Rosenverse

This video is only accessible to Gold members. Log in or register for a free Gold Trial Account to watch.

Log in Register

Most conference talks are accessible to Gold members, while community videos are generally available to all logged-in members.

Get Your CFO To Say: 'Our Strategic Goal is User Obsession'

Gold
Friday, June 10, 2022 • Design at Scale 2022
Share the love for this talk
Get Your CFO To Say: 'Our Strategic Goal is User Obsession'
Speakers: Adel Du Toit
Link:

Summary

In 2018 Adel Du Toit was approached by her CIO with a request: Figure out how to measure the level of dissatisfaction that BCG’s internal employees were experiencing using the digital tools and services provided by the organization. Due to the data-driven nature of BCG, Du Toit knew she would have to provide quantitative data to support any recommendations. This is how the E-SAT program was born. Instead of measuring customer satisfaction, they measured employee satisfaction. In the four years since that initial request from the CIO, BCG has consistently run the E-SAT program quarterly. And, by listening, acting and responding to feedback, the organization has seen an improvement on the E-SAT from 75% in 2019, to 85% in 2021. During their December Annual Business review for all Agile Orgs, BCG’s CFO spotlighted their E-SAT program, declaring that he wanted every single Agile squad member to become "user obsessed". Today BCG is using their E-SAT program to make strategic and investment decisions across our 13 Agile Tribes.

Key Insights

  • Using a quarterly digital employee satisfaction survey to prioritize product improvements fosters transparency and accountability.

  • ESAT focuses specifically on employee-facing digital products, distinct from typical HR surveys centred on happiness or health.

  • Only products used by more than 50% of employees are surveyed, creating a focused dataset over 96 digital products.

  • Combining quantitative survey data with qualitative user research enables targeted and effective UX improvements.

  • Swapping the remote conferencing solution increased employee satisfaction dramatically from 69% to 92%.

  • Embedding experience designers within agile tribes across the organization requires empowering non-designers with design thinking.

  • Publicly sharing digital product priorities and actions with employees builds trust and supports continuous feedback loops.

  • User obsession was adopted as a strategic goal in the organization after CFO approval driven by transparent data.

  • UX Champion Awards are used to encourage teams beyond the core design group to maintain and improve product experiences.

  • Managing information overload especially on platforms like Slack requires active channel curation and focus efforts.

Notable Quotes

"My team’s focus is to make sure employees have all the digital products and services they need to work effectively and have a great user experience."

"I wanted to make sure that we don’t lie with the data but give product teams raw ingredients so they can transform the products the right way."

"This is not just a typical HR survey; it focuses deeply on the products and experiences employees use daily."

"We only include products used by more than 50% of our employees in the quarterly survey to keep focus relevant."

"After swapping our remote meeting solution in early 2020, ESAT went from 69% to 92%, a huge improvement."

"We enable employees to provide unlimited comments which we analyze with Amazon Comprehend for sentiment."

"We share the ugliest experiences transparently with every employee along with what we are doing to fix them."

"User obsession became a strategic goal after making data available and showing progress to leadership including our CFO."

"Our ESAT survey collects about 2.8 million data points allowing product teams to slice and dice data for insights."

"Managing Slack channels requires continuous gardening and removing excess channels to reduce noise and focus users."

Ask the Rosenbot
Johanna Kollmann
Insights-Driven Product Strategy: Get your Research to Count
2022 • Design in Product 2022
Gold
James Chudley
Decarbonising User Journeys: How minimising enables us to do more with less
2025 • Climate UX Interest Group
Kristin Taylor
Building Bridges Across Organizational Silos
2022 • Civic Design 2022
Gold
Erin Weigel
Get Your Whole Team Testing to Design for Impact
2024 • Rosenfeld Community
Louis Rosenfeld
Opening Remarks
2022 • Civic Design 2022
Gold
Sohit Karol
Designing Delightful Listening Experiences: Mixed Methods Research in the Age of Machine Learning
2020 • Advancing Research 2020
Gold
Ariba Jahan
Team Resiliency Through a Pandemic
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2020
Gold
Ovetta Sampson
Managing the Human Engagement Risks of AI
2025 • Designing with AI 2025
Gold
Melissa Tsang
From Insights to Action: Driving Business Values through DesignOps
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2020
Gold
Laura Gatewood
Beyond Buzzwords: Adding Heart to Effective Slack Communication
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024
Gold
Nathan Curtis
Design Systems for Us: How Many One-Source(s)-of-Truth Are Enough?
2019 • DesignOps Community
Sam Proulx
Mobile Accessibility: Why Moving Accessibility Beyond the Desktop is Critical in a Mobile-first World
2022 • DesignOps Summit 2022
Gold
Indra Klavins
A Design Ops Girl in a Dev Ops World
2019 • DesignOps Summit 2019
Gold
Simon Wardley
Maps and Topographical Intelligence
2019 • Enterprise Community
Christian Rohrer
Insight Types That Influence Enterprise Decision Makers
2015 • Enterprise UX 2015
Gold
Theresa Neil
Just Build Me a Dashboard!
2019 • Enterprise Community

More Videos

Taylor Jennings

"Short-term learnings kind of roll into long-term ones as you iterate and build on historical findings."

Taylor Jennings Joe Nelson Alex Knoll

Repository Retrospective: Learnings from Introducing a Central Place for UX Research

March 9, 2022

Nicole Aleong

"Speculation fills in the gaps where past experience fails us, often seen in hesitation or pauses."

Nicole Aleong

Future Orientations to Everyday Life: Futures Anthropology as a Methodology

March 26, 2024

Jeff Gothelf

"The team that comes up with the winning idea leaves the studio with equity and carries the idea forward."

Jeff Gothelf

Innovation Studios: the Engines of Enterprise Experimentation

May 14, 2015

Saara Kamppari-Miller

"Accessibility is a program, not just a single project; starting small and scaling efforts builds momentum."

Saara Kamppari-Miller

DesignOps for Inclusive Design and Accessibility

May 26, 2022

Tess Dixon

"If you don’t have the basics taken care of, infinite promotions and ping pong tables are just noise."

Tess Dixon

C'mon Get Happy

September 29, 2021

Liam Thurston

"Mastery is achievable, whether you have 10,000 hours or not—it’s about building that portfolio and case studies."

Liam Thurston

Why Your Design Team Is Quitting, And How To Fix It

June 10, 2022

Ian Swinson

"Careers as ladders are what HR wants, but careers aren’t linear; they should be a jungle gym."

Ian Swinson

Designing and Driving UX Careers

June 8, 2016

Leisa Reichelt

"One researcher per team for at least three days a week was considered an outrageous luxury at GDS in 2013."

Leisa Reichelt

Opening Keynote: Operating in Context

November 7, 2018

Rachael Greene

"Doing fewer things well and working at a natural pace improves quality and reduces burnout."

Rachael Greene Alison Davis

Building a Design Ops Practice that Really Works (Most of the Time)

October 2, 2025