Design Research and Strategy | Bank of America

Background:

Bank of America’s Global Information Security organization sought to improve a key process for the organization’s information security remediation capabilities. The process is one that touches users across the enterprise, from application managers to system architects to information officers to executives. With increasing frustration from the end users, the organization sought to ease pain points. (Due to the confidentiality of the engagement, I may not make details or deliverables publicly available.)

Approach:

Due to the scale and complexity of these key capability and processes,  the scope of the project was purely a discovery initiative with the intent to identify actions based on findings. The approach and thought process was this:

The first step was to undertake key stakeholder and leadership interviews to identify assumptions, and biases, as well as to identify project framing, priorities and objectives. A survey was also conducted to prioritize issues as identified by broader stakeholders and subject matter experts. The results of the interviews and survey informed the project brief.

The bulk of the research methodology was through exploratory, semi-structured interviews. Participants were initially recommended by key stakeholders, then we recruited a broader and more representative sample of roles via the snowball effect. Interviewees were prioritized to cover representative sample across lines of business as well as across types of role and up and down the hierarchy.

Interviews were conducted in four one week sprints, with some analysis in between sprints to inform direction of subsequent interviews. A weekly update went out to key stakeholders including latest findings and questions to provide transparency and engage dialogue. Interviews concluded once information saturation was reached. In the end, the research included 40 interviews, 65 interviewees, totaling to 1744 minutes of recorded audio.

For analysis, recorded audio of the interviews was transcribed, then coded. We then transferred the interviews on to stickiest for affinity diagramming, reclustering as needed in attempt to provide different insights and connections. As themes emerged, secondary industry research on best practice informed and built upon recommendations based on design principles and findings.

The findings and recommendations were both tactical and strategic, looking both at organizational design and culture as well as technological components. Many of the issues we found held upstream causes, so also identified ways that could be beneficial outside of this key process. Deliverables and artifacts include:

• Stakeholder ecosystem map
• Service Blueprint including user journey
• Report with findings and recommendations

Result

The outcomes of the project included:

1. Spin-off project to revamp the primary product for tracking this capability
2. Green light to build an MVP Enterprise Design team, which I led as Director of Design.
3. Executive prioritization of looking at functionality gap and working from a service approach.
4. Idea of prioritization of technical debt efforts for biggest impact.

Furthermore, various other organizations impacted by this process continue to seek to improve their approach and leverage the findings and recommendations in their strategy and planning.