Explaining MIT’s fiscal vision with visual storytelling

Challenge

Fiscal officers should be trusted guides and informed partners in a university’s efforts to change the course of science, technology, and medicine.

But MIT found that was not the case in their current state. 

Action

So in partnership with Gartner, we helped to visualize a future state where fiscal officers (FOs) were enabled to be trusted advisors, partners, and support for their principal investigators (PIs). We traveled to Boston for an Alignment Session and live sketching, and collaborated to define and align on the story.

We landed on a two-piece infographic approach that shows the current state disparity between the FOs and PIs. Tools and processes for sponsored research were not made with fiscal officers in mind, which made receiving information, time, and resources difficult for FOs to manage research effectively.

Result

Post-sessions we created two journey maps that gave a visual overview of how FOs would contribute to budget forecasting and research administration in the future state. Each infographic includes a peak into the current state and call-to-action tasks that would make the future state possible.

The groundbreaking research done at MIT continues to revolutionize lives and industries around the world, and we are thrilled to be able to help.