Umpqua’s IPX team, (Innovation, Product and Experience), hired me to bring UX and product design expertise in-house. Like a small agency of experts, the IPX team led workshops that drove product roadmaps, and supported Umpqua’s internal and vendor applications. Through research, discovery and design, I translated Umpqua’s business needs into cohesive user experiences, for both customer and associate, mobile and desktop apps, by supporting multiple product teams, and establishing Umpqua’s digital foundation.
CHALLENGE
Umpqua’s digital transformation is not unlike many traditional regional banks navigating a highly regulated industry with a footprint spanning across 5 states, and over 250 store locations. Creating a cohesive experience with so many touch points is no easy task. As I settled into my position, I realized Umpqua needed help with their cross team collaboration, because the customer journey doesn’t start and end, within the team silos. Umpqua also needed a strategy to optimize product development, so they could pivot in the market faster, and reduce operational costs.
APPROACH
Noticing a disconnect between siloed teams within the org, and seeing that impact the customers journey, I made an effort to reach out and build cross team collaborations. I set-up weekly check-ins with designers in marketing, as well as design collab meetings with dev, and led “Community of Practice” talks to share UX and design system topics with the teams.
As I worked with Umpqua’s development teams, I helped formalize the design process within agile development–what tools we used, and how designs were shared along with UX annotating and Wiki documentation. I also started advocating for a design system, with a pitch deck to get the team onboard–meanwhile, translating Umpqua’s new brand guide into a pattern library, with plans to become the digital foundation.
I helped shape Umpqua’s product team roadmaps for both customer and associate facing apps by supporting our product managers and owners with design audits, heuristic evaluations, user testing and ethnographic research–sharing recommendations and prioritizing the value. Sometimes I’d help run Design Sprints, bringing together business experts and stakeholders for a week long workshop, resulting in rapid prototyping and testing new ideas.
RESULTS
The cross team collaborations that I helped foster over time was starting to reflect within Umpqua’s product teams. The Design System was finally getting built, allowing Umpqua to get their products to market faster with better design consistency. My work with product managers was addressing some major app inconsistencies between vendor applications, as well as the website and email communications. Through thorough collaborations we had successful wins, such as retiring a mortgage login portal and migrating 50K customers into a new personal banking product. Through multiple Design Sprint workshops I helped Umpqua visualize their customer and associate product strategy, with a design that balanced human relationships with digital efficiency, within a multi-channel communication platform.
