Measuring and reporting design impact across the organization to broaden and deepen our design engagements.
As the Engagement Director at KeyBank a big part of my role was to help determine how to measure the impact of the Design team and how to create transparency around that impact to continue to expand the types of design engagements and teams we worked with across the organization.
OVERVIEWThe Problem Statement
KeyBank internal partners didn’t always understand what the design team did and how we could support their business objectives due to a lack of transparency into our work and impact resulting in missed opportunities to partner with the design team.
The Objective
Create a process to measure and report design activities and impact to partners across the organization to help create transparency around what we do and how we can help their teams meet their business objectives.
The Results
Increased number of engagements involving design, leading to better user experiences and reduced risks and costs of solutions
Broadened number of teams engaging our design team vs. working with 3rd-party agencies leading to an estimated cost savings of $15MM (based on conservative industry billable rates of $250/hr)
Reached a partner satisfaction score of 9.8/10 likely to recommend the Design Studio to a colleague
My Role
As the Engagement Director, I was leading this initiative. My responsibilities included:
Establishing the strategy and project plan
Reporting progress to the Head of Design
Creating reports and circulating them across the organization
Tracking and documenting the work of 39 designers on the team
Leading designers on my team including a Senior Program Manager and three Senior Design Strategists
Planning and hosting quarterly business reviews with stakeholders across the organization
THE PROCESSStakeholder Reports
The first step in creating transparency in the design organization was to create a monthly stakeholder report to provide visibility into where our designers were allocated and what they were focused on in a given month. Working with the Program Manager on my team, we created a tracking process for designers to input their design activities for the month and how they tied back to their team’s or project’s OKRs. This helped me ensure that every designer on the team was focused on the right initiatives and creating an impact for the organization. These reports were shared monthly with our stakeholders on our internal intranet portal and via our monthly newsletter. They were crucial in helping inform discussions with stakeholders and helping partners “connect dots” and see work we had done for other groups that might be relevant to their business.
Similarly, we also created an end of year impact report designed to provide a year end reviews of all our accomplishments and impact across the organization.
Quarterly Business Reviews (QBRs)
To complement our monthly reports, I wanted to also create a time and place to allow us to meet with stakeholders and review how we are contributing to their success. In our Quarterly Business Reviews, we reviewed the value and impact of design by business segment. We also used them as an opportunity to align on priorities and raise any obstacles and blockers for which we needed their help. Each QBR highlighted some of the top design initiatives launched within the quarter as well as notable in-flight efforts and a status update on each of the active design engagements. Each of the Senior Design Strategists was responsible for our three segments: Commercial, Consumer, and Enterprise.
Impact Stories
As part of our design engagement process, designers would close out every engagement with an Impact Story to capture why we were engaged, the work we did, and the outcomes we drove. We categorized each of these impact stories into four story types that reflected the four types of problems we helped solve. These Impact Stories also surfaced in our monthly stakeholder reports, annual reports, and monthly design newsletters.
Design Newsletter
The design newsletter sent out monthly to Enterprise partners was another method to help create transparency and tie together all the different elements mentioned above. Each issue included a stakeholder report outlining where we are working across the organization as well as stories of impact demonstrating the business impact from recent engagements. The newsletter was also an opportunity to feature new design tools and methodologies from the design thinking toolkit and profile Studio designers.
THE IMPACTThe increased transparency, impact the team was having, and high partner satisfaction score (9.8/10 likely to recommend the Design Studio to a colleague) helped us increase the number of engagements across the organization leading to better user experiences and reduced risks and costs of solutions.
The broadened number of teams engaging our design team also helped the organization cut down on working with 3rd-party design agencies leading to an estimated cost savings of $15MM (based on conservative industry billable rates of $250/hr).
