Meaningful digital workplace

I found an opportunity to define meaning for the organization’s digital function by changing thinking around analytics and facilitating growth for the team. In the process of changing thinking I built a dashboard and interactive reporting experience for digital communications. The goal was to discover and collect insights and make them consumable at a glance.

Background

Prior to the digital transformation initiative, analytics and measurement programs did not exist for the company’s digital channels.

During the digital transformation initiative in 2016, the digital program evolved. New digital team leadership was hired, platforms were redesigned and rebranded, and there was a new wave of energy around the channels role company strategy. After I joined the digital transformation project team, I saw opportunity to shift beliefs about reporting and demonstrate the value of investing growing in the team.

Challenges

Leadership team (key stakeholders) were foreign to digital technology terms.

Lock down on resources like headcount. Budget was removed mid project.

Functional leadership held orthodoxies about leadership

Measurement of -websites, social media, intranet- not on the radar.

Empower functional leadership to improve digital communication, and improve my teams visibility with executive leadership.

I wanted to grow the team in impact and resources. I knew that my mix of analytical, visual tools and user centered design I could develop a reporting and analytics solution that would impact communication.

Approach

Discover the problem and challenges

Discover stakeholder experiences and user problems

Using 1-on-1 workshops and interviews with product owners, I collected an understanding of user problems and expectations of the digital communications program without digital analytics in place

Define the solution

How might the current platform alignment to the business goals?

With collaboration between our digital marketing team and enterprise architects we were able to converge on performance standards and a strategy for measurement. My key contribution was creating understanding about what success meant and defining performance expectations.

Design the first prototype

Demonstrate the value of dashboard and measurement framework.

I built an analytics reporting process and template for 8 quarters. I manually produced the analytics reports and used an iterative process to design the template and analytics systems (persona,

Deliver communicate insights

Shared a vision with functional leaders and we got budget to develop a dashboard and to grow department resources.

Iterating the processes and reporting early allowed me to earn early credibility and empathize with leaderships reporting experience. I learned how to translate technical and operational web metrics into palatable tactical and strategic insights using data visuals for a business audience.

Outcome

Career Growth

I set out to demonstrate how analytics reporting could add visibility and meaning to the work our team was doing.

Over the 4 years, I lead the initiative I survived 2 workforce reductions, and I was promoted 2 times.

Scalablity

In the first iteration of analytics reporting and tracking 1 person did all tracking , measurement, analysis and reporting as a +1 project. This was for a global corporation with 1000’s of sites and multiple thousands employees.

We scaled the program by automating workflows, defining the analytics experience, and using a dashboard to make reporting self serve.

Team Growth

There was strict limitation on headcount and the time for reporting readout was an earmark on the agenda for quarterly meeting.

By the end of the project, Digital communications developed 3 dashboards using the template I built. The company opened up headcount and hired a full time Analytics resource.

Shift in Mindframe

When I started, there was no reporting, and abandoned Google Analytics account, lots of confusion about what to measure and why it mattered. There were lots of orthodoxies about what leadership would pay attention to as far as digital technology.

By the end of year 2 analytics was adopted as a swimlane in the company’s communications strategy. Analytics was added as a “must have” requirement in the 2020 intranet redesign, which was selected by Nielsen Norman as a “10 Best intranet in 2020”.