open apis for digital financial services: using design thinking...

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Open APIs for Digital

Financial Services: Using

Design Thinking Training to

Craft Regulation

Amitabh Saxena

Managing Director, Digital Disruptions

June 29, 2018

Maputo, Mozambique

Agenda for Today

Introduction to APIs

Introduction to Design Thinking

Design Thinking Phases + Exercise

Key Takeaways and Close

2Design Thinking Training Digital Disruptions ©

What is an open API?

Design Thinking Training Digital Disruptions ©

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Application Programming Interface:

A technology connection so that one software can “talk” to another (handshake), often to retrieve data

“Open” API simply means it is for public use

An example from financial services: Mint.com


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Behind the scenes, apps like mint.com use APIs to pull data from various sources.


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The Payment Service Directive II (or PSD2 for short) has provided a new set of regulations for Europe.


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The directive allows third-party firms to come between a customer and their account.


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These third parties have access to a range of APIs.


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Open APIs can benefit financial inclusion


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Source: CGAP, 2016

This can also be good for businesses…


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Source: CGAP, 2016

Hearing from the audience – who is looking to open their APIs? Who is looking to use APIs? How and why?


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How would your organization approach this opportunity from a project perspective?


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You work for one of the regulators, and have been asked to look at regulation for some of the main APIs at the left.

Come up with 2 to 3 important regulations for open APIs in Mozambique.

Describe also the typical process that would take place to come up with a regulation, receive comments, and finally get it approved into law.

How long does it usually take?

What are the main activities?

Who is usually involved?

Agenda for Today




Key Takeaways and Close


Design Thinking is starting to become in vogue….


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Design Thinking is a product development methodology that aims to

deeply understand user needs, come up with a set of creative solutions,

and then building simple prototypes to quickly get their reaction to it.

An attempt at defining Design Thinking*

* Design Thinking is sometimes referred to as “Human-Centered Design”, but we will be using the traditional terminology employed by the methodology’s founders.


Three key principles of Design Thinking


5-Step Design Thinking Process: A Brief Overview

Learn about the audience for whom you are designing

Come up with a variety of creative solutions – and move forward with one (for now)

(Re)define the problem you’re trying to solve, based on insights from previous step

Build a visual representation of your idea

Test out your prototype with initial users to get feedback


We also did a Design Thinking sprint for a training organized by FSDMoc last December

Helping Micro and Small Businesses

Manage their Finances

…..and proving that these “lightweight” activities, either all or some, can be used to explore financial inclusion solutions here at home.



Four key principles of Design Thinking – especially for disruptive innovation.

1. Customer first! → Don’t start building until you “get out of the building”.

2. Seek to understand the customer – not just give them whatever they say they want.

→ Customers don’t always know what they want – esp if it’s new to the market.

3. Test and Learn→ Focus on learning, not just on trying to go for the “big win” – by getting

feedback from customers on actual products or prototypes (or just features).

4. Rapid Iteration → Better to learn quickly through iterations than one long development cycle.


How could Design Thinking be used in Policy-Making?


Design Thinking can be used in Policy-Making as a problem-solving approach.

Out goal today is to take a small

step towards this journey of

collaboration through the

Sandbox.

For You can work with some of these APIs – or ones not listed here.


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For your project today, we will work on coming up with ideas on the type of regulations (the actual policy), and/or the process of developing / piloting one in the Sandbox environment.

Agenda for Today




1. Empathy

2. Define

3. Ideate

4. Prototype

5. Test

Key Takeaways



the intellectual identification with or vicarious

experiencing

of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another.

A simple definition of empathy


See the world from someone else’s shoes.

When designing services and products, it is important to understand someone who is not like yourself – especially for international development.


IntroProjectIntro

Yourself

Build Rapport

Evoke Stories

Explore Emotions

Question Statements

Thank & Wrap-up

When doing an interview with a stranger, it’s important to build rapport so that you can eventually make them feel comfortable to tell you revealing stories.

In financial inclusion, empathy is crucial given that you likely have little in common with the end-user and because the topic at hand tends to be sensitive in nature.


• Are open-ended

• Are short

• Are specific (tell me about the last time vs. what do you usually do)

• Elicit stories & emotions –important to probe

• Make the person pause & think

• Uncover something surprising

• Are not survey questions!

