DOJ Client: Mission modernization

Project Type: Product Design, Service Design 

Artifacts/Deliverable types: Future State Journey Map, Future State Roadmap, User and Stakeholder interviews, Day in the Life map, Research Readouts, wireflows, high-fidelity wireframes

Timeframe: Project start 2016 My time on the project: October 2018 - March 2020

Fjord Design Team: 1 Digital Producer, 1 Interaction Design Lead, 1 Visual Designer, 5 Interaction Designers, and 1 Service & Interaction Designer (me)

My Role: User Experience Designer, Research Lead, Service Designer

- To comply with my non-disclosure agreement, I have omitted some content.-

Client Goals:

  • Modernize case management system to support the missions of the organization and standardize processes

  • Enhance reporting to increase awareness and accountability at all levels across the organization

  • Improve due diligence of users who wear many hats and juggle many tasks at a time

Overview:
The client’s legacy system was always a step behind and was not able to serve the mission to promote safety and visibility. Modernization of the case management system was the primary ask, but we found there were more specific areas of user experience and overall service outputs that could be improved upon while the new system was being built.
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There was a lack of insight for what was needed in the organization and stakeholders and leaders were unable to redirect to areas that were struggling to get support because those areas had no reporting or data to show their needs.
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The previous system was missing structured workflows and left openings for users to find their own workarounds and shortcuts which meant less data was collected and collaboration between teams and personnel was impossible because of inconsistent input and understanding between the groups.
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The legacy system was built primarily for a couple roles and a few tasks, but never imagined the actual needs of the people who would be using it. This meant users had to find other, independent ways to handle their day to day tasks as well as larger, long-term initiatives with other tools and manual processes.
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As a contracted team, challenges arose with several workstreams running at once as the initial workstream became behind schedule and this caused the teams to become more siloed and independent, which meant our Design team became the high-level vision and consistency thread between them all.


Our Approach

This modernized system product development was happening with multiple workstreams and development teams in different stages throughout the year and a half I was on it. I joined the project a year after the start of the project and the initial workstream was already behind schedule while the stakeholder and product owners were pushing forward on the other two primary workstreams (three additional secondary workstreams were also in motion; including mobile, reporting, and cross-cutting efforts).

The make-up of a workstream team consisted of:
1-2 UX designers, 1-2 Functional Analysts, 2-15 PEGA Developers, 1 Data Analyst, and 1-5 Product Owners

 Below are the ways I supported all six workstreams throughout my time at DOJ:

Service Design

  • Led design teams by connecting the holistic vision of the work and client mission to the workstreams they were focused on

  • Prioritized service design needs for all workstreams

  • Led full development teams through future state and prioritization sessions

  • Planned, facilitated, and synthesized:

    • Visioning workshops for overall product strategy as well as upcoming workstreams

      • Half-day workshop for one workstream with team, product owners and SMEs (outputs: workshop readout for stakeholder and workstream team, personas, wireflows, high-fidelity page designs)

      • Three-day workshop for one workstream with team, product owners and SMEs (outputs: workshop readout for stakeholder, cross-cutting readout for entire program and stakeholder, new topic userflows, feature journey map, solution posters, and high-fidelity page designs, workshop retrospective and action items)

    • Product experience workshops for several features that were either upcoming or had been put into production and then brought back for improvements

      • One-day workshop for one feature with team, product owners and SMEs (outputs: workshop readout for stakeholder and workstream team, personas, wireflows, high-fidelity page designs)

      • 4 Half-day workshops for one feature with team, product owners and SMEs (outputs: cross-cutting readout for entire program and stakeholder, wireflows, high-fidelity page designs)

 A few examples:

  • A feature was built before our UX team came into one of the workstream teams and was pushed to production while we were there. About two months later, the Product Owner and Functional Analyst on the workstream reached out about needing UX support. I learned that the users were bypassing the workflow altogether and continued doing it manually. I interviewed additional product owners/users and put together a Research Plan and presented it to the full workstream team and Product Owners.

    • Outcome: My research plan recommendations were accepted and included UI consistency improvements and a full day SME and Product Owner workshop which covered nomenclature, IA, user flows, and prototyping. After the workshop and because of the insights collected, the product owners had a clear vision on what needed to be adjusted to improve the user experience of the feature.

  • Another workstream was well into the research phase and the client was ready to validate and co-create with SMEs from around the country. Another stakeholder wanted to keep the process in the HQ network until they felt comfortable with the future they wanted before seeking ideas from the field. I was able to find a balance between internal HQ working sessions that allowed them to push the current state into an initial high-level future-state while still retaining the co-creation with the SME’s. We held a three-day visioning workshop that included a combination of UX/UI activities to work on user flows, IA, and nomenclature and blue-sky future needs for the service with Solution Posters and prototyping.

    • Outcome: We were able to solidify decisions that had been bottlenecked by HQ stakeholders for months and begin to prioritize new gaps and areas that needed more validation.

