Improving career development for designers

This project created a cohesive tool for IBM’s designers to not only find new internal opportunities, but also improve their skills and plan their career.

Product

  • The Design Opportunity Marketplace is an internal website that connects IBM’s designers to career resources and internal job listings.

Business Problems

  • IBM was experiencing significant churn with their designers, and wanted to increase the average employment length of their design talent.

  • The hiring practices of some managers violate EEOC laws.

Personas

  • Designers → They’re feeling stuck in their current role and are looking for new opportunities.

  • Hiring managers → They’re looking for the right talent, and have a lot of administrative work to do to make a transfer happen.

Outcomes

  • High fidelity concepts delivered to the core team for future assessment.

  • Concepts fully implemented a few years later.

My Role

  • UX/UI Designer

  • Workshop facillitator

Timeframe

  • 3 months

Surprise, surprise! Designers leave because of bad managers and poor treatment.

Core User Needs

  • Safety → Escaping from a toxic work environment can endanger a designer’s reputation in the company and future opportunities.

  • Resources → There is stiff competition, and finding work is difficult especially because there is an expectation that as a designer you are always learning something new.

Translating User Needs Into Design Hypotheses

  • Safety → Incremental steps that allow a designer to comfortably find new opportunities at a their own pace will help persuade designers to stay at IBM.

  • Resources → Consolidating the existing resources (in addition to a plan) will streamline the designer’s job hunting and up-skilling work. Managers will have a reliable single resource to point designers to.

Service Design was the way to go. We can’t change people, but we can create a network of support.

Ecosystem Analysis

  • There is a global jobs board but it is inefficient.

    • A designer specific job board is maintained by one absolutely wonderful but overworked woman.

  • Wiki communities exist that show culture at IBM’s various design studios around the world.

  • The existing career website for designers is maintained by a small team, but mostly collects HR resources.

  • You have to find career development tools through the internal search engine, and they’re across multiple sites and links.

Going From Design Hypotheses to Concrete Direction.

  • Safety → Providing a plan to designers looking for new internal opportunities will help minimize retaliation from bad managers. And, it will minimize friction for hiring managers by creating a consistent process for transferring designers.

  • Resources → A single career website that provides resources and a job board.

Designs were delivered!

Next Steps

  • The primary design team needed to assess the designs and slot it into the roadmap.