Creating a Innovation First Culture at London Stock Exchange Group
Re-energise the company’s approach to innovation by creating a UX-first culture, streamlining the product discovery and delivery phases
Delivering a structured process for innovation
Creating an Innovation First Culture
London Stock Exchange Group
Design Consultant
My roles:
UI/UX Design Consultant
Design Support
UX Strategist
Tools (to name only a few..)
Figma (Design)
Miro (User research)
Confluence (Documentation)
Industry
Enterprise Financial Services
Fin Tech
Overview
As a UX consultant at London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG), part of my aim was to re-energise the company’s approach to innovation by creating a UX first culture, streamlining their product discovery phases. Key focus was put on the implementation of a new design and discovery process, nurturing and educating teams in a way that resulted in improved communication, increased efficiency, and a stronger trust in the design process.
About the project
Foster a environment for collaboration through clear communication channels to achieve greater alignment between teams and stakeholders. Implement a new design process to bring structure and efficiency to the way in which products are built and the way a design process is handled.
Roles and Responsibilities
Define roles and responsibilities or all teams to drive a streamlined process for product discovery and delivery
Drive Education
Use a an array of communicative techniques as well as group workshops to drive education on innovation for complex systems
Improve Communication
Improve the cadence of global communication to ensure all gaps between teams are filled and a synergy of agreement on project progress is developed
Visual Communication
Use visual aids to break down any abstract, complex issues to create a level playing field for dynamic conversation and problem solving
Design Processes 🧑🏼💻
The Design Process : Before
At the outset of the project, it was clear that a structured design process was missing. Design decisions were often defined by user needs, leading to inconsistencies in requirements, slower turnover times and a lack of drive towards a common business centred goal.
Global sign-off and socialisation were often overlooked or mismanaged, resulting in feedback arriving late in the development cycle, leading to costly rework.
The Design Process : After
To address the challenges mentioned above, we introduced a new design process based on the UX design framework including discovery, design, prototyping, and testing.
The discovery phases focused on understanding user needs through extensive research, interviews, and data analysis. The design phase incorporated wireframing and information architecture flows to create intuitive and user-centered interfaces. Prototyping and iterative testing allowed for quick feedback loops and validation of design decisions.
Blockers, Rigid Workflows and Communication errors
As with most Enterprise organisations some workflows had limited flexibility, leading to delays in communication between teams as well as misinformation. To overcome this, a more agile approach was introduced encouraging cross-functional collaboration between stakeholders and teams through more concise communication channels as well as facilitating the cross over of important information.
Global calls were put in place to ensure