***I built an in-house experience design team that led the brand and UX design for seventeen early-stage startups in the AI-focused precision medicine space using artificial intelligence. My work on improving user experience, developing design and product strategies for businesses, and successfully launching companies and products led to the successful exits of six companies and the start of a $200M Precision Medicine Fund.***

### Designing for Precision Medicine

Joining a startup incubator has all the challenges of working as an in-house team and working for an agency. I joined a small group of designers primarily focusing on building brand materials for our early-stage incubator companies. I matured our design capabilities to become a full-service design studio to meet the needs of our startups from a branding and marketing perspective, as well as our user experience and research capabilities for in-house product development. As I understood how the in-house companies worked together to create an interconnected ecosystem of products and services primarily serving the healthcare industry, I made a design maturity plan to level up our current designers and bolster the team to include content design and UI engineering, rounding out our team and how we could best position ourselves to serve our in-house customers. Our customers included:

* [Medstatix](https://www.medstatix.com/): a patient experience feedback platform to improve physician outcomes and service.

* [Appmobi](https://www.appmobi.com/): a cybersecurity platform focused on real-time threat detection for an ecosystem of devices.

* [Wylei](https://wylei.com/): an AI-driven marketing platform that helps brands deliver personalized messaging and ad campaigns.

* [SweetMotion](https://aspirevc.com/sweetmotion/): a Diabetes management app using predictive analytics to monitor BGL patterns.

* [Powch](https://powch.com/): a patented crypto wallet integrated with other AVC companies.

* [Fusionetics](https://www.fusionetics.com/): an AI-driven performance improvement platform for sports medicine and rehabilitation therapy.

* [Connexion Health](https://connexion.health/): an immersive AI-driven physical therapy and performance improvement environment.

* [Smart Health Innovation Lab](https://smarthealthinnovationlab.com/): a clinical technology lab incorporating technologists, healthcare providers, and insurers to prove new therapies and devices.

* [Clio Go](https://clio.health/): a mobile app care navigator for patients to connect with their primary care provider.

* Vitavista is an AI-driven medical imaging technology that optimizes images and analyzes images.

* Nanodyne Labs: a microfluidic sensor technology for capturing biometric data through non-invasive applications.

* And several in-house products and initiatives under NDA.

```cv
gallery
{"layout":"hscroll","images":[{"src":"https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/maitake-project.appspot.com/o/pages%2FlUwUMOpRKKUWBPm7PFXrqFrXUcE2%2FL8CS0cyKJXTE8SRNpGrB%2F9c151fd2-3f8a-4a7a-b4e2-c1b41072149c.jpg?alt=media&token=697ecf99-ffa7-4bd1-9b04-1d68a5977e5a","id":"9c151fd2-3f8a-4a7a-b4e2-c1b41072149c","width":585,"height":1024,"filename":"Nanodyne_Website-585x1024.jpg","type":"image/jpeg","caption":"Nanodyne Labs builds micro-fluidic sensors for health tech wearable applications.","border":false}]}
```

As part of the senior leadership team, I regularly met with our managing directors to discuss product design opportunities within our portfolio. I regularly pitched research activities and led design sprints to identify new opportunities with my partners in engineering, outside partners, and product management. My previous work with The Pennsylvania Academy of Family Physicians enabled Aspire Ventures to collaborate more effectively with physicians in their product ideation. As such, one in-house product from my concept pitches was a primary care navigator, connecting primary care physicians to patients through their mobile devices in a level of transparency and communication unheard of in modern patient portals. That concept would eventually become the Clio Go platform and mobile app.

### 18-Month Company Launch Program

When our managing directors wanted to develop a company launch program that would drastically shorten the time it took companies to go from idea to product, a significant emphasis was placed on developing the brand and product design practices so that new companies could launch with a wholly realized brand presence and well thought out, usable product.

```cv
gallery
{"layout":"hscroll","images":[{"src":"https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/maitake-project.appspot.com/o/pages%2FlUwUMOpRKKUWBPm7PFXrqFrXUcE2%2FL8CS0cyKJXTE8SRNpGrB%2Fc8521eff-3e2d-4352-81f7-ac3c68027e0c.png?alt=media&token=052da075-9502-4fb6-a929-e9e7f4036cdb","id":"c8521eff-3e2d-4352-81f7-ac3c68027e0c","width":1031,"height":499,"filename":"Screenshot 2023-09-01 at 9.46.11 AM.png","type":"image/png","caption":"One of our working sessions to develop our 18-month company launch program. We had representation from engineering, product management, design, legal, and finance, participating in forming our 0-1 company launch platform.","border":false}]}
```

With my team, we developed a playbook that detailed a series of practices, approaches, and activities to help build a company brand identity, design system, and product design work that enabled these companies to enter the market with a viable initial product/service. My team and I worked through the initial execution of this playbook with a company called SoftCGM, refining the activities to foster more collaboration with other components of the launch program, including engineering, product management, and marketing.

```cv
gallery
{"layout":"hscroll","images":[{"src":"https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/maitake-project.appspot.com/o/pages%2FlUwUMOpRKKUWBPm7PFXrqFrXUcE2%2FL8CS0cyKJXTE8SRNpGrB%2F3caf2ec0-e352-4524-a942-538df6d57732.jpg?alt=media&token=e510eeaf-1a31-4044-bde4-ca048961af46","id":"3caf2ec0-e352-4524-a942-538df6d57732","width":1097,"height":2560,"filename":"Vitavista_Website-scaled.jpg","type":"image/jpeg","caption":"Vitavista is an AI-enhanced medical imaging technology that assists physicians identify internal structures.","border":false}]}
```

### Maturing a Design Team

At Aspire Ventures, this was my first time developing a career framework for individual contributors. I reviewed several frameworks with help and suggestions from other design leaders at large global organizations and smaller niche agencies. I created a custom framework that laid out the required skills and demonstrable attitudes that would enable team members to align in their job growth at Aspire Ventures. This framework also outlined how a team member could successfully exit Aspire Ventures, join one of the in-house startups, and lead their work as an exited company.

```cv
gallery
{"layout":"hscroll","images":[{"src":"https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/maitake-project.appspot.com/o/pages%2FlUwUMOpRKKUWBPm7PFXrqFrXUcE2%2FL8CS0cyKJXTE8SRNpGrB%2F6189884f-1aff-4590-9186-fb82d1884624.jpg?alt=media&token=bc484839-1347-4dea-b762-14689b96d812","id":"6189884f-1aff-4590-9186-fb82d1884624","width":1200,"height":786,"filename":"58d57b85c3775.image_.jpg","type":"image/jpeg","caption":"Our Chief Product Officer tested out an early version of what would become Connexion Health’s gesture controls and biofeedback display UI.","border":false}]}
```

During my time at Aspire Ventures, I promoted four out of six of our core team to senior members, with two exiting to lead the product design work at two companies.

