Designing for Generative AI: https://experience.sap.com/internal/fiori-design-web/generative-ai-design/
Designing for Intelligent Systems: https://experience.sap.com/internal/fiori-design-web/designing-intelligent-systems/
SAP AI community file: https://www.figma.com/file/SJh2Eb5KrBIbaK3Bo2wqtq/AI-UX-Pattern-Community-Explorations?type=design&node-id=737-200772&mode=design
AI Design Community Teams Channel
AI Design Community Exploration File
Prompt Pattern Presentation Figjam

Building Intelligent Enterprise by Adopting AI, Design Thinking, and Enterprise Architecture

2024-02-26T08:52:31.130000+01:00

AI holds immense potential to transform enterprises and businesses, with a projected global market size of $190 billion by 2025 according to Statista. However, according to a report by McKinsey, only 8% of enterprises have successfully scaled AI initiatives across their departments, processes, and business lines. This highlights the need for a structured framework and ways of working that can guide enterprises in integrating AI effectively.

Enterprise Design Thinking is a human-centered mindset and approach to innovation that emphasizes empathy, creativity, and iterative prototyping. By applying Enterprise Design Thinking principles, enterprises can better understand the needs and expectations of their customers and employees, internal and external stakeholders, leading the development of more impactful AI solutions.

Furthermore, Enterprise Architecture provides a blueprint for aligning an enterprise's business and IT strategies. By incorporating AI into their enterprise architecture frameworks, enterprises can ensure that AI initiatives are closely aligned with their overall business objectives. According to a survey by Deloitte, 69% of enterprise architecture programs have started incorporating AI into their strategies.

To effectively integrate AI, Enteprise Design Thinking, and Enterprise Architecture, enterprises can follow a light four-step framework:

Define and Frame the Problem: Begin by identifying a specific enterprise/business challenge or opportunity that could benefit from AI. Use Design Thinking principles to empathize with stakeholders and gain a deep understanding of the problem. Then using problem framing to frame the right problems to solve within enterprise.
Design the Solution: Use Enterprise Design Thinking to ideate and prototype potential AI solutions. Focus on creating solutions that are user-centric and align with the enterprise's overall strategy.
Integrate AI into Enterprise Architecture: Develope a detailed adaptive strategy and plan for integrating the AI solution into the enterprise's existing architecture. Consider factors such as data integration, security, and scalability.
Monitor and Iterate: Continuosly monitor the performance of the AI solution and gather feedback from users. Use this feedback loop to iterate and improve the solution over time.

By following this light framework, enterprises can ensure that their AI initiatives are not only technically sound but also deliver tangible business value. By combining the power of AI, Design Thinking, and Enterprise Architecture, enterprises can build intelligent enterprises that become more agile, innovative, and stakeholder-focuses.