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Intro: Welcome to the E6S-Methods podcast with Jacob and Aaron, your weekly dose of tips and tricks to achieve excellent performance in your business and career. Join us as we explore deeper into the practical worlds of Lean, Six Sigma, Project Management and Design Thinking. In this episode number 147, we interview Design Thinker, Lauren Miller, about her application of Design Thinking to allow diabetes patients and doctors to take better control of their care. If you like this episode, be sure to click the "like" link in the show notes. It's easy. Just tap our logo, click and you're done. Tap-click-done! Here we go. http://bit.ly/E6S-147 Leave a Review! http://bit.ly/E6S-iTunes

*** Diabetes and Design - Lauren C. Miller ***

Healthcare projects are amazingly complex and riddled with details, insurance and provider complexities, technical constraints, and just general workarounds for patient and provider alike. I’ll try my best to summarize without getting stuck in the details.

I Lauren C. Miller bio: Lauren manages large-scale strategic projects from initial problem definition and scoping through to execution and analysis. Working primarily on digital innovation projects, she leverages a unique combination of her traditional business background and Design Thinking methodologies. In her 10+ years as a consultant, she has been passionate about leading cross-functional teams with a common vision towards impactful outcomes. After leading customer experience design and transformational change projects for clients such as Nike, Dexcom, Abbvie, FedEx, and United Airlines, Lauren became curious about how powerful those skills are when pointed inside a company. This is her next career pivot as she completes a MS in Organizational Learning and Change at Northwestern University. Lauren grew up in a small coastal town in Rhode Island, received her BS in Business from the University of Connecticut, and has grown her career in Boston, Seattle, and Chicago. She is a lover of food and cooking, all things design, and is a foster home to homeless dogs through PAWS Chicago.

a. LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurencolette

b. Medium https://medium.com/@laurencmiller

c. Instagram Lauren_Colette

II Dexcom came to us as they had IP based on a way to track glucose and insulin levels, but needed to really innovate. The problem they were facing is how to make extraordinarily complex data:

a. (1) very easy to read for the typical diabetes patient and

b. (2) be streamlined and smart enough for physicians to use.

c. Survive under extreme competition

III Diabetes data is more about consistent patterns, but an extreme outlier can be fatal (hypoglycemia). Need to give simplicity to complex data

a. Allow self-serve health data so patients can take control without daily doctor intervention.

b. Allow Primary Care Physicians (PCPs) to analyze data easily during regular health visits

i. Diabetes care landscape is moving away from specialists (endocrinologists)

IV Design Thinking approach/methodology- using the classic model of 3 overlapping circles:

a. Desirability (do people want it) -

b. Feasibility (can we make it) -

c. Viability (can we make a business model out of it)

d. More about the process here: https://www.ideo.com/work/human-centered-design-toolkit/

V Design Thinking In Context (Diabetes Health Data)

a. really understanding the problem from the users. the process is a highly collaborative approach with the client stakeholders and SMEs. In short, it’s all about the users

i. involves research directly with users,

ii. synthesis of research insights,

iii. concepting

iv. co-creation research,

v. design refinement,

vi. usability research, and more. At each stage of

VI The stages for this project are outlined below:

a. Foundation- learning the industry

b. “Empathize” stage -Exploratory Research & Ethnography

i. visited patients, PCPs, endocrinologists, and caretakers IN CONTEXT.

ii. Observe how the users live with diabetes every day and interact with their diabetes data inside and outside of their doctor appointments.

c. Research Synthesis - “Define” stage

i. find patterns in data

ii. develop insights - often reframe of the problem

iii. craft Guiding Principles for design (How Might We…)

d. Initial Design - “Ideate” stage

i. • sketches, concepts

ii. • brainstorming - no holds barred, all ideas welcome

iii. • mood boards - also called style tiles

iv. • low fidelity line drawings or sketches of product ideas

v. • plan research for next phase

e. Co-Creation Research & Design Refinement

i. work with users in context to develop ideas together

ii. users build upon it and interact with the concepts

1. low fidelity prototype is present (like a paper prototype)

iii. ITERATE! go back with those insights learned and refine the design

f. Usability Research - High fidelity user testing; (validation)

VII Lessons learned from consulting on this engagement

a. Users are the experts, not the manufacturer or company behind the product

b. Balance bringing clients along the ride and doing heads-down work - develop trust for each other’s expertise (large leaps of faith) - This process is a major change for most organizations.

c. Tell a story - the only way executives listen

d. Be ready to say Educate clients in this new way of thinking -

i. get them comfortable with “we don’t know yet” - this is the whole point of research

ii. “what if we could…” or “why don’t we try it and see what the users say”.

iii. “small band aids” don’t reveal long term innovation or impactful work.

Outro: Thanks for listening to episode 147 of the E6S-Methods podcast. Stay tuned for episode 148, where we talk "Turkey..." "Too Much Turkey, Boomers!" with author and career coach, Marc Miller. Don't forget to click "like" or "dislike" for this episode in the show notes. Tap-click-done! If you have a question, comment or advice, leave a note in the comments section or contact us directly. Feel free to email me "Aaron", aaron@e6s-methods.com, or on our website, we reply to all messages. If you heard something you like, then Clammr and share it. Don't forget you can find notes and graphics for all shows and more at www.E6S-Methods.com. "Journey Through Success. If you're not climbing up, you're falling down." Leave a Review! http://bit.ly/E6S-iTunes

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