      Product Owners felt that they were being productive and able to make decisions more confidently after co-creating with Subject Matter Experts that were brought in. The SMEs commented that they felt their voices were being heard for the first time and were appreciative to be part of building the new system that they will be using for the next 15 or so years. The workstream team also got a head-start on several new features and a clearer understanding for the needs of the topics we were already working on prior to the workshop.

 Research

  • Composed Research plans and strategy

  • Prioritized research work for all workstreams

  • Wrote interview guides

  • Led stakeholder and user interviews

  • Synthesized business process maps

  • Composed Research Readouts

 A few examples:

  • Proposed the UX Designer’s research strategy for new initiatives and workstreams

  • Interviewed 28 users and stakeholders about a current state feature

  • Reviewed and synthesized 156 process flows, narratives, and previously created policies from the business requirements perspective to be able to highlight and prioritize the user needs

    • Outcome: Stakeholder used design deliverables to pitch new features to other stakeholders and the team was able to hold requirement gathering sessions and develop feature requirements from these deliverables while being mindful of gaps and pain points we pointed out.

  • I briefed the cross-cutting needs that hadn’t been recognized by the larger workstream teams in three research readouts

    • Outcome: Each workstream team was able to have cross-cutting consistency conversations while also prepare for future workstream needs. The primary stakeholder was more well-informed on workstream outputs and better equipped to prioritize cross-cutting work.

 Internal Co-Creation

  • Educated teams and product owners to become user experience advocates

    • Outcome: By always explaining why the button needed to be here or why understanding the whole flow was important, I began hearing product owners and functional analysts explaining this exact reasoning to other team members without designers even being present!

  • Empowered workstream teams and Product Owners to integrate human centered design into their work and discussions

    • Outcome: Non-designers were talking about user experience in their conversations with one another and they began visualizing and drawing requirements and flows instead of a using a text-heavy powerpoint or word doc with listed functionality in order to get the entire workstream team on the same page.

  • Untangled confusion on roles and needs with clients

    • Outcome: I had several conversations with Functional Analysts (FAs) about roles and expectations before and after working sessions so that our perspectives could be less combative in these meetings with the client. I then worked with the lead FA to develop a joint presentation to the other designers and FAs. I held a Functional Analyst + UX Design Role meeting with a co-presenter that was an FA to establish foundational understanding of the needs of our different roles in different situations (what the Designer needs during a whiteboarding session vs. what an FA needs, etc). The FAs and Designers became more supportive of one another’s needs and began asking questions and being more communicative when prepping for meetings, working during client sessions, and after when reviewing what we all learned.

  • In four months, our design team on the project more than doubled in size

    • Outcome: We were not as prepared for on-boarding and adjusting to such a drastic team size as we’d thought, but I utilized a Fjord person ‘placemat’ template for each person to fill out and talk about their hopes for the project, their personal goals, their ways of working with teams and on their own, and a bit about themselves outside of work. This experience made me very mindful of new joiners and the importance of a successful on-boarding and giving them a feeling of belonging on the team.

  • I set up meetings and discussions with Product Owners, Stakeholders, Design team, Functional Analysts, and Developers to set ways of working expectations and regroup when necessary

    • Outcome: Disciplines were working independently of one another on the same workstream and communication across disciplines was minimal. I set up initial meetings with the full team to specifically talk about ways of working because I could see team members feeling left out or surprised by new priorities or the workload of others. The meetings became check-ins that allowed the team to pivot together and no member or discipline was left behind. They also allowed risks and dependencies to be vocalized in a safe space and the workstream team was able to prioritize and support one another with the work that was lingering or coming up.

User Experience

  • White boarding sessions – user flows, wireflows, page hierarchy

  • Created wireflows

  • Created high-fidelity page designs

  • Prioritized design work for two primary workstreams

  • Created UX tickets in JIRA

  • Provided Visual Quality Assurance (VQA) on development work

  • Built personas to use in white boarding sessions

  • Supported card sorting exercise for Information Architecture discussions

  • Participated in business requirement gathering sessions

 A few examples:

  • Facilitated whiteboarding sessions with UX designers, Functional Analysts, Developers, Product Owners and Stakeholders

  • Managed the consistency of page designs and user experience between three UX designers

  • Led prioritization discussions with Product Owners and then provided prioritization of features and page designs to UX designers

  • Planned and facilitated Impact/Effort session with functional analysts and product owners on proposed features for upcoming workstream

  • Educated teams and product owners on the use of the Style Guide and how templates and components worked

    • Outcome: The application became more consistent and Product Owners and Functional Analysts became advocates for consistency and user experience.

 Aha Moment

These clients did not enter their career path to sit in front of a computer all day (it’s easy for designers to forget our clients aren’t us!) so building a new digital application for them wasn’t really an answer in their eyes. They needed us to understand their real mission and to create a system that supported that goal but was not that goal.

Lessons LEarned

  • Someone needs to be the Guardian of Consistency

    (it may as well be you)

  • The tools and software aren’t as important as the goal

    (FedRamped tools are far and few between but a printed wireflow can work just as well if not better than an Invision clickable prototype)

  • Share your skills

    (the things you know are more useful and impactful if your whole team knows them as well – don’t be a skill hoarder!)