Design Sprint Scaling: Expanding Innovation at Prudential
How rapid iteration launched a game-changing methodology to an enterprise—faster, smarter, and with real impact.
​
Focus: People-Centric Approach to Accelerating Design & Product Development
Role: Designed Training and Lead Facilitator for Design Sprints
Challenge
As the first UX designer in Prudential’s Group Insurance, I noticed the lack of inconsistent collaboration across departments as company was decentralized. Prudential needed a standardized methodology to accelerate product development and bring cross-functional collaboration into the design process as the business was extremely siloed. The team was new to design thinking, and there was little existing structure for incorporating design into the process. Furthermore, this was a problem in all the other other areas of Prudential’s business which also lacked methodology for design thinking or consistency and frameworks.
Solution
I led the introduction of Design Sprints to streamline product development. Starting with a small internal pilot, I planned and facilitated the first design sprint, even recruiting users for testing from Craigslist when necessary to test the prototype.
After proving the success of the initial sprint, I was able to scale this to slowly train more people. This process was expanded across multiple teams and departments, ultimately creating a successful “train the trainer” model that spread across the organization and international office.
Impact
-
Over 500 employees trained in person in 5 locations before the pandemic shutdown.
-
NPS of 92 participants indicates they would bring this methodology back to their teams or support their teams in utilizing it.
-
Design sprints became a trusted tool for rapid prototyping and testing- lasting over 8 years in a corporate environment is a testimony of the impact of my training.
-
I increased speed to market with projects like the redesigned employer portal, leading to significant improvements in mobile usage and reduced call center traffic by 20%.
-
Design became a recognized and respected partner across the company, including sales and development teams.
-
The culture of design sprints spread, enhancing team collaboration and delivering innovative products faster.
-
Employee satisfaction and engagement increased, with teams citing design sprints as a source of both fun and productivity.
-
We were able to make a case for onboarding a dedicated user testing platform so we could target the right user in a cost and time-efficient way.
My Learning
-
Sharing is caring: While this process was deeply impactful to my own work, I knew more employees in the type of methodology would benefit the long term goals.
-
Value their time and feedback: in my first iteration, this was a lunch and learn. But feedback was a desire for more susbstential learning. This lead to a pivot to a 6 hour workshop.
-
Iterate. Iterate, Iterate: In my first sessions, the problem was related to finance which at times derailed the conversations. Shifting to a problem space related to lunchtime brough in humor, play and enough space from finance that participants could focus on the process vs problem.
