Strengthening IBM’s consulting business by building a culture of knowledge sharing
Role: Lead UX Researcher
Collaborators: Kristin Kronk (Service Design Lead, Offering-Led Growth Channels), Jordan Shade (Design Principal, Offering-led Growth Channels)
Methods: Secondary Research, Stakeholder Interviews, User Interviews, Rapid Prototyping, Usability Testing
Tools: WebEx, Mural, Slack
Users: IBM Services consultants
Duration: 3 weeks
BACKGROUND
Patterns is IBM’s Design Education Program, providing user experience researchers and designers with comprehensive instruction and real-world experience in user-centered design at a large, enterprise corporation.
My team included Tucker Adelman (UX Designer), Kate Oldfield (Visual Designer), Delicia Li (UX Designer), and myself (UX Researcher). Our Executive Sponsors were from the Design for Offering and Assets team within the IBM Services business unit: Kristin Kronk (Service Design Lead, Offering-Led Growth Channels), Jordan Shade (Design Principal, Offering-led Growth Channels), and Ben Landrum (Design Director & Principal, Assets & Offerings, IBM Services).
The challenge
We were tasked with finding out how to improve the quality of IBM Services offerings by harnessing direct client and employee feedback. At the time, IBM Services had over 100,000 employees.
RESEARCH PLAN
In total, we had 15 days to learn the problem space, develop a problem statement, learn about our end users, and create and deliver a solution.
PHASE 1: Ramp-up
Overview
Our sponsors provided us with the following problem statement:
How might we integrate direct feedback from IBM clients and consultants on the front lines, in order to drive higher quality iterations of IBM Services offerings?
During our kickoff meeting, we absorbed as much as we could about IBM Services and its offerings, clients and consultants — then quickly began scheduling discovery interviews with the “Sponsor Users” they provided us.
Objectives
Learn about the problem space and any prior research
Understand stakeholder expectations
Identify Sponsor User leads
Challenges
Finding enough time to read and metabolize the vast amount of material provided to us
The Sponsor Users provided to us were not IBM Services consultants (actual end users) — but rather additional project stakeholders
Outcomes
We realized that the problem statement provided to us needed to be revisited: instead of describing a problem, it described a solution
We identified several Sponsor User candidates (actual IBM Services consultants) to interview
PHASE 2: Building empathy
Overview
We went ahead and scheduled interviews with the Sponsor Users provided to us, while I began sending cold outreach emails to IBM Services consultants to see if we could learn from actual end users.
Objectives
Get to know the current experience, needs, and struggles of IBM Services consultants, through the lens of high- vs low-performing offerings
Adjust our problem statement as needed
Recruit additional Sponsor Users
Outcomes
We generated two personas, along with empathy maps and as-is journey maps — to be tested with real users
The observations we made during this phase served as jumping-off points for our ideation process
Process
“I wouldn’t even know who to send feedback (on an Offering) to.”
“We have no reason to work across Service Lines.”
“Most people only do what they’re measured on.”
PHASE 3: Ideation
Overview
After getting feedback on the user artifacts we created, we put together an inspiration board to help us ideate solutions.
Next, we conducted secondary research to understand some of the concepts that surfaced during our user interviews – such as habit-building, behavioral change, and incentive structures. As part of this research, I speed-read James Clear’s book, Atomic Habits.
We then experimented with Google’s Crazy 8’s method – a rapid sketching exercise where you sketch eight distinct ideas in eight minutes. This helped us generate a wider variety of solutions.
Finally, we created a set of Hills to align and focus us moving forward.
Process
PHASE 4: User testing
Overview
Due to time constraints, user testing happened over the course of two days. We had low-fidelity sketches that we were able to test with actual end users via Webex.
We were also fortunate to get feedback from a key executive stakeholder who we had not yet interviewed, who gave us the thumbs-up on our direction.
Objectives
Test our solutions in the field to validate or invalidate our direction
Get real feedback from end users and iterate as needed
Outcomes
Minor edits were made based on the feedback we received
Produced mid-fidelity prototypes to be presented in our executive playback
Process
“I love the Innovation Code idea. Having a whole re-focus on how job codes work, while investing properly in innovation, thought leadership and helping others succeed, would be game-changing from a culture standpoint.”
“All the insights you have shared ring true. This is a strong solution.”
PHASE 5: Delivery
“You’ve done an amazing job at something that’s not an easily understood problem. This isn’t like other problems that are centered on a piece of software. This is behavioral and process change.”
“I want to commend you for coming in to a really complex problem space, absorbing and making sense of it, and coming up with solutions that fit into this existing world.”
“I was happy to see you all thinking holistically and tackling the problem from different angles.”
OUTCOMES
Once the bootcamp ended, each member of our team returned to our proper IBM business units, with no influence over whether our recommendations would ever come to fruition.
Over the following months, however, we were thrilled to see our recommendations brought to life! In November 2020, IBM Services launched the Learning & Knowledge (L&K) Giveback Program; in April 2021, they created the Knowledge Sharing for Business Impact badge and the IBM Knowledge Services Hub, including a Top Contributor Board—all informed by our research.
Each of these solutions are actively being used by IBM employees:
Launched November 2020
IBM Learning & Knowledge Giveback Program
Launched April 2021
IBM “Knowledge Sharing for Business Impact” Badge (Feb 2022)
IBM Knowledge Services Hub (2021)
IBM Knowledge Services: Top Contributors Board (2021)
RETROSPECTIVE
What did I learn?
Take time to digest new information. You can’t know what to ask users if you don’t take enough time to familiarize yourself with the domain and problem space.
Maximize your time with your users. Don’t waste precious time having them teach you the domain — doing so is inefficient and disrespectful of their time.
Converge, diverge, converge. This way of working proved to be incredibly effective for our team, and is something I plan to bring to future projects.
Remember to zoom out. When in the thick of it, remember to keep the end deliverable in mind (once you determine what this will be). This helps the team stay focused on what’s important, rather than getting hung up on the details.
What would I have done differently?
I would have urged our team to spend less time on the visuals for our playback presentations, and more time on developing the story and fleshing out concepts.
I would have asked for more help from our Design Thinking coach from the get-go. Given the incredibly fast pace of the bootcamp, I wish I would have asked more direct, targeted questions about the Enterprise Design Thinking process up front.