### Outcomes

During my tenure at Aspire Ventures, my team and I saw the successful exit of six companies: Smart Health Innovation Lab, Clio Go, Connexion Health, Medstatix, Wylei, and Appmobi. I could promote most of my team from early career individual contributors to senior-level contributors, while two members joined two of the exited startups. As part of the senior leadership team, my concepts, and presentations led to product improvements across our portfolio of companies, with one in-house product concept being the Clio Go, a care navigator and patient portal that sits on top of the health system’s current patient portal services. Through our work at Aspire Ventures, we launched a new $200M precision medicine fund in partnership with Lancaster General Hospital/UPenn Medicine.

Leadership Case Study: Aspire Ventures

***I built the first Experience Design team for NIC Pennsylvania, which turned into consulting with other NIC offices to develop their experience design teams. We partnered with the Governor’s Office and Office of Administration on service design improvements to agency services. Launched the first [enterprise open-source design system](https://www.pa.gov/design-standards/) that improved trust in government services. We designed, built, and released the ExpressForms platform, resulting in $50M in new licensing and fees, saving $110M in call center costs.***

### Government For The People

When I joined NIC Inc.’s Pennsylvania office, they were little more than an IT service provider that maintained contracts for maintaining commonwealth websites and specific payment processing portals. I was hired to build a new component to serve their partner, service design, and improve the customer experience within government digital functions. I was their first-ever Director of Experience Design, a hire that required input and blessing from the Governor’s Office. Upon understanding the business structure, business model, and SLA, I focused on our nascent design team, comprised of one designer and one front-end developer who technically lived on the engineering team. I proposed expanding the team to include a content designer, researcher, and accessibility specialist.

My first order of business is to understand our current services to our partner in the form of all of the SharePoint (and a few WordPress) websites we built and managed. I performed extensive site architecture and navigation reviews and developed a ten-point plan to address our current templates and implementation inadequacies. This ten-point plan aimed to improve the website’s usability, navigation, and performance to understand better how various services attached to those sites performed, using quantitative data analytics and user feedback. Each week, we met with our partners in the Governor’s Office and Office of Administration to discuss SLAs, ongoing projects, new priorities, and new findings and proposals from our team. Our commonwealth partners approved the ten-point plan, and for the next three months, we made significant improvements to our template performance that resulted in public sentiment regarding various commonwealth websites moving from negative to neutral feelings.

### ExpressForms

Our partner needed the capability to quickly build customized online forms that could connect to our payment processing technology. Our previous integration of processing payments required clunky implementation for on-premise service installation. Still, it could utilize a layered over technology already approved by the Office of Administration if the routing of payments was correctly configured. My team and I took a defunct low-code platform NIC Federal had previously developed and reworked the product into a streamlined form, building a no-code platform that any non-technical individual could visually develop and test. I led the product design and development, serving as lead designer and product manager for this work. We launched ExpressForms in late 2018 and had six agencies running the pilot program.

```cv
gallery
{"layout":"hscroll","images":[{"src":"https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/maitake-project.appspot.com/o/pages%2FlUwUMOpRKKUWBPm7PFXrqFrXUcE2%2FMZLYFlgngLOxCsIgDLHe%2Fe5461ff3-5d81-41d1-8944-1f0ff0ba05cd.png?alt=media&token=23c701c8-6798-4a71-88ec-510b047a5a04","id":"e5461ff3-5d81-41d1-8944-1f0ff0ba05cd","width":973,"height":1663,"filename":"ExpressForm1.png","type":"image/png","caption":"This is PennDOT’s Speaker Request form that is powered by ExpressForms.","border":false}]}
```

Our pilot program worked beyond expectation, with six agencies receiving a collective 91% form completion and successful payment processing. In 2019, we expanded ExpressForm’s backend capabilities with user access and management tools, sandbox capabilities, and self-service deployment to all Commonwealth agencies. In 2019, we saw the explosion of over 4,000 ExpressForm live in Pennsylvania with an average form completion rate of 92% and the exact figures for forms utilizing our connected payment processor. It was estimated that the cost savings that ExpressForms created for the Commonwealth is around $120M in reducing call center costs across the Commonwealth agencies.

Our project and account manager took the reins of ExpressForms in 2019 to manage the intake for special requests and integrations for future product development.

### Building an Experience Design Team

My work around our ten-point plan identified more needs than technical implementation. The need for information architecture, content planning, and user research came to the forefront as we were becoming tasked with more work around service design. I was approved to build a team as I saw fit to serve our Commonwealth partner. I hired a content strategist, a user researcher with deep data visualization background, and an additional front-end developer. A product specialist on the ExpressForms team had a deep passion for accessible products. I brought her over as a lateral move, where she would serve on the Experience Design and ExpressForms product teams. In addition to my practitioner, a project manager was assigned to the Experience Design team to help me manage my multiple parallel projects. This grew my team from two to seven direct reports.

```cv
gallery
{"layout":"hscroll","images":[{"src":"https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/maitake-project.appspot.com/o/pages%2FlUwUMOpRKKUWBPm7PFXrqFrXUcE2%2FMZLYFlgngLOxCsIgDLHe%2F4f9daa91-cc16-426e-9b6a-026a99fe2dba.png?alt=media&token=0fe9f413-8918-4d00-8c41-7ed98a9160ff","id":"4f9daa91-cc16-426e-9b6a-026a99fe2dba","width":1184,"height":579,"filename":"Screenshot 2023-08-31 at 12.05.33 PM.png","type":"image/png","caption":"We revised our DesignOps Playbook frequently to ensure that it would be valuable document for onboarding new team members and a good shared reference material for other NIC offices to develop their own playbook.","border":false}]}
```

