With each cohort I led multiple teams of designers and thus would source multiple projects from different IBM teams for the designers to work on. Sourcing was a critical step to ensure stakeholders would be properly engaged throughout the program, were open to the Enterprise Design Thinking process and were open to new outcomes (vs bringing a solution along with their project).
Bi-Directional Management
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As Program Lead I was responsible for leading the design team on a daily basis, coaching them toward their weekly and cumulative outcomes. Additionally I was responsible for managing stakeholder expectations, shielding the designers from distractions and backing them up when presenting controversial reserach findings.
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As Program Lead I was responsible for leading the design team on a daily basis, coaching them toward their weekly and cumulative outcomes. Additionally I was responsible for managing stakeholder expectations, shielding the designers from distractions and backing them up when presenting controversial reserach findings.
Driving Innovation
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Being that innovation was the goal for each incubation, I was always careful to ensure we were chasing leaps forward vs incremental improvement. This partly took place in project selection, selecting teams and problems complex and impactful enough that a leap forward can be achieved. The rest took place during incubation where I would appropriately focus the team on what would drive the biggest improvement for users and impact for the business.
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Being that innovation was the goal for each incubation, I was always careful to ensure we were chasing leaps forward vs incremental improvement. This partly took place in project selection, selecting teams and problems complex and impactful enough that a leap forward can be achieved. The rest took place during incubation where I would appropriately focus the team on what would drive the biggest improvement for users and impact for the business.
Functional Outcomes
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Once the team had enough understanding, insight and context the rest was largely an endeavor in time and project management. While each week had its own deliverable, I was careful to keep the team focused on how all the deliverables added up to the final deliverable and ensuring they were budgeting time appropriately to execute final designs, presentation and building their functional prototype.
—
Once the team had enough understanding, insight and context the rest was largely an endeavor in time and project management. While each week had its own deliverable, I was careful to keep the team focused on how all the deliverables added up to the final deliverable and ensuring they were budgeting time appropriately to execute final designs, presentation and building their functional prototype.