Product Designer & Strategy Consultant
United States Department of Agriculture (FNS)
Fall 2022 - Spring 2024
Design and Functional Lead
The Challenge:
As apart of an IT modernization effort, a critical mission area in USDA needed to migrate their business process from MetaStorm to Salesforce, a low-code platform customized to meet their business goals.
The legacy system was a completely custom solution that did not meet the analyst needs or the needs of the overall agency. This project involved transitioning analysts from a rickety, distrusted legacy system, providing them with an easy-to-navigate user interface.
Key Highlights & Outcomes:
3-Day In-Person Workshop: Facilitated a design thinking workshop with key stakeholders and the project team during the project's initial Discovery phase. Led all workshop activities including, ice breakers, uncovering pain points through "How Might We?" exercises, brainstorming potential solutions, sequencing, and assessing level of effort with Dot Voting. Co-created a product roadmap with the client, outlining the next phase of work, spanning the next 9 months.
User Flows and Automation: Created high fidelity prototypes using Sketch and Invision to showcase tailored flows used to capture key data. Used Salesforce automation tools to lessen the burden of data entry, to free analysts' time to help out with the agency's strategic goals
Discovery and Design Thinking: Led the projects Discovery phase through with robust user research techniques. Applied design thinking to weekly working meetings with client to understand how to best meet their priorities.
Updated Data Model for Dashboards and Reporting: Updated the system's data model to prepare for migration between the legacy platform and Salesforce. The updated model allowed us to enhance the system's reporting capabilities and create intuitive dashboards.
Training and Change Management: Created a detailed training and communications plan for incoming users based on focus groups, user interviews, and usability testing. Created email marketing campaigns aimed at teaching prospective system users about actions they'll be taking in the new system. Prepared content for and conducted live training sessions. Created infographics and user guides. Hosted office hours sessions geared at answering platform based questions as users onboarded to the Salesforce system.
Tools & Skills:
Workshop Facilitation, Design Strategy, Sketch, Invision, Declarative Design, Salesforce Configuration, Visual Communication, Business Process Mapping, Project Management, Change Management and Training, Stakeholder Management, Graphic Design, User Journey Mapping.