Building a team this quickly and each having their domain could be a tricky endeavor for even seasoned leaders. I made a customized onboarding program for new members and helped them acclimate to our new team and each other. I created career development plans and helped them set their own SMART goals to show their professional progress in their work measurably. This kind of employee engagement and team building allowed us to acclimate quickly and collaborate effectively. As a team, our first task was to create our own DesignOps Team Playbook on how we operate, our principles, and the tools we use, and document other practices of how we each contribute to the overall success of the team, our office, and our partner.

```cv
gallery
{"layout":"hscroll","images":[{"src":"https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/maitake-project.appspot.com/o/pages%2FlUwUMOpRKKUWBPm7PFXrqFrXUcE2%2FMZLYFlgngLOxCsIgDLHe%2F404c36ae-cd92-4bb8-b9ae-39032bcf37a1.png?alt=media&token=70aabf68-cb84-441d-8ff5-83501903cb85","id":"404c36ae-cd92-4bb8-b9ae-39032bcf37a1","width":1406,"height":365,"filename":"Screenshot 2023-08-31 at 12.00.32 PM.png","type":"image/png","caption":"A candid shot of two team members working on project. On the left is Tyler using the Pennsylvania Design Standards to create PA Smart. On the right is Mercedees developing a custom ExpressForm for an agency partner.","border":false}]}
```

After building our team, I proposed new services to our commonwealth partners, including content strategy audits and workshops, qualitative public research, accessibility auditing, and strategic design consulting.

### The Pennsylvania Design Standards

Our ten-point plan also identified another need for our commonwealth partner: a shared design language for their digital services. As the landscape of services was developed in-house by the agency IT department and externally from various govtech service vendors, there was no cohesion between any service the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania except those built and maintained by our office. I had my team do an extraneous project in between projects to audit agency websites and services and compile a list of the most common UI components and patterns so that I could present a proposal to develop a design system for the Commonwealth. Our initial proposal was heard and kept as a potential future project.

```cv
gallery
{"layout":"hscroll","images":[{"src":"https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/maitake-project.appspot.com/o/pages%2FlUwUMOpRKKUWBPm7PFXrqFrXUcE2%2FMZLYFlgngLOxCsIgDLHe%2Fa4c5dc6c-1864-4aaa-ae7d-6ac7eefb5226.png?alt=media&token=70305029-42dc-4438-b8a2-c5dcc38a3392","id":"a4c5dc6c-1864-4aaa-ae7d-6ac7eefb5226","width":1380,"height":362,"filename":"Screenshot 2023-08-31 at 11.43.18 AM.png","type":"image/png","caption":"A collection of various Commonwealth websites and services that share no common visual language and cohesion. This lack of cohesion led many in the public to distrust real Commonwealth services as they didn’t believe those services looked like they were part of the Commonwealth.","border":false}]}
```

That priority changed when data and feedback were shared with our partner that a commercial entity was taking advantage of a poorly designed and free service from our DMV website and charging individuals fees to essential process data for them. The public believed they were working with our DMV and not with a third party. This revelation spurred our partner to prioritize our design system work to prepare it for the Governor’s CX Transformation initiative in seventeen weeks.

```cv
gallery
{"layout":"hscroll","images":[{"src":"https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/maitake-project.appspot.com/o/pages%2FlUwUMOpRKKUWBPm7PFXrqFrXUcE2%2FMZLYFlgngLOxCsIgDLHe%2F373d9ee8-21d1-473a-b0fe-11f569bd498b.png?alt=media&token=9a76d5a2-5fc5-450b-b67b-73172310cfe3","id":"373d9ee8-21d1-473a-b0fe-11f569bd498b","width":1360,"height":431,"filename":"Screenshot 2023-08-31 at 11.57.07 AM.png","type":"image/png","caption":"This is a full view of all of the core UI components in the Pennsylvania Design Standards. It was designed using Atomic Design principles developed by Brad Frost.","border":false}]}
```

My team and I scoped down the work that we initially estimated would be a 6 – 8 month to a 3-month endeavor while putting other work on hold. The cohesion I built with the team was tested in a high-stress, high-stakes environment. Ultimately, our team cohesion proved successful as we delivered a fledge design system with design tools (For Figma, Sketch, and other vector-based tooling), a complete UI kit using framework-agnostic HTML, CSS, and Javascript, and a fully documented reference site that includes usage rules and accessibility notes. We met our deadline, and our work was presented at Governor Wolf’s address in November 2019.

```cv
gallery
{"layout":"hscroll","images":[{"src":"https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/maitake-project.appspot.com/o/pages%2FlUwUMOpRKKUWBPm7PFXrqFrXUcE2%2FMZLYFlgngLOxCsIgDLHe%2F01329c5d-f0f0-4072-b626-2429d6a2a42e.png?alt=media&token=297b7bb5-17a9-44e7-a81c-09f108aa556c","id":"01329c5d-f0f0-4072-b626-2429d6a2a42e","width":768,"height":463,"filename":"pds1_trans-768x463.png","type":"image/png","caption":"We released the Pennsylvania Design Standards in November 2019. It details all of the core UI components, usage details, and accessibility guidelines for incorporating the PDS into whatever service and backend framework that agency or vendor could utilize.","border":false}]}
```

### Outcomes

The success of ExpressForms led to other NIC offices and their partners adopting our product, with significant adoption in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Illinois. Before our contract renewal, we had 5,000+ live ExpressForms, with 1,200 of them using NIC payment processing tooling in Pennsylvania alone.

