I’m a designer, music lover, and a total nature-nerd who is obsessed with creativity, experimentation, and functionality. Basically; I love making things that make life better and look or feel good while they do it.
At my day job I split my time between creating new UX solutions, facilitating workshops, and managing an awesome team of talented designers.
When I’m not making a mess on a whiteboard you can find me tinkering in my workshop, waxing poetic over a new band, or happily getting lost in the woods.
Project Details
Initial Work: Showing the value of design
When we started the engagement, the design practice and innovation teams hadn't had their official kick off yet. Although the business had bought into design thinking and agile workflows, they were still struggling to complete proper UX design on digital products.
My first two months focused on designing two new projects with development teams who were hitting roadblocks. Not only did these programs need to ship, but we were using the completion of work to gain executive buy in around the need for UX throughout the product development lifecycle.
I was assigned to two projects. The first ask was to refine high fidelity mockups for an outage reporting system used by customer service reps. The second focused on building user flows, wireframing, and prototyping a responsive web application which outlined outages in all regions for senior management to assign and monitor work.
Leading their first innovation cohorts
Once the UX projects were completed, each of us from IBM were assigned to an innovation team which would focus on a specific business unit. We had three main goals with each group:
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Lead them through the holistic design thinking process by researching, ideating, prototyping and testing
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Teach them how to incorporate those methods on a continuous basis
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Prototype and secure funding for a solution that was viable, desirable, and feasible.
Setting the stage: How did we get involved and why?
A Fortune 125 energy company has historically relied on vendors for all IT needs, from technical infrastructure and legacy systems to product innovation and delivery. In order to move into the future, they wanted to create their own self-sustaining innovation space for digital products.
The premise behind forming a new practice was that by integrating agile methodologies and renewing digital assets, products will become sustainable. However, they recognized that their success also hinged on integrating human-centered design.
IBM was asked to advise and support the development and launch of this practice based on their success with formalizing and implementing enterprise level design frameworks. I was asked by IBM's Cloud Garage, their internal agency executing the work, to join as 1 of the project's 8 lead designers and as their first ever contracted design business partner.
**Important Note: Certain details such as names/faces, project specifics and detailed product images have been purposefully excluded due to a strict NDA.
I spent four months with two business units; One focused on vegetation management for transmission lines and the other on natural gas service appointments.
Both teams traveled around the country to speak with real users before synthesizing that research to find specific insights. While I ran the exercises exclusively during the first few weeks, the teams started to run with it on their own once they started to understand the why and the how behind the approach.
We brainstormed multiple solutions and prioritized them based on desirability for user and viability for the business before prototyping and testing them in the field.
After a few rounds of iterations, both groups ultimately received funding from upper management to develop their respective ideas.
Design Mentorship & Workshop Facilitation
As the project progressed and a department framework was set up, new designers were hired with the goal of taking over once we rolled off. Each of us spent time teaching them design techniques, design thinking principles, and how/why/when to run workshops.
As we collaborated with the new design strategists and coached them through different situations, we slowly transitioned responsibility from our team to theirs. They'd take on primary tasks like leading planning sessions and workshops while we'd make sure they had the necessary support, either as a sounding board or co-facilitiator, whenever they needed.
Our Solution
We built Mercedes a responsive online portal which allows dealership employees to see inventory, activate products and set markup pricing based on account permissions. These changes are recorded in a log for transparency and reflected on the primary MBUSA website in real time.
Background and Problem
Mercedes Benz asked Cedrus to build an internal facing tool for dealerships to adjust and price insurance products for their primary consumer site.
Dealers have long relied on excel sheets, physical books, and IT admins in order set markup pricing ont he website. This process was clunky, inefficient, and often led to mistakes and frustrated employees.
The Outcome
The initial employee response was overwhelmingly positive. Testing of our prototype showed a 95.75% task completion rate and the entire markup and activation process was shorted from hours to less than 60 seconds. As of 2021 the first version of our portal will be shipped and is to be used by over 350 dealerships across the country.
Project Overview
My Responsibilities: UX Design, Usability Testing, Workshop Facilitation
See more of my past work...
