Cecilia Weckstrom

Bruce Temkin’s kind words about one of the tools we use to design experiences at LEGO really cheered me up today – this tool was something I developed together with my dear friend and colleague Richard Stollery -  in response to the challenge of how we could systematically engage people at all levels of the company to become partners with us on the quest to improve the experience people have whenever they come into contact with LEGO.

The process we developed actually comes in three parts – where the first phase, the NOW is about becoming the user yourself and faithfully logging the current experience in as much detail as possible. This is essential for unlocking empathy in the organisation for users and the willingness to implement the changes needed. The second phase is about identifying the priorities that by fixing, would make the biggest change or improve the experience the most,  and the third part, the WOW, is about unlocking innovation in all parts of the organisation to creatively address the priorities from phase 2 and imagining the ultimate (wow) experience.

Experiences are tricky because at the heart of them are intangible things – feelings and emotions, but these often arise from very practical things. Frustations abound when we aren’t treated the way we expect we should be and equally, when our needs are anticipated and addressed, creating a positive surprise – we are wowed, as simple as that.

Why it is so important that you as an organisation embark on this yourself, and don’t outsource the experience design and development to others – is that you really need to live and breathe it. Employees are in the best place not only to resolve the problem, but innovate around it as well as keep a continuous focus on this, the greatest differentiator between companies – where know-how really has to be internalised, and innovation perfected to maintain the leading edge.

It has to become part of the culture, and through using tools like the Net Promoter Score to follow up if progress is being made, makes everyone accountable not to each other or bosses above, but to the very people that keep a business afloat: its customers. I’ll not delve further into the tool mentioned on Bruce’s blog – but instead encourage you to read his blog post.