Design Adoption Case Study
Client: AT&T | Role: Design Strategist
Bringing Design Thinking to AT&T
AT&T had assembled a Tech Council from multiple organizations, with the goal of exploring and identifying a partner to help them incorporate design thinking and agile into their way of working. Their finalists were Stanford d.School, IDEO and IBM. IBM won the bid. We co-created an operating model for design thinking adoption and coached AT&T teams through three Pilot Projects.
The Challenge
Getting C-suite executives and business line owners to come to a consensus is not an easy task. Before we could do any of that, we had to expose them to the practice of Enterprise Design Thinking and convince them it was the right approach. Honing nine possible Pilot Projects to the three most likely to succeed was the next task. In the end, we had to teach through doing, with teams that were newly exposed to the practice and under pressure to deliver outcomes.
The Approach
Pilot Projects
Flexware
Small Business
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Problem Statement:
How might we enable AT&T Sales to effectively sell FlexWare to small businesses?
What was Accomplished:
We crafted a solution called FlexPlay, a try before you buy concept that enabled the customer to self-service their networking needs either on their own or if they chose the assistance of a seller.
Flexware
VNF Onboarding
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Problem Statement:
How might we enable an AT&T product manager to streamline 3rd party VNFs into AT&T’s infrastructure?
What was Accomplished:
We created standards to help develop a uniform process so project managers can readily assist VNF providers in an expedient manner.
Sales
Enablement
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Problem Statement:
Design a better way for an AT&T seller to obtain relevant information about current and potential customers so that they can quickly gain insight and easily identify new business opportunities.
What was Accomplished:
We developed a prospecting, account information and services tool prototype.
Pilot Project Lessons Learned
At its core I really believe that this the right path for us to be going down. It changes the overall dynamic of the quality of experience we deliver, which I think it one of our biggest challenge.
Design Thinking needs to occur early, in order for the roadmap of a product to be formed.
I’ve seen enough that I believe there is a lot of value but it is going to take commitment and if you are committed then you can see value and if you are not committed is going to be really challenging.
The Target Operating Model
Upon completion of the engagement, we developed a comprehensive target operating model (or Playbook) for AT&T outlining their current design capability and a three-phase roadmap for developing a design thinking capability within their organization.
Executive Feedback to Pilot Teams
One thing I would ask is, don’t lose sight of this work. You are going to go back into an environment that sucks you into an inertia that doesn’t allow you to make change … I want to make sure that you understand that it is ok to fight for whatever you need to do to keep this going. I expect that of you … I give you permission to break the inertia and be the antibody in my system to make this how we operate.
The Outcome
AT&T took the outputs from the engagement and have begun to develop their own design thinking curriculum. In addition, they have partnered with IBM to leverage Enterprise Design Thinking in their own GOSS transformation efforts.