A few best practices to ask questions


How the “user” interviews will work

• There will teams of roughly 6 people, a mix of regulators and “users” of APIs.

• Each team will conduct 3 user interviews, each lasting 6-8 mins each:• Start with the user at your table

• At the end of the interview, users will switch tables clockwise

• In each team, designate 1 person to conduct the first interview, and the other to take notes. Then switch roles for the second interview, etc. .

• Each will have thus conducted 3 user interviews, and everyone will have had the opportunity to either conduct the interview or to take notes.

Take a moment to write down questions to better understand how businesses would like to use APIs. What is working / not working about either the possible policy or the process? What do they wish for? What do they definitely want not to happen?

Design Thinking Training - Managing Finances for MSEs Digital Disruptions ©

INTERVIEW GUIDE

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Remember to introduce yourself, the project, and build comfort before asking more “sensitive” questions

Ask for stories that reveal your user’s emotions and feelings; ask why to dig deeper

Ask your interviewee to describe their experience. What did they like and dislike, and why?

Design Thinking Training - Managing Finances for MSEs Digital Disruptions ©

Interviewee #1 Interviewee #2

in pairs

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take turns in your teams: have one person do the interview and the other take notes. Then switch!

Design Thinking Training - In-Flight Business Class Experience Digital Disruptions ©

User Segment

as a team

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Who is your user?

What are they trying to get done?

What insights did you uncover?

be as specific as possible when describing your user

Welcome back! Now reflecting on what you heard as a team, synthesize the interviews and define who your user segment is

Agenda for Today




1. Empathy

2. Define

3. Ideate

4. Prototype

5. Test

Key Takeaways



User + Insight + Opportunity/Need

Empathetic; show your

understanding of the

user

Deep, hints at

emotions; does not

contain a solution – it

opens up the

possibilities

Surprise discovery—

Can only be known from

observations/conversation

s

As we look to define – or redefine – the problem in a “Point-of-View” statement, we break it up into three elements.


Maria, a Grade 1 student in

Maputo Public Schools, needs a

way to learn more about animals

because she wants to be a

veterinarian when she grows up.

A good Point of View does not contain the solution itself (usually a noun) – it contains a VERB that opens the possibility to generate more ideas


Rohit, a busy start-up founder from the US,

needs a way to manage international flights more efficiently,

because he does not have time to do it himself and does not have time for long stop-overs.

A simple Point of View from a mini-empathy interview with a training participant.


User Segment POV Statement

as a team

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focus on a single, compelling need

Who is your user?

What are they trying to get done?

What insights did you uncover?

_________, _______________________ , needs a way to

_________________________________________________

________________________________________________ ,

because ________________________________________

________________________________________________ .

name

need

key insight(s)

be as specific as possible when describing your user

Reflecting on what you heard, and as a team construct the Point of View (POV) statement for a specific user, inspired by your interviewee profiles.

user description


Let’s use the example with Rohit

POINT-OF-VIEW

Rohit, a busy start-up founder from the US, needs a way to manage international flights more efficiently, because he does not have time to do it himself and does not have time

for long stop-overs.

HOW MIGHT WE help start-up team members be more productive during their flight

and stopovers?

HOW MIGHT WE help start-up team members book international flights with

minimum stopovers?

HOW MIGHT WE help cost-conscious business professionals be more productive

during their flight and stopovers?


as a team

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HOW MIGHT WE help ________________________________________________ ___________________________

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________ .

Convert the user’s POV to “How Might We (HMW) statements, prompting your team to think of different ways to address the needs of a specific user segment.

HOW MIGHT WE help ________________________________________________ ___________________________

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________ .

HOW MIGHT WE help ________________________________________________ ___________________________

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________ .

target user segment

idea

target user segment

idea

target user segment

idea

1

2

3

POV Statement

Agenda for Today




1. Empathy

2. Define

3. Ideate

4. Prototype

5. Test

Key Takeaways



A semi-structured, team-based approach to

rapid idea generation

Definition of brainstorming


Defer judgment: separating idea

generation from idea selection strengthens

both activities. For now, suspend critique,

knowing that you’ll have plenty of time to

evaluate the ideas after the brainstorm.

Go for quantity: the best way to have a good

idea is to have lots of ideas.

