Designing Operations
Challenge: How might we create a unified, end-to-end technology and operation strategy for our client that takes current initiatives and existing user research into consideration to identify and reduce redundant systems and processes and create a more cohesive operating model?
Outcome: The result of this work is an Operating Model that acts as the blueprint to guide how the IT management office interacts and conducts business day-to-day. The model depicts the 9 core functions that enable our client to deliver on its mission, and is designed to be structured to build standards and processes, and iterative and agile to shift based on the organization’s needs.
My Role: As Business Designer, I was responsible for facilitating stakeholder interviews, alignment sessions, workshops and synthesizing findings that informed final operating model and strategy documentation.
Team Structure: Design Director, Service Design Lead, (2) Business Designers, Interaction Designer, Visual Designer, Digital Producer, Operations Subject Matter Expert
Summary: Federal policy and management directives had increased workloads and backlogs within our clients IT management office, resulting in a reactionary approach to conducting business. To ensure business could proceed efficient, our client sought the help my team to optimize its operational strategy by establishing governance, standard processes and procedures to ensure business continuity without stifling technological innovation.
Our team started with in-depth research, interviewing executive stakeholders to understand the current state challenges and define key business objectives. The team used insights from these interviews to develop materials for a tailored strategy session with executive stakeholders to align IT management office Leadership around the organization’s goals and desired business results.
Following the alignment session, the team synthesized content, defined the IT management office’s 9 core functions and drafted the Operating Model framework. We then developed activities and materials to guide 8 targeted working sessions designed to define 8 of the IT management office’s distinct function’s core subfunctions, activities, skills, customers and processes. In the working sessions, the team collaborated with IT management office employees and leveraged their expertise to identify strengths and opportunities for improvement organization wide.
Artifacts
Once the working sessions were complete, the team worked with IT management office Leadership to validate and finalize the functions, subfunctions and processes that would make up the IT management office’s new Operating Model and define its governance structure. The new Operating Model created a framework for how different groups within the office would work with one another, the primary functions of each group, and how outside groups would interact with the IT management office.
In order to ensure transparency for IT management office staff, leadership and customers served by the IT management office, the team developed a microsite that outlined the Operating Model, the function and subfunction definitions, and the core processes. This site walked through the details and steps that were taken to create the Operating Model and overall OIT strategy.
Since the IT management office’s primary objective was to have a new Operating Model and strategy in place by the start of FY20, we developed an Implementation Plan that outlined the different elements that make up the Operating Model and walks through the different steps to achieve the goals of each element. The Plan was supplemented by more tactical project charters to implement discrete subfunctions that support the overall operating strategy.
Throughout the project, we worked closely with executive stakeholders to develop a model that provided clarity and guidance for how each employee fit within the organization and contributed to its mission.