Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina, an employer of more than 4,700, faced severe change management issues and employee pushback in implementing a major software initiative in 2011. Executives of this major insurer approached Philips Design’s human-focused design researchers to rigorously investigate the people issues underlying the problem and supply strategic recommendations to drive change. I partnered with the team to transform spreadsheet data into impactful personas, ethnographic reports, spider graphs and other visualizations. As a recent M.F.A. graduate and new employee at Philips Design’s consultancy, this 2011 project provided an intense course in human factors research and design thinking for change, and greatly influenced my own process in my career since.
Human and business goals
The research team’s primary objective was to help Blue Cross Blue Shield leadership understand the people problems blocking adoption of a major, and costly, software and process changeover. Philips Design was also commissioned to provide strategic change management recommendations to BCBS stakeholders, defining adoption KPIs and targeted communication and rollout tactics.
Key Challenge
Philips Design’s directors and experienced researchers needed to gracefully navigate a certain amount of internal disagreement with the client-side stakeholders. I learned a lot about client education and strategically fostering stakeholder alignment through transparency, timing of presentation, process exposure and other soft techniques.
Role and team
As a Communications Designer, my role was to transform spreadsheet data and other raw info into visually compelling materials. I worked under the direction of two senior researchers, a creative director and a sociologist.
The design researchers began with primary field research, visiting BCBSNC’s offices and interviewing more than 50 associates in their work environment. Interviews were recorded and transcribed, then audited for voice-of-the-customer insights.
To facilitate a grand-scale card sort exercise during this phase, I worked with the researchers to custom-design insight cards with color-coded dimensions for employee management level, tenure, job function and other factors.
Our first major deliverable was a set of 30 bound enthnosheets that would form the basis for eight executive personas.
With a rich set of ethnographic data now organized, the team needed to prioritize and surface the most important insights by distilling the ethnosheets into personas. I worked with the team to bring to life eight unique persona spreads. Personas were presented to the client along with extensive deep dives into content and analysis area, including spider graphs illustrating relationships between change initiatives and other factors like tenure or job function.
To make an impact at an executive-level presentation to the client, I designed and produced life-sized personas of each of the eight research products to great effect. These disruptive deliverables were leveraged by the initial BCBS commissioners and taken around to different parts of the campus for display and education.