Much of the current product work tends to be reactive — driven by immediate operational needs rather than long-term priorities. To shift toward more intentional and impactful planning for FY26’s roadmap, I led a 2-part brainstorming workshop series designed to ground our roadmap in a shared understanding of our B2B shippers, particularly across key markets like Indonesia and Malaysia.
Product Designer and main workshop facilitator. I designed and structured the brainstorming workshop to ensure a focused and outcome-driven experience.
I collaborated with a fantastic team of 2 Product Designers and 1 Product Manager, who also served as my co-facilitators.
Ninja Van’s B2B vertical leverages over a decade of it’s expertise in e-commerce express logistics to tackle the business-to-business (B2B) restock sector. This initiative focuses on streamlining how retailers replenish inventory, aiming to bring greater efficiency and innovation to a market ripe for disruption.
Multi-parcel Shipment (MPS): A bundle of cartons that are shipped, tracked and delivered together to the same destination.
Return Delivery Order (RDO): A document that outlines detailed information about goods being shipped to a customer. During delivery, the last-mile driver presents the RDO for the customer’s signature and then returns the signed document to the shipper.
These conversations helped surface emerging B2B shippers’ needs — a valid RDO to be returned on time.
More importantly, they allowed us to align early on the strategic focus areas such as accuracy and speed of validating RDOs, and speed of RDO delivery, that would guide our brainstorming workshop.
During trial runs of the problem discovery section, I realised it would be challenging to use the 5 Whys framework since we had many unanswered questions about the current RDO handling process.
I suggested that we map the end-to-end journey of the RDO handling process instead, which would enable participants to surface questions, answer them, and identify problem areas together.
I led the team through a collaborative discovery exercise to uncover root causes behind operational inefficiencies. Given the limited availability of data in this newer B2B vertical, it was important to tap into the collective knowledge and frontline experience of the participants. I encouraged everyone to build on each other’s observations, share experiences from their daily workflows, and voice assumptions that might explain operational gaps.
This open exchange allowed us to surface hidden pain points. As the discussion evolved, we collaboratively mapped these insights against the user journey and began to identify patterns.
Before day 2’s activities, we refined the RDO journey map from day 1 to highlight the most critical breakdown points. We then created a zoomed-in version of the initial RDO journey that visualised the key pain points — from order creation and driver behaviour, to communication gaps and handoff processes at the station.
For each pain point, clear problem statements were framed and “How Might We” (HMW) questions crafted to steer the teams toward solution-oriented thinking. This approach helped structure the brainstorming while still allowing space for creative exploration.
During the workshop, participants were also split into into 2 smaller, focused groups that enabled deeper discussion, faster iteration, and more diverse viewpoints.
After brainstorming, each team presented their ideas, sparking open discussions that helped surface diverse perspectives, clarify assumptions, and build a shared understanding of the solution space.
This was followed by an individual ranking exercise where participants were asked to rank initiatives based on their perceived value and feasibility. The goal wasn’t to lock in a final prioritization — since priorities may shift as the business context evolves.
Rather to capture how the team collectively felt about each idea’s potential. These insights provided an early read on what resonated most with stakeholders and helped inform broader FY26 planning.
Allow B2B shippers to define required documents and set preferences for repeat consignees, reducing manual errors during RDO processing.
Enable faster validation and timely assignment of incentives or penalties to drivers, while retaining final checks from station supervisors.
Auto-surface RDO documentation guidance when a driver’s parcel list includes B2B parcels, reducing missed handovers and compliance issues.
Following the workshop, the next phase involves continued alignment between business stakeholders and both local and regional operations teams. The immediate goal is to align on which problem areas are most important to address first, so the product team can begin work on initiatives with the highest potential impact.
This alignment will help ensure we move forward with solutions that are not only strategically sound but also practical, implementable, and meaningful for the teams on the ground.
This was the first full brainstorming workshop I planned and executed end-to-end — from defining objectives to facilitating team alignment. During the planning phase, I went through several iterations of the workshop structure.
I had initially intended to use a 5 Whys framework for problem discovery, but after testing it in a few dry runs, it became clear that the lack of reliable data in this new B2B vertical would limit its effectiveness.
Rather than proceed with a misaligned approach, I proposed a pivot to a more flexible framework that better fit our current context.
This decision ultimately created a more inclusive and insight-driven session, and reminded me of the importance of designing workshops not just around best practices, but around the realities of the team and environment.