Transforming business areas through the principles of design thinking

Further on, the need to map the profile of the innovation leaders inside the company gave the team, once again, the opportunity to apply the methodology, but they didn’t stop there. They decided to share the mindset and the tools learned with the Vice President of People at VIVO to fly higher by replicating this knowledge to all business areas, in order to educate them to solve their problems.

Practicing empathy and adopting a personalized approach for each business area, they realized design thinking was essential, however, for the areas to deliver their initiatives successfully (going from thinking to doing), a clear view of their key objectives and results were needed. So, they combined design thinking, OKR objectives and key results, and agile to come up with the Integrated Management Solutions. OKR was applied to ensure strategic alignment, design thinking to find solutions, and agile to transform all of this into reality.

HR Business Partners usually have a close relationship with business managers, so the team realized they could become powerful multipliers to disseminate best practices throughout the company. When this story was shared they were about to start executing this plan. 94 HR business partners and leaders from business areas will be trained. The goal is to make these 94 HR business partners impact 140 directors, 1500 business leaders, and 33,000 employees. It may seem bold, but the team that calls itself “status quo rebels” could not aim for anything less!

The cultural transformation to embrace innovation comes from many sides. I have already seen big movements started in Sales, in Marketing, in Technology, but this one that has started in HR seems to be the most effective not only to fly higher but also to fly further. This story was shared by Leilane Borges and Aline Azevedo during the Design at Business community meetup in June 2020.