What’s health got to do with it…got to do with it? 🎶 Part 1.
By: Brittanni Risher
Tags: Design Operations, Design Thinking, Business Development, Photography, Dogs

Focus Categories:

Leadership

Inclusion

Communication

Collaboration

Value & Metrics

Velocity & Agility

Next, I created a list of statements based on these categories that my management team and I wanted to understand more deeply (see image). I then decided on the cadence for how frequent I needed to collect the data, and the time needed to review and synthesize the results. I also wanted to provide enough time to allow teams to process their results, and make improvements for any areas of opportunity found. I decided that a quarterly assessment would work best, and scheduled my team engagements. I asked every design team member in a one-on-one interview format, to rate their personal level of satisfaction of the statements, based on a pointed scale — which later evolved into a 5-point scale. 1 indicated “highly dissatisfied” and 5 indicated “highly satisfied”. I also made it clear with the teams that all feedback provided would be anonymous in order to promote honest candor.

First set of statements used in team interviews.

Then, in my Type-A fashion, I colored-coded the rating scale to provide an easy and quick way to review the results reported for each answered statement (see image).

Color-coded 5 point scale and ranges

Finally, I took the average rating of each statement, and averaged those numbers together to establish the overall team health and satisfaction score for the quarter being assessed.

The Results

In 2020, we had an increase in overall health from Q1 to Q2 (see image), an increase in teams who participated in the assessment, a new quality cadence to track team progress, and an improvement to how results are broken down across questions to obtain the most value and impact.

Overall health scores for 2020.

“Your work in the Security Design’s team’s health reports have been so important in understanding which areas our group needs to work on and improve. Specifically seeing Agile practices improve in the two work groups I’ve been on, as a direct results of those health reports has been extremely helpful in improving the quality and effectiveness of our deliverables each sprint.” — Jen Downs

An example of the quarterly comparison of overall health scores for all teams assessed in 2020.

An example of how the data was broken down for a series of new questions identified, which allows us to see the distribution of responses..

“Your project health report initiative has helped not only me, but our teams understand what’s working and identify room for improvements in a transparent fashion. Giving us all a voice to maintain and grow as individuals and collaborators.” — Peter Vachon

The Impact

These results were presented to management and each team, so they could review what worked well that quarter and what could improve. The call to action for each team was to create an action plan outlining what they will work on to advance their overall score for the next quarter’s assessment. This process later adjusted to teams identifying one or two focus areas they’d like to improve for the upcoming month. This in-turn reduces capacity, and allows designers the space to make valuable improvements collectively throughout the quarter, without disrupting their normal workflow. Now our quality cadence involves scheduling monthly check-ins with our DesignOps team to share progress made, highlight areas where they may need further support, and/or identify a new focus area for the following month.

Initially this was a tedious and lengthy process overall, however there were lessons learned along the way that helped mature the program’s operational flow. Lessons such as, taking further advantage of Excel to generate formulas for health ratings, utilizing SurveyGizmo to capture feedback per statement and reports, and creating action plan and report templates for teams to reference quarterly. This improved the speed to collect and distribute data, and reduced the overall program process time by 40%.

My Why

Why am I so passionate about this area? What is my motivation? What is my Why?

In 2009, two months after graduating college, I found out I had a macro secretory pituitary adenoma, later diagnosed as Acromegaly. In other words, a brain tumor.

A TUMOR?! Near my brain?! Really?!

I’m supposed to be conquering the “real world” right now — putting on my big girl panties — adult-ing… not scheduling blood work, appointments, and surgeries.

Isn’t that MRI scan just ugly? And that tumor, well.. “she” is not cute.

Upon hearing news of this magnitude, it was as if I was immediately paralyzed with fear & uncertainty. What does this mean? Is it cancerous? What do I do with this information? What kind of surgery would I need? Do I have a nicely shaped head if the doctors have to shave off all of my hair? Can I pull off that look? Yes, these were some of the questions racing through my tumor-invaded mind.

But… this Proud Mary had to “keep on rollin’.” See what I did there? 😁

After undergoing my first brain surgery 11 years ago, health has been a major component and a constant area of awareness in my life. How will I know if my brain and everything that I’m doing to ensure it functions successfully are indeed working as it should? What can I measure regularly to check that I maintain satisfied with my results before undergoing a “review” or a doctor’s visit? These questions and memory remain as a scarred reference point in my temporal lobe — a term I’ve learned when frantically researching information about the brain before surgeries.

Not only have I learned to reference these questions in my personal life, but similar questions carried over professionally as well. Am I aiding to the health of the team I am a part of? What factors or symptoms have I recognized that should be monitored continuously, and ensure sustainable improvements of team health are maintained? I concluded that my outputs — no matter the direction I took, needed to be both prescriptive and facilitated regularly.

“Your work in the project team health initiative was crucial in shining a light on areas of both success and opportunity for our team, and I look forward to understanding how we can augment this further and create actionable items for us to address moving into next year.” — Simon Finney

This was just the beginning of my regime and vision, and in Part 2, I will expand further on how the team heath data was collected, provide my program observations, take a deeper dive in the team reporting process, and share insights of plans for improving the overall success of the Project Team Heath program.

Until then…take a moment to listen to a little Tina Turner, and let her motivate your project team health journey.

Thanks for reading. “You’re simply the best…” 🎶 😉

…and for those curious to know, I’m happy to report I’ve remained tumor free for 11 years!

“She” (now my brain) is a lot cuter now.

Appendix:

Part 1: Project Team Health overview, a snapshot of the results, and my Why!

Part 2: Coming soon. A deep dive into the reports, observations, and vision.

The article above is of my personal opinion and based on research conducted within my team. It does not represent IBM’s strategies, processes or opinions.