Globalization
IBM Support
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Design Strategy Lead
2020
IBM operates in 175 countries around the world.
Globalization plays a vital part in providing world-class experiences to users the world over. When practiced appropriately, it allows companies to enter new markets, secure bids over tough competition, and provide relevant experiences to existing users. In a world where IBM can no longer rely on in person engagements as a competitive advantage, our products and services must speak for themselves.
Today, many IBMers don’t even know what globalization means.
My Role
Over the course of this 8-week research + design engagement, I uncovered frontstage and backstage pain points, negotiated project scope with our sponsoring team, and ensured our recommendations could be acted upon immediately.
I co-facilitated multiple stakeholder and user sessions to uncover,
Globalization competes against other internal requirements for the attention of offering teams.
Release managers do not know that a globalization pipeline existed.
Designers aren’t always aware of creating for a global audience - even when their product is sold abroad.
Expectations of “who owns what” aren’t always clear.
Once we aligned on our core vision of “awareness to action,” and a set of hills—user based objectives—our MVP fell into place.
Outcomes
Our role-based design and information architecture recommendations informed the launch of IBM’s new Globalization Central. With overall content reduced by 78%, not only can IBMers find the information easier, they can apply it far earlier in their product roadmap.
Alongside the Carbon Design System, Globalization is now one of 6 IBM experience standards. Over 9 weeks, we were able to form the connections necessary to ensure these standards didn’t exist in a vaccuum.
While any business results are still months in the making, surveys post-project show that internal awareness of Globalization has improved.