Helping sellers sell, by way of Design Thinking
Our IBM Automation design team of expert facilitators and many different backgrounds, worked exclusively with IBM Automation Practice Leaders and account partners to craft the narrative and selling materials to pitch Automation as a vehicle for achieving the Future of Work.
This Automation Learning Center course called Automation Essentials Course, offered education to internal (IBM) sellers and external clients regarding implementing intelligent automation and adjusting to the Future of Work.
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Measuring impact and adoption
We created education material in the form of online curricula called Automation Essentials Course (see above) and through enablement events, called IBM Automation Bootcamps. Working with Automation executives across each major geography, our goal was to craft an enablement strategy that prioritized the most to least viable client relationships that will be open to new conversations about automation. From this understanding, we were able to craft a schedule for conducting workshops with each geography over the course o the next 2 years.
As an outcome driven team, we were tasked with proving our success little-by-little as we work on scaling education. Looking at usage data from our first main touchpoint, the Automation Learning Center (ALC), I felt that the first nut to crack in understand adoption, was why aren't sellers sharing the Essentials Course? With less than 1% of our usage being clients (rather than IBM personnel), the tool was not serving its intended purpose.
Synthesis of user research
Our user-research sessions with account partners from around the world, were very helpful for understanding the range of personalities we have across the Automation Seller community. With that, the range in client personalities and tendencies added more complexity. This content was the primary driver in additional discovery and investment.
A lot of reasons came up, with varying relevance to the learning tool, but they are all interconnected.
I worked to synthesize research findings based on qualitative weight (emotion tied to experience, impact of event on further events, or frequency of mention and blame cast on event).
After framing our pain points, we plotted them on 2 axis: X being impact to the client automation journey or experience. Y being the feasibility to effect change – aka can we fix it or not?
These pain-points impact the client-experience over time. This helped our stakeholders understand how initiatives slot into the client and seller experience.
Our team's goal, to help sellers learn new ways of pitch the Future of Work to their clients, requires understanding the many paths a seller can take to successfully close an Automation deal. Since we were responsible for enablement, we wanted to ensure we designed any possible use case, with subscribed paths for any circumstance, for IBMers selling Automation. This visual explains the different paths that can be taken, order of events, flexibility, and intended audience.
Our stakeholders' priorities were impact and outcomes. As any designer struggles to do, we needed to try to represent qualitative rational for investing in qualitative improvements. This was are best take at what we could measure and improve year over year, when investing resources and time into improving the client and employee experience of selling Automation services.