Support Platform Design Workshop
Workshop Facilitator, Interaction Design Lead
The Rackspace Technology & Engineering Service (TES) org had ambitious plans to innovate and modernize the delivery of Fanatical Support. They turned to the Experience Design Team to help break down silos, enhance creativity, and identify the right direction quickly and confidently.
The Business Problem
TES wanted to build a unified platform for delivering Fanatical Support to provide consistent and quality experiences across touchpoints so customers and the Rackers that support them can do their best work with minimal friction. With so many teams involved, it was critical to define the right future state and align around it.
Methodology
We wanted to bring together people from across disciplines, functions, and areas of expertise to explore a structured problem and develop solutions as a group. So we chose to run a series of design workshops (3 colocated, 1 remote) with the goal of gaining a better shared understanding of the problem, breadth of potential solutions, and alignment on how to proceed.
Structuring the Problem
Proto-personas
In our research with Support Rackers and Account Managers, we identified three primary roles involved in resolving infrastructure issues on strategic enterprise accounts. We synthesized our findings into three proto-personas and introduced them to the group.
Issue Management Workflow
We then explored the issue management process, identifying critical fail points, opportunities for change, and TES' unified platform goals.
Sketching
Next, we had two rounds of sketching. I asked participants to select one of the critical fail points and sketch multiple solutions, keeping in mind that TES' goal was a unified platform that
keeps customers informed and engaged
empowers Rackers to spend their time on high value work
Divergence
In the first round, participants sketched a few ideas and shared them up on the wall.
COnvergence
In the second round, I asked participants to select one promising idea and push it further by integrating other ideas that came up in round one.
We shared these new versions up on the wall and identified major assumptions, open questions and possible validation paths.
Voting & Validation
After exploring feasibility and viability of each proposed design, the group voted on which they wanted to pursue to validation. After voting, the group aligned on a validation plan and timeline.
Overall, three ideas were identified as having the most potential and, after a short validation process, one emerged as strategically viable and has become a critical part of a new chartered project.