The success of the Pennsylvania Design Standards (PDS) saw the court system and PennDOT adopt the PDS in their internal development and made significant contributions back to the design system for other commonwealth agencies to benefit from. Before Governor Wolf’s final term ended, his order to update all Commonwealth services to modern standards included a mandate to utilize the PDS in all public-facing digital services. The PDS was seen as a standout design system in the US government, with only a handful of other states having similar offerings and the US Web Design System being its only major comparable system from 2019 – 2022.

```cv
gallery
{"layout":"hscroll","images":[{"src":"https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/maitake-project.appspot.com/o/pages%2FlUwUMOpRKKUWBPm7PFXrqFrXUcE2%2FMZLYFlgngLOxCsIgDLHe%2Ffaf14a93-d6d5-443b-bcd2-0a2d9e5a69cf.jpg?alt=media&token=811fbb6a-2659-4be7-9df5-9731a8ae81db","id":"faf14a93-d6d5-443b-bcd2-0a2d9e5a69cf","width":1720,"height":500,"filename":"PASmart_hero.jpg","type":"image/jpeg","caption":"One of the services we developed with the Pennsylvania Design Standards. PA Smart is a initiative to train Pennsylvanians for future jobs and markets in the Commonwealth. The site as designed and built using the PDS and saw significant traffic, enrollment, and positive press under Governor Wolf’s Customer Experience Transformation Initiative.","border":false}]}
```

My work with our partner and building an experience design led me to consult with other NIC offices. I visited nine other offices and consulted with their partners on the value and ROI of experience design for their digital services. I helped charter and hire other NIC office design leaders from those consultations. My demonstrated leadership and domain expertise also invited me to several state summits to speak on accessibility, experience design, and content strategy.

```cv
gallery
{"layout":"hscroll","images":[{"src":"https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/maitake-project.appspot.com/o/pages%2FlUwUMOpRKKUWBPm7PFXrqFrXUcE2%2FMZLYFlgngLOxCsIgDLHe%2F046eadf9-3ee4-4d65-a32f-fba35d163a20.jpg?alt=media&token=77ae0ade-b9d8-4f30-87a1-b292f6ebfcd7","id":"046eadf9-3ee4-4d65-a32f-fba35d163a20","width":300,"height":104,"filename":"DEW_About-300x104.jpg","type":"image/jpeg","caption":"Our NIC partner office in South Carolina brought my team on to help with a massive content overall and redesign of the South Carolina Department of Employment and Workforce website.","border":false}]}
```

Our Pennsylvania office eventually closed due to losing out on a new 10-year master contract, but my work did help us secure a two-year extension before a new RFP was issued. While we did lose the contract renewal, NIC Inc. was additionally acquired by a competitor, Tyler Technologies, that took all state office work in a different direction. However, the products my team and I developed at NIC Pennsylvania continue to be developed in-house in several states, and the PDS continues to guide the digital service development in Pennsylvania.

### Team Credits

Experience Design Team:

* Tyler Noldon

* Jacob Crawford

* Jadrian Klinger

* Kristin Shelton

* Mercedees Wells

* Zoë Hall

* Chad Snyder

Leadership:

* Adam Thornton

* Christine Czachur

* Krystal Bonner

Leadership Case Study: NIC Pennsylvania

***My team and I transformed Procore’s platform communication and security capabilities to improve outcomes for everyone in construction. We launched [Procore Conversations](https://www.procore.com/platform/conversations) to achieve one of the Global Top Ten product outcomes in time for our IPO. Improved collaboration with product and engineering to transition product access control from RBAC to ABAC, improving customer experience within the platform.***

### Innovation at Speed

When I joined Procore Technologies, I managed a team of design, research, and content professionals focused on the core platform capabilities. We were uniquely positioned to collaborate with module-specific teams and our dedicated mobile division as we sat the nexus of how information, objects, and content flowed through the ecosystem of Procore’s many action-oriented tools. Fueled by the desire to uncover issues my team could solve, I led our team through a series of workshops with our product and engineering partners to identify our core areas of focus and purpose. These activities led to identifying the need for platform-specific capabilities that would serve our module team colleagues. Those capabilities included

* We were improving the permissions capabilities of our platform to enable greater collaboration for our customers in a construction project.

* We are improving the communication between all parties in a construction project to provide up-to-the-minute knowledge and direction from the field to the office and back.

* Improving security capabilities ensures the right individuals have access at the right time.

These foundational opportunities led to product enhancements and a new offering that greatly improved the Procore platform. It would improve customer outcomes by removing obstacles and increasing their time to take action.

```cv
gallery
{"layout":"hscroll","images":[{"src":"https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/maitake-project.appspot.com/o/pages%2FlUwUMOpRKKUWBPm7PFXrqFrXUcE2%2FPno0k40FW1I2U3A3eiRH%2F6e9b10b1-8f2a-4ad1-9423-922ce9b6d1ee.jpg?alt=media&token=e3e96d5b-a7d2-49f8-b01c-18849dc049b0","id":"6e9b10b1-8f2a-4ad1-9423-922ce9b6d1ee","width":4000,"height":2389,"filename":"Procore_ABACPermissionMatrix_Small.jpg","type":"image/jpeg","caption":"One of the platform initiatives we worked on was moving from Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) to Attribute-Based Access Control (ABAC.) What is shown is an exploration of writing policies for attribute permission groups that would grant the correct attributes for access, sharing, and inviting actions for group members.","border":false}]}
```

### Strong Collaboration Equals Better Product Offering

During my early days at Procore, I saw the disconnect between Product Management and Design, creating communication problems that hampered progress and innovation. I pulled together my design team and their product manager counterparts through a series of activities to build better relationships and communication to work together and create an environment of trust, safety, and innovation. Through team-building workshops and collaborative ideation sessions, my team and their cross-functional partners developed a micro-culture that enabled them to work tightly together and determine the best paths forward with product planning. I took these workshops to my partners and our immediate leaders, resulting in improved trust, radical candor, psychology-safe environments, and default towards action and innovation. 

```cv
gallery
{"layout":"hscroll","images":[{"src":"https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/maitake-project.appspot.com/o/pages%2FlUwUMOpRKKUWBPm7PFXrqFrXUcE2%2FPno0k40FW1I2U3A3eiRH%2Fd681e60d-b050-4b91-8a4f-ebc3055a97d2.png?alt=media&token=390ac378-1927-4082-b9e4-0ae1ba2b123a","id":"d681e60d-b050-4b91-8a4f-ebc3055a97d2","width":1338,"height":787,"filename":"ride1.png","type":"image/png","caption":"This slide detailed the principles of how we would implement decision-making as a platform team. We developed these focuses in conjunction with our product management and engineering counterparts.","border":false}]}
```

The way that our team began to work enabled us to work far enough ahead that collaborative partners would catch up to where we were operating, informing them of our work that then informed their product backlog and prioritization. Operating at the speed of innovation had the additional outcomes of a more engaged design team and individuals who led the work on several key platform enhancements.

