organizational transformation

how might we transform an organization to be more collaborative, flexible, and productive?

the client wanted a workplace transformation strategy that would enable them to transition from a siloed and hierarchical organization to one that would be more collaborative, flexible, entrepreneurial, and equitable.
in order to craft a robust strategy, we had to first gain a comprehensive understanding of the client's existing and desired culture, programs/processes, and workspaces. through qualitative and quantitative primary research, we were able to gain these insights, which were highly valuable to the client as a pulse-check, as well as in informing the strategy development, implementation, and change management work to come.

27 weeks / confidential emea financial services client / design research, data visualization, real estate strategy

01_my role

working with two other strategists, i was involved end-to-end in the research and strategic opportunity identification phases. i lead the analysis, synthesis, and delivery of the research findings, making sense of qualitative and quantitative data to tell a story of what's working well, painpoints, and what the co-created aspired tomorrow could look like.

02_research activities

we began by gaining a detailed understanding of the as-is processes and employee experience through surveys and workshops, followed by a series of in depth framing and visioning interviews with senior leadership across all business units.

i led synthesis of the quantitative findings creating an interactive dashboard bringing together real estate data and employee experience survey results. this allowed us to pull key insights into the current perception of processes, culture, and workspaces, as well as to model how proposed strategic interventions might affect key metrics.

the outcome of this phase was a detailed research report of our findings benchmarked against peers, and a framework of identified opportunities.

03_synthesis and outcomes

given the large scope of our work and the potential widespread impact, we had to manage stakeholder expectations carefully. for every key checkpoint, i made 3 versions of all our deliverables specifically targeted at employees, the steering committee, and executives, to ensure that otherwise nuanced ideas and strategies could be communicated in a way that was both succinct and impactful. by proactively avoiding confusion i played a key part in enabling more productive conversations, get executive buy-in early on, and deliver each phase of the project ahead of schedule.

we able to give a far reaching and detailed understanding of the client organization's current state. simultaneously, every member of the team worked on developing a trusted relationship with the new client through strong channels of communication, timely delivery, and consistent quality.

following the research phase, the client has given the go ahead to develop a number of the identified opportunities into strategic transformations.