Mercedes Benz
Designing, building, and shipping a responsive online portal for all US based dealerships.
Amazon Web Services
Mobile App Design, Workshop Facilitation, and model home build.
Timeframe
13 months
Our Team
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8 Design Leads
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1 Project Lead
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2 Design Strategists
Project Overview
What we did
We started by completing priority UX projects with existing development teams to gain concrete executive buy-in before leading newly formed innovation teams, mentoring new designers and advising on the development of their internal Design Practice.
The Outcome
The client's design practice is now self-sustaining with a constant influx of work. Human-centered design has been embedded as an iterative process and teams are implementing IBM Enterprise Design Thinking in the pursuit of new products/services.
About the Opportunity
A Fortune 125 energy company, hired IBM's internal design consultancy, The Garage, to help build, train, and launch an internal design thinking and innovation practice. IBM asked me to join as one of the project's eight lead designers (and as the Garage's first design business partner).
Our Team
-
8 Design Leads
-
1 Project Lead
-
2 Design Strategists
Timeframe
13 months
Project Overview
The Outcome
The client's design practice is now self-sustaining with a constant influx of work. Human-centered design has been embedded as an iterative process and teams are implementing IBM Enterprise Design Thinking in the pursuit of new products/services.
About the opportunity
A Fortune 125 energy company, hired IBM's internal design consultancy, The Garage, to help build, train, and launch an internal design thinking and innovation practice. IBM asked me to join as one of the project's eight lead designers (and as the Garages's first design business partner).
What we did
We started by completing priority UX projects with existing development teams to gain concrete executive buy-in. That evolved into leading newly formed innovation teams, mentoring new designers and advising on the development of their internal Design Practice
Project Overview
The Problem/Opportunity
A Fortune 125 energy company, hired IBM's internal design consultancy, The Garage, to help build, train, and launch an internal design thinking and innovation practice. IBM asked me to join as one of the project's eight lead designers (and as the Garages's first design business partner).
Our Solution
We started by completing priority UX projects with existing development teams to gain concrete executive buy-in before leading newly formed innovation teams, mentoring new designers and advising on development of their internal Design Practice.
The Outcome
The client's design practice is now self-sustaining with a constant influx of work. Human-centered design has been embedded as an iterative process and teams are implementing IBM Enterprise Design Thinking in the pursuit of new products/services.
Building a Design Practice with IBM
Design Mentorship & Strategy, UX Design, and Workshop Facilitation
For one year I partnered with 7 other lead designers at IBM to help a Fortune 125 energy company build and launch a Design Thinking department. This meant completing UX projects, planning & facilitating workshops, and mentoring new Design Strategists.
The Outcome
After we rolled off the project, the design practice became self-sustaining and was embedded in their newly constructed innovation space. Products were launched, new hires were made, and IBM's Enterprise Design Thinking became a regularly used approach to research, brainstorming, and problem solving.
Lessons Learned
At the risk of sounding cliché, it's difficult to summarize the number of lessons I learned from a year spent alongside a group of world-class designers. From a strategic standpoint, I learned different ways to navigate executive politics and the potential pitfalls of building a new department. From a facilitation standpoint, I became even more comfortable with the ambiguous nature of workshops.
While our team didn't get everything right on the first try, the beauty of being embedded within the organization was that we could learn from those mistakes and immediately fine-tune our approach.
One year by the numbers
Projected Cost Savings
$5 mm
Multiple teams led by our designers secured funding to build new products and services with a projected collective savings of over $5 million.
Design Thinking Sessions
60+
Averaging over one session a week, we were able to train new designers, lead innovation workshops, and prove out business value.
Documented Exercises
15+
Different problems or opportunities call for different approaches.
Hurricane Evacuation
1
Hurricane Dorian sent us all home early at one point. Fortunately, everyone was ok!
Post-it Notes
5000+
Every size, every color and on every wall. There were no shortages of Sharpie scribbles and sketches.
Rounds of go-karts
3
A whole year can't be ALL work. Go-karts, pimento cheese and hush puppies essentially became honorary team members.