### Procore Conversations & Internal Procore Admin (IPA)

Two of my team members led the work on a new product offering, Procore Conversations. Procore Conversations was the communications hub between all parties in a construction project, from the field to the office and back. This communications hub enabled direct messaging between two or more individuals. It could have started conversations connected to objects within the platform, such as conversations in the context of a photo, a delivery, a project update, etc. These individuals led the ideation, testing, and refinement of the Procore Conversations work released just in time for our IPO. 

```cv
gallery
{"layout":"hscroll","images":[{"src":"https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/maitake-project.appspot.com/o/pages%2FlUwUMOpRKKUWBPm7PFXrqFrXUcE2%2FPno0k40FW1I2U3A3eiRH%2Fab0a3910-77ae-4280-9993-73faff2ea7fd.jpg?alt=media&token=3f368de7-67e1-47dd-acd2-420252b18613","id":"ab0a3910-77ae-4280-9993-73faff2ea7fd","width":300,"height":169,"filename":"Procore-Conversations-300x169.jpg","type":"image/jpeg","caption":"Procore Conversations was a communications hub that enabled everyone, from the field to the office, to communicate with each other effectively in a construction project. Individuals could group message, direct message each other, and begin conversations connected to objects within the platform, such as drawings, deliveries, photos, and reports.","border":false}]}
```

Another pair on my team led the work on transitioning our complex permission system using Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) to Attribute-Based Access Control (ABAC.) In what was essentially an engineering-heavy platform enhancement, the two designers who worked on transitioning from RBAC to ABAC mapped out the multitude of permutations in creating roles and assigning attributes to objects within a project. This work enabled admins to have granular controls on individuals rather than roles themselves, which granted increased security and privacy within projects. As they developed the flows and product enhancements for profile creation and access control, these individuals worked with our engineering security team to improve the existing Internal Procore Admin tool. The IPA was updated to account for the updated ABAC implementation and was enhanced with new interfaces to account for user access traceability and reporting.

```cv
gallery
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```

### Outcomes

Upon releasing Procore Conversations, we booked nine onboarding sessions for current customers to educate them and understand how Procore Conversations could be implemented in their current projects. Three months post-release of Procore Conversations, we saw 50% of current customers utilizing Conversations in their current projects, which resulted in an estimated $1.2B in customer savings due to faster communication on the job site, savings that stemmed from improved scheduling for delivery and project management, improved safety protocols leading to fewer job site accidents, and improved financial accounting for office workers communicating with field supervisors.

```cv
gallery
{"layout":"hscroll","images":[{"src":"https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/maitake-project.appspot.com/o/pages%2FlUwUMOpRKKUWBPm7PFXrqFrXUcE2%2FPno0k40FW1I2U3A3eiRH%2Fe29c5926-6f82-4ec1-ab2c-eb91f03439d1.png?alt=media&token=841a610d-bdbe-49dc-831b-606af76a85a5","id":"e29c5926-6f82-4ec1-ab2c-eb91f03439d1","width":1536,"height":903,"filename":"procoreconvo1_trans-1536x903.png","type":"image/png","caption":"Here is an example screen of how a conversation could begin in connection to an object; in this case, a conversation between two individuals in the context of an RFI.","border":false}]}
```

The IPA increased customer satisfaction and reporting in projects. Improvements to access control and the IPA led to greater customer retention and expansion of modules, resulting in a $100M increase in sales and product expansion in its first three months.

Procore Conversations and the enhanced IPA were released before our IPO, where we raised $634.5M above range.

### Team Credits

Design & Research Team:

* Jorge Brake

* Robyn Bautista

* Nico Quintero

* Tabby Jewett

* Taylor Klundt

* Madi Chatham

* Nick Tilden

* Mary Curren

Leadership:

* Annahita Varahrami

* Aaron Kettl

* Lee Hollingworth

Leadership Case Study: Procore Technologies

***I led the platform team to design, build, and release foundational platform capabilities and enhancements that strengthened our 2.0 product modules. I led design sprints identifying the product direction for our Inspire 2.0 module and developed a new product development process that aligned sales, engineering, marketing, and product lab goals. Lastly, I led a cross-functional directors cohort that improved communications, planning, alignment, and collaboration between directors in every business unit.***

### **Building a Platform for the Future**

At The Predictive Index, ostensibly the world’s oldest startup, our work centered around our Behavioral Assessment (BA), a collection of drivers, avoidances, biases, and motivators that laid out how individuals like to be seen, collaborate, lead, and communicate. Our BA helps people and others understand themselves and how to work with others with different working styles. With our BA being over 60+ years old, our co-CEOs bought The Predictive Index in 2014 and turned it into a tech company built around our BA.

