Curated work
Overview
As an executive design leader, I drive design through the teams I lead. My functional leadership spans CX design, product, brand, and business leadership. I also work 1:1 with multidisciplinary designers to create compelling experiences that add real value to people.
As requested, here are some further materials about evolving the global experience design system of a Fortune 10 company.
Approach
Goals
- Accelerate GE’s digital transformation.
- Dusting GE off and making it relevant to new audiences.
- Design at scale.
- More connected experience for our customers.
Action
- Aligning to the business strategy.
- Approach the problem like any other.
- Freedom in a framework.
- Crafting the craft.
Outcomes
- Consistent experience for users* of our products.
- Elevated customer* experience.
- Not just for digital products, but for all things “designed”.
- Improved the craft of design, writ large.
- Significant cost savings.
- Reduced churn in development.
- Material lift in operational efficiencies.
* Because of the complexity of business at GE, the lexicon of “users” & “customers” changed depending on the meeting I was in.
Go To Market
Alignment To Business Strategy
The Big Decisions:
- How much do we change?
- In what ways can experience design be a strategic business driver?
- How might we put our customers first in every design decision?
- The tradeoff… what are the big tent poles to this.
Leadership:
- Pull the communication thread through the organization
- Give Design a voice and a platform to share.
- Bring stakeholders along.
- I don’t expect you to have the answer, but I do expect you to know what’s next.
Doing The Usual Things
The Big Decisions:
- Solve for everyone… at scale?
- Scope of the research?
- Consistency and high quality.
- How do we drive this with given reporting structures?
Leadership:
- Telescope, then microscope.
- Untangling the corporate matrix to get things done.
- Meet them where they are.
- Trust the process.
- What journey mapping is and what it isn’t.
- Find the bigger insights from research, what’s the story that’s being told.
Freedom In A Framework
The Big Decisions:
- Keep the brand & people at the center.
- Identify who to team with across the company.
- Prescriptive vs. free reign.
- Tradeoff… in scope or out of scope.
Leadership:
- Lead by expertise, but make progress by inclusion.
- Connect the dots cross-functionally.
- Coach the design leaders to speak the language of business.
- Communicate often.
- Break big things into manageable parts.
Crafting The Craft
The Big Decisions:
- How to filter all the opinions.
- Global vs. Local.
- What’s in-house and where do we leverage agency partners?
- Tradeoff… CJK of GE Inspira and physical environments.
Leadership:
- Giving autonomy to the local markets, but with clearly defined outcomes.
- Being an accessible leader in multiple world times zones.
- Async is your friend.
- Own what you are good at, and rent what you are not.
- A Nike principle of agency mgmt.
(Working team: In-house. Agency partners: Small Stuff, Frere-Jones Type, Pentagram, Landor, & BBDO)
(Working team: In-house)
The Messy Middle
(Credit: Scott Belsky)
Navigating the politics.
Buy-in from stakeholders.
HVEs.
Continual insight from users and customers.
End Results
(Working team: In-house. Agency partners: Vertic)
(“Before” work)
(Working team: In-house. Agency partners: Schema)
(Working team: In-house. Agency partners: Frere-Jones Type)
(Working team: In-house)
(Working team: In-house)
(Working team: In-house. Agency Partner: Manifold)
Impact
Built foundational tooling so that experiences are strategic, focused, and solve specific customer needs.
Improved business value by reduced churn in development, improved operational efficiencies, and cost savings in all P&Ls.
Consistency in the user experiences across the enterprise bringing a shared feeling and common understanding to products.
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