Do you ever find yourself having the same conversation multiple times and wondering why you aren’t making any progress? Often, it is because there is a lack of understanding about the topic at hand or alignment around the vision. Architecting the experience of products, understanding processes and designing flows are some of my favorite things to do. There is nothing like getting lost in the complexity of a challenge and figuring out how to pull together all of the pieces.
Flows and conversations go hand-in-hand because it gives people a way to see and follow the discussion to fully grasp the subject. They are also great for testing what you or others think you know – and where the gaps might be. I can’t count how many times we’ve gotten to a point in a conversation where the team (myself included) have said “Huh, I didn’t think about that”. If we were already off the the races building a product a lot of time and resources would have been burned before we had that “ah-ha” moment.
Always start with flows. I incorporate flows at various stages in my work wether the project is big or small. Flows come in all kinds of shapes and sizes and have all kids of names. User flows, process flows, service blueprint, journey map, etc. They’re all flows, and they all have important purposes that center around understanding an experience from point A to point B. Use flows – flows are your friend.
Did I mention I love flows? Here is just a collection of different kinds of flows across various projects.