```cv
gallery
{"layout":"hscroll","images":[{"src":"https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/maitake-project.appspot.com/o/pages%2FlUwUMOpRKKUWBPm7PFXrqFrXUcE2%2Fs0W8O3oiNjxfTg4LnYuj%2Fa2027560-732d-4028-8fee-a94d6d323f19.png?alt=media&token=5e31281f-c529-4f37-8c92-6a538d00c608","id":"a2027560-732d-4028-8fee-a94d6d323f19","width":638,"height":598,"filename":"Screenshot 2023-08-31 at 10.59.00 AM.png","type":"image/png","caption":"This is my real reference profile and behavioral report showing how I operate, collaborate, and interact in the workplace.","border":false}]}
```

My role at The Predictive Index (PI) was to head our platform teams to build the platform that connects our suite of products, enabling Hire, Design, Diagnose, and Inspire to work seamlessly together on a platform that handles the foundational needs such as permissions, access controls, user management, data exchange between modules, integrations and APIs, search, and navigation. When I joined PI, I sought to understand the current landscape and how we approached building a platform. It was essential to understand the distinction of our SaaS platform as either a fully integrated platform with products made on top or unique products that have a shared architecture but operate individually from each other. 

```cv
gallery
{"layout":"hscroll","images":[{"src":"https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/maitake-project.appspot.com/o/pages%2FlUwUMOpRKKUWBPm7PFXrqFrXUcE2%2Fs0W8O3oiNjxfTg4LnYuj%2Fd28e7b73-c585-48e9-9b16-eef5ca02996f.png?alt=media&token=5676fc3c-911d-4c29-abae-368d50856b1d","id":"d28e7b73-c585-48e9-9b16-eef5ca02996f","width":1406,"height":863,"filename":"GlobalAdmin1.png","type":"image/png","caption":"Here, you will see the global navigation bar in every product that reflects what product module your company has subscribed to. This view is of the Global Admin, where an administrator can view all organization users, outstanding invitations, and any third-party users invited into your organization.","border":false}]}
```

I was confused when talking about both approaches to a platform, which we referred to as a “little P platform” or “big P Platform.” Our products were connected but siloed with the “little p platform,” as our initial 1.0 world of products had operated. The idea of a “big P platform” would be a significant shift from how we had used it in the past and what a new future vision would look like for our product lab. I worked closely with my counterparts in growth, product management, and engineering to detail a “big P Platform” concept for our 2.0 product maturation.

```cv
gallery
{"layout":"hscroll","images":[{"src":"https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/maitake-project.appspot.com/o/pages%2FlUwUMOpRKKUWBPm7PFXrqFrXUcE2%2Fs0W8O3oiNjxfTg4LnYuj%2F009f6c00-c139-4cd9-8f46-f7dfb5000d70.png?alt=media&token=6aefa4a7-a17e-4bab-a720-9923b1acd3c8","id":"009f6c00-c139-4cd9-8f46-f7dfb5000d70","width":1088,"height":632,"filename":"Screenshot 2023-08-31 at 10.54.37 AM.png","type":"image/png","caption":"I facilitated a week-long design sprint with ten individuals to identify what we should focus on in developing the first version of Inspire 2.0. Several risks were identified, with a sizable portion related to platform readiness and architecture.","border":false}]}
```

### **Focusing on the Right Problems**

With a product lab with five teams, one team for each product and one group for just one platform, we operated in silos that led to considerable confusion and churn around responsibilities and who would tackle what was on the product roadmap. Often, each growth team would tackle a similar capability, such as sharing, that would create confusion for customers as sharing an object in Hire would be very different from sharing/inviting people to a team in Design. Seeing this problem being a frequent issue, I led my platform teams through workshops to identify what actions and capabilities were platform-centric vs. specific to a module. We spent a week working through all the possible actions and jobs to be done and developing a concise list of platform-centric capabilities. Those included:

* **Person Record**: a unique record of an individual in our software.

* **User Management**: the ability to make people users of our software and manage their accounts and access.

* **Permissions and Access Control**: detailing how people and software users have what attributes and roles would grant them capabilities in our software.

* **Sharing**: how objects within our software are granted access to and from users.

* **Inviting**: how people and users are granted access to information or areas of the software they previously did not have access to.

* **Search**: finding information, objects, people, and users across a connected suite of products.

* **Navigation**: a consistent and intuitive way-finding throughout the connected suite of products.

* **Org Upload**: a way to bulk upload a group of people/users into the software.

* **Software Settings**: a way to set default behaviors and operations in your software.

* **Billing and Subscriptions**: a way to view, renew, and cancel your software subscription.

* **Design system**: the UI component library that all growth products should utilize in their work.

After determining these are platform-centric capabilities, I ran my colleagues through the same exercise to get their take on what they believed should be platform-centric areas of focus. While we did identify a nearly identical list that my direct reports and their PM and Engineering counterparts identified, my colleagues differed in views and semantics on whether we should move to an architecture that centralizes these platform capabilities or similarly build them so that each product module could be contained wholly isolated from themselves. My goal was to get us to move to an underlying foundational platform.

```cv
gallery
{"layout":"hscroll","images":[{"src":"https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/maitake-project.appspot.com/o/pages%2FlUwUMOpRKKUWBPm7PFXrqFrXUcE2%2Fs0W8O3oiNjxfTg4LnYuj%2Fe0bfe86f-c09d-474a-9511-ff41a9c7bcfc.png?alt=media&token=49998d08-d717-485e-998d-249556e61acc","id":"e0bfe86f-c09d-474a-9511-ff41a9c7bcfc","width":546,"height":310,"filename":"Screenshot 2023-08-31 at 11.10.04 AM.png","type":"image/png","caption":"We developed our design principles as a team activity. These principles would guide how we would work and develop solutions.","border":false}]}
```

#### **Building the Future Platform**

While my colleagues and leadership mulled on the architecture direction and other items with the future product roadmap, I led my teams to tackle near-term validation and future dividend-paying enhancements to make our “*big P Platform*” more immediate and valid. I led my product teams to focus on key enhancements: Global Navigation, Global Administration (User Management, Permissions, Company Settings, Billing, and subscriptions), and updating our design system. Throughout 2022, my teams performed discovery, ideation, pitched, presented, refined, and released our six enhancements. 

The Global Experience Team created a new global navigation that serves all four product modules and created a consistent and intuitive way-finding system that, when we tested with customers, cut down time spent in modules and increased engagement in key areas of the products.

