Growing Research and Design Practices
Overview
- Enterprise crop insurance organization with an existing but nascent CX practice
- Led the creation of a UX research practice by conducting research, establishing a research repository, drafting a playbook, and developing a continuous feedback channel with a cohort of users
- Built the beginnings of a UX design practice by leading workshops, championing the value journey maps and user archetypes, design work in Figma, and encouraging the creation of a design system
- Evangelized user-centered design and the need for a product practice alongside CX, research, and design
Outcomes
- Transformed the org culture from thinking of user research and design as unlikely novelties to expected value adds to any product project
- Enabled more informed decision making through ongoing UX research across the org
- Fostered a direct and continuous channel of feedback and communication with motivated users
- Product teams are empowered to strategize, deliver value incrementally, and learn along the way
- Teams deliver faster and more consistently by using a design system
Context – An Org Looking to Transform Their Business
I was brought in to bolster an org’s 2-person CX team. A veteran crop insurance company with a traditional IT structure, they were looking to evolve they way they approached the design and delivery of their large suite of digital products.
They hoped to expand their CX practice to include a UX-focused capability including both research and design. Starting from next to nothing in the way of adoption or process, the first challenge was to spread the message of “user-centered design” and inject UX into projects.
At the same time, the org restructured their IT teams and processes to may room for an additional product practice. So much change at once created chaos and confusion, but opened the door to optimism around new and better ways.
Goal – Evolve the Way They Define and Deliver Value
Change the org’s approach towards product development by building out and supporting strong CX, UX, and Product capabilities.
Scope and Activities
- Facilitated strategic workshops with executive leadership
- Planned and executed various research efforts including interview series, surveys, heuristic evaluations, collaborative workshops, and usability tests
- Fostered buy-in and presented ideas about UX values, strategies, and processes
- Started a research playbook to document principles of the UX research practice and the methods we repeated most
- Started a research repository to store and reference all manner of user insights
- Championed the creation of foundational artifacts such as user journey maps and core user archetypes
- Embedded iterative design efforts into projects while encouraging collaboration and review in a shared space such as Figma
- Encouraged the creation and use of a design system
Conclusion – Reaching a Critical Mass of Momentum
From a sprouting CX practice to the evolving and ever growing CX, UX, and Product capabilities, this experience was a journey that required vision, communication, persistence, and effective collaboration. The org now drives initiatives with proactive product strategy instead of reactive pivots.
They focus on continuous learning and delivering value to users and the business more than just delivering features. Where once the question of whether research or design was needed was never even asked, now it’s almost a given. This transformation empowers the org to craft strategy and strengthen connections with users, ultimately returning value to the business.
Key lessons learned and experience gained include:
- How to communicate with stakeholders at all levels of an organization to garner buy-in for change
- How to lay ground work for new processes and philosophies and incrementally refine them as a lean team
- How to manage ambiguity and conflict with grace in the face of many moving parts and misaligned perspectives