Encourage wild ideas: breakout ideas can

be found right next to the absurd ones.

Build on the ideas of others: listen to and

add to the flow of ideas. This will

springboard your group to places no

individual can reach alone.

One conversation at a time: maintain group

momentum. Save side conversations for later.

Headline: capture the essence quickly and

move on. Don’t stall the group by explaining

the fine details of a complex idea.

Be visual: display each idea on the wall with a

quick, descriptive phrase or sketch.

Some brainstorming tips `


Let’s do this ourselves…..Brainstorming Rounds

One person takes notes

Round 1: Standard

Round 2: …what could be tried in the

Sandbox in the next 3 months?


All the creative, wild,

bad, OK, and

undeveloped ideas

from your brainstorm

Yield familiar and

incremental results

When evaluated with

typical “attractive” and

“feasible” criteria

before direct

implementation

To select ideas, don’t use a standard selection criteria.


Instead, select for potential.


“Most likely to succeed”

“Most likely to delight the customer”

“Most breakthrough if …”

Each person gets 6 votes, 2 per the following criteria:

The same idea can get different votes (e.g., can be “most likely

to succeed” and “most likely to delight the customer”)

Pick 1 idea to move forward with based on the votes.

Time to vote – and select your winning idea.

+


as a team

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After selecting various ideas from your brainstorming rounds, take a moment to sketch out in a bit more detail what it is and how it would work.

Winning Idea

Agenda for Today




1. Empathy

2. Define

3. Ideate

4. Prototype

5. Test

Key Takeaways



elicit juicy feedback

make a decision

communicate an idea

stress test

gain more empathy

brainstorm!

Why do we both prototyping? Why don’t we just develop our full solution?

test a hypothesis

answer a key question

learn from mistakes early,

while least costly

You can prototype any feature, or features, of your solution – you don’t necessarily have to build the entire solution!


creating a series of images (rough sketches or photos) outlining a

sequence of events & details

Storyboarding


Sketch out some actual regulations or processes to prototype that you want to share with your users to get some feedback.

You can prototype any feature, or features, of your solution – you don’t necessarily have to build the entire solution!

Agenda for Today


Design Thinking Phases

1. Empathy

2. Define

3. Ideate

4. Prototype

5. Test

Design Thinking in Financial Inclusion

Using Design Thinking to Drive Financial Inclusion in Mozambique

Key Takeaways



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You are back in an information gathering phase.

Use your prototypes to evoke reactions from users that will help to inform your ideas and help

you to iterate your problem statement and solution.

Now it’s time to test and see what your users “truly” believe…


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“We realized that _______so we came up with

____________.

Now, we would like to walk you through our

prototype to help us understand if we have

designed something that would fit well for you.”

When speaking with your end-user, make sure to prepare an introductory script, and some key questions, to guide you – similar to the Empathy interview.


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Dig deeper to learn:

“You seemed [confused] at one point, can you tell me more about that?

“What would you change about this policy or experience?”

“Do you have ideas for how to improve the prototype?”

After the initial reaction, probe deeper – and remember to ask ‘why’ to get at the root cause


as a team

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Go back to your users and get their collective feedback on your prototype along the dimensions in the canvas below.

Agenda for Today




1. Empathy

2. Define

3. Ideate

4. Prototype

5. Test

Key Takeaways


Digital Disruptions September 2017 58

Brief overview of us: we combine our functional expertise of product innovation with our deep subject-matter experience in DFS.

FINANCIAL SERVICES

CONSULTING

CUSTOMIZED DFS RESEARCHPRODUCT INNOVATION

TRAINING

Digital Disruptions September 2017 59

We’ve worked with top clients in Asia and Africa on DFS projects.

Product Innovation Training

DFS Consulting

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Questions or comments on this presentation:

[email protected]

Digital Disruptions is a consulting firm in banking and payments, with an emphasis on digital financial services. It provides advisory services to financial institutions, mobile operators, payment networks, international organizations, technology vendors, governments, and start-ups involved in the intersection of telecommunications and financial services.

The firm also provides in-house and customized training on all phases of the product innovation process, from market research and design thinking to lean methodology and pilot testing.

Please see www.digital-disruptions.com to learn more how we can help.

http://www.digital-disruptions.com/

open apis for digital financial services: using design thinking...

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