```cv
gallery
{"layout":"hscroll","images":[{"src":"https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/maitake-project.appspot.com/o/pages%2FlUwUMOpRKKUWBPm7PFXrqFrXUcE2%2Fs0W8O3oiNjxfTg4LnYuj%2F50ebacd8-59da-4118-8e85-b4068b9f5aa1.png?alt=media&token=43fc5f00-7eef-4dd2-86a1-287502ee3be2","id":"50ebacd8-59da-4118-8e85-b4068b9f5aa1","width":961,"height":508,"filename":"Screenshot 2023-08-31 at 11.15.07 AM.png","type":"image/png","caption":"Our global navigation in our 2.0 products scales with the customer’s subscription and access to a suite of growth products.","border":false}]}
```

The Global Features Team tackled the Global Administration in which they partnered with our two other platform teams to develop how a person record would appear in a subscription, how to edit users’ capabilities, set company software settings, and incorporate new billing and subscriptions view that previously did not exist in 1.0 software. 

The entire product design team (eight designers) contributed to updating and improving our design system, Tapestry. I created dedicated days and times for the team to identify, create, review, update, and publish components to our design system in Figma, Zeroheight, and Storybook. In addition to UI components, we created extensive documentation for each component, including usage rules, accessibility, internationalization, and content considerations. 

```cv
gallery
{"layout":"hscroll","images":[{"src":"https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/maitake-project.appspot.com/o/pages%2FlUwUMOpRKKUWBPm7PFXrqFrXUcE2%2Fs0W8O3oiNjxfTg4LnYuj%2Ff1da9279-30db-4cbd-b50b-f129020b7438.png?alt=media&token=ee838299-2063-4ada-b088-131a9f044b73","id":"f1da9279-30db-4cbd-b50b-f129020b7438","width":1286,"height":807,"filename":"Screenshot 2023-08-31 at 11.17.17 AM.png","type":"image/png","caption":"The entire design team contributed to building our design system, Tapestry. This component status table displays what components were ready to use in both Figma and integrated into our UI library, what was in progress to be built, what still needed team review, and what was left to do.","border":false}]}
```

### **Growing Designers and Growing Teams**

At PI, we already had an existing career framework for our design team. The framework, which one of our staff designers lovingly referred to as the spiderweb, comprised design skills and demonstrating competencies in PI’s FABRIC leadership tenants. This framework was a good starting point but lacked the follow-through of practically and measurably identifying how individuals are progressing in their career, whether they wanted to move up into a more senior role/position themselves for a raise or move into an adjacent role. I introduced the use of SMART Goals with my team to develop an objective and measurable way to understand how a designer was progressing and demonstrating competency in our career framework. As a result of my introduction of SMART Goals, I had the demonstrable information needed to promote one of my senior designers to a staff designer. In addition, the SMART Goal and framework pairing gave my other team members their path to progress in their roles, even having one member of the content team join product design, going from visual designer to product designer.

The use of SMART Goals was then implemented in the wider product design team as it bridged the subjective nature of our competency framework and gave the designer and leader objective ways to measure the progress of their team members.

```cv
gallery
{"layout":"hscroll","images":[{"src":"https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/maitake-project.appspot.com/o/pages%2FlUwUMOpRKKUWBPm7PFXrqFrXUcE2%2Fs0W8O3oiNjxfTg4LnYuj%2Fb3141a22-8422-4736-84f9-2d014f7bca8e.png?alt=media&token=f3047041-9ef4-4c6e-b282-213f51e531b3","id":"b3141a22-8422-4736-84f9-2d014f7bca8e","width":801,"height":660,"filename":"Screenshot 2023-08-31 at 11.20.32 AM.png","type":"image/png","caption":"This was the template that I had the team utilize write up clear and actionable goals that we could observe, discuss, and measure progress against. For the template with filled out data on how to write one out, make a copy of my google doc and craft your own template.","border":false}]}
```

After a reduction in force in 2022, I lobbied for the then Content Studio to join Product Design as a new content design team, pairing them up with each design team and heading up our learning and development work. I made my case for the content studio to join as “content design” with a convincing pitch for improving product outcomes, reducing product development time, better ideation, and improving go-to-market planning. When they joined Product Design, I worked closely with their director to upskill and educate that team on how to approach content design, bridging their established marketing work for more product development work and training them on design practices, tools, and tactics.

### **Leading Leaders**

At PI, we have multiple business units with directors serving as the bulk of middle management and leadership for their respective areas and individuals. Our previous attempts to bring these leaders together in a monthly directors-only cohort fell short of having little to no planning, agenda, topics, and a shared sense of unity as directors. In 2023, I started a new directors cohort aimed at uniting all directors with a common goal of openly collaborating to progress business goals. As this was a group of my peers in level and title, I needed to lead with empathy and an attitude of service to ensure participation between a group of business unit leaders that may or may not impact each other meaningfully in our day-to-day work. 

```cv
gallery
{"layout":"hscroll","images":[{"src":"https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/maitake-project.appspot.com/o/pages%2FlUwUMOpRKKUWBPm7PFXrqFrXUcE2%2Fs0W8O3oiNjxfTg4LnYuj%2Ff2772cbb-ba90-4c66-b3ef-7aba77e7eb9a.png?alt=media&token=04c4f119-15b8-4a89-84fa-c521504ba604","id":"f2772cbb-ba90-4c66-b3ef-7aba77e7eb9a","width":1096,"height":576,"filename":"Screenshot 2023-08-31 at 11.26.10 AM.png","type":"image/png","caption":"One of the areas we struggled with in product development was getting leaders in other business unit brought in to contribute and collaborate on product lab activities early enough to ensure alignment. My colleague and I developed this approach that define how we would operate and ensure earlier participation from integral stakeholders. We presented this approach at our Directors Cohort meeting and was met with positive feedback on this approach.","border":false}]}
```

I met with each director to understand what they found valuable in meeting together. I listened and crafted a director’s charter outlining the purpose of working together, what we would bring to the table, and how we would conduct ourselves as a cohort. I created bi-weekly agendas, set the calendar invites with descriptions, posted the agenda weeks in advance, utilized our Slack channel for pre and post-updates, and provided a video summary that wrapped up each meeting. This work bolstered attendance at the meetings and elicited proactive agenda topics where directors sought collaboration from each other. This cohort streamlined our cadence one in-person once a month on Zoom and utilized more asynchronous communication that saw engagement.

The new Directors Cohort was seen and recognized as a refreshing new way for leadership at PI to effectively work together.

### **Outcomes**

The platform enhancements my team and I released saw dramatic changes in engagement with our products. Time spent in products went down (20% decrease), while we saw a small increase in time spent in platform capabilities go up (12% increase.) While time spent in products went down, the measures and triggers we had in engagement went up (55% increase.) This told a few things.

* People spent less time in each product performing certain actions because now they could perform those actions in the platform instead of going to each product and doing repetitive tasks.

* People spent more time performing the primary job-to-be-done because they were busy performing administrative tasks in the products.

* Time spent in the software overall went down because the quality of the spent time in the products increased.

We validate these above statements through qualitative user research four months post-release. This data and response shored up the direction to focusing on the “*big P Platform*” and investing in the architecture further to enable the platform vision my team and I developed. With the platform coming into focus, the iterative work around Design, Diagnose, and Inspire 2.0 all centered on platform capabilities powering their products, allowing them to focus solely on their product enhancements and new feature development.

Our Tapestry Design System improved our product design and development practices so much that our refinement time that was spent detailing UI for engineering went down by two weeks, cutting time for engineering to spend more time in building out the product and enabling product marketing, GTM, and sales to position earlier product release and partner education.

The design career framework and SMART Goals were so successful that we incorporated the SMART Goals in our Lattice 1:1 meetings for all of product design and introduced them to PeopleOps, Engineering, and Business Systems. 

Lastly, our director’s cohort picked up steam where our meeting cadence, topics, and agendas started tackling proactive items around team safety, building career frameworks for other departments, and planning collectively on launching new initiatives. Attendance remained at 95% and engagement in the cohort led to a 96% involvement with product marketing on a grassroots campaign to sign up our respective networks for a trial of Inspire 2.0.

### Team Credits

Design, Content, and Research Team:

* Lisa Neal

* Erin Wilkey

* Stephanie Nordness

* Cat Covi

* Richard Lee

* Jessica Osborne

* Sydney Maresca

* Andrew Barks

* David Silbert

* Trish-Davis Gray (TDG)

* Vanessa Darling

* Jessica Ivins

Leadership:

* Ranjan Bhattari

* Brian Jamieson

* Ryan-Donnelly Brelling

* Diana Samon

* Alex Tompkins

* Brian Hobbs

* Suzy Elfishawy

Leadership Case Study: The Predictive Index

Well....after a year of inactivity....I'm coming back with more fun projects and updates for my sanity and creativity.

Executive Design Leader

Product Led Fundamentals

Learning path includes UX: The Beginner's Guide, Design Thinking: The Ultimate Guide, Get Your Product Used: Adoption & Appropriation, UX Management: Strategy & Tactics, Emotional Design - How to Make Products People Will Love, Accessibility: How to Design for All, and Agile Methods for UX Design.

UX Executive Leadership

The gold standards in project management professional certification.

Project Management Professional

Foundational certification in understanding and incorporating accessibility concepts in daily life.

Certified Professional in Accessibility Core Competencies

Focus on service design for product and customer experiences for organizations.

Service Design: How to Design Integrated Service Experiences

Credential #: 011802018MCK
Foundations course on Section 508 for accessibility

Section 508 Awareness

Service Design Delivery certification for IT delivery.

ITIL v4 Foundation

Focused on radical collaboration for high-performing teams.

High Performance Collaboration: Leadership, Teamwork, and Negotiation

Associated in Web Development (HTML, CSS, JS, ASP.NET, MySQL, PHP)

Full-Service Brand and Product Design for AI health tech startups

Improving Government Services through Experience Design

Building New Platform Communication and Security Tools

Improving Platform Capabilities to Power Growth Products

Mentored designers on career pathing, management, and craft skills.

Mentor

Voted in as chapter president and set an aggressive schedule of monthly and regional events for professionals and students. Increase membership by 80% and brought in speakers such as Aaron Draplin, Sofia Milares, Timothy Goodman, and Ben Jenkins.

Chapter President

Started off as a programming and event volunteer. Eventually sat on the programming committee and planned a few student events.

Programming Chair

Joined AIGA Central PA as a programming chair and planned monthly events and larger speaker events around Central Pennsylvania.

- Led the product development and strategy of two global top ten product releases, leading to $200M in new customer acquisition.
- Spearheaded qualitative research with customers resulting in creation a new product offering, the Procore Construction Network platform, which grew customer acquisition by 50%.

Senior Manager UX

- Designed and developed an internal social platform for students and residents, leading to a 30% increase in rental renewals.

Lead Designer

* Built the first product management team at NIC Pennsylvania and created a product roadmap for our five product offerings with the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
* Developed an enterprise design system for the PA Commonwealth, exceeding WCAG Accessibility standards, and improved service performance by 65%.
* Developed and released Express Forms, a G2C SaaS platform, which improved payment processing by 90% resulting in $30M increase from licensing and fees.

Head of Experience Design

Leading our Pre-Deploy team in our Authoring Transformation work.

Diretor of Product Design

* Developed a customer experience measurement program defining active use metrics and KPIs that led to product enhancements and increased product adoption and engagement by 30%.
* Evolved our design system, leading to cross-functional adoption and improved accessibility compliance, reducing page load times by 70%.
* Led design sprints for iterative product design and agile development, resulting in 5 product enhancements in 2020, resulting in 10% increase in customer retention.
* Planned, executed, and released 6 platform enhancements that increased user engagement by 42%.

Director of Product Design

* Developed the design strategy for 17 different precision medicine startups that led to the successful exit of 6 companies and achieving profitability and/or acquisition within their first year.

Head of Design

* Designed and developed a member platform, CME learning management system, and native iOS and Android mobile app supporting 20,000 family physicians, resulting in 92% medical education course completion.

Tim McKenna

2023

2022