Summary
The IBM CIO portfolio is comprised of thousands of tools and services. Given the organization’s obsession with the IBMer experience and their desire to positively impact IBMer productivity, it is extremely important that they allocate their scarce Design & Research talent to the projects that have the greatest impact on IBMers' work experience. To this end, they have refined their staffing processes and developed a new metric, The Design Staffing Score, that allows them to measure the degree to which their staffing approach aligns with project priority. Patrick will describe their refined approach to staffing, how progress is measured, and the tangible benefits they’ve realized.
Key Insights
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A simple prioritize/reject staffing model without documented criteria leads to confusion and inefficiency.
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Focusing priority on two quantifiable variables—number of users and frequency of use—provides an objective basis for staffing decisions.
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Leadership support from the CIO, Fletcher Breven, was critical to prioritizing employee experience and UX impact.
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Using domain-specific design advisors helps define ideal staffing per project and aligns staffing to project needs.
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A transparent queue with published priority scores and staffing expectations improves stakeholder communication and reduces uncertainty.
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Introducing tiers of support allows low priority projects to receive appropriate (though limited) assistance without full designer embedding.
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Creating a design staffing score metric measuring correlation between priority and staffing enables tracking impact and improvement.
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Weekly automation of staffing data collection and score calculation helps maintain alignment and enables rapid adjustments.
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Collaboration across domains through weekly meetings and focal points reduces duplication and promotes sharing of research and design knowledge.
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Continuous communication, feedback loops, and leadership involvement are essential for evolving prioritization and staffing strategies.
Notable Quotes
"If you’re like us, your team simply isn’t large enough to fully staff every project with 100% of the UX talent it needs."
"We created a simple formula focused on how many people a project impacts and how often they use it."
"Our chief information officer Fletcher Breven has always seen his role as providing a productive environment for IBMers—it’s our North Star."
"We went from an approve/reject model to a transparent prioritized queue where nothing is rejected, only priorities confirmed or adjusted."
"We transitioned designers embedded on low priority projects to higher priority ones within three weeks."
"We created tiers of support where the gold standard, embedding designers, is reserved for priority one through three projects."
"We measure alignment with a design staffing score reflecting the correlation between project priority and percent staffed."
"We automated our staffing records and updated our staffing score weekly, watching it grow from 44 to nearly 80."
"Design advisors maintain relationships with designers and project teams to reassess staffing needs as project scope changes."
"Communicating frequently and transparently with stakeholders about priorities and staffing builds trust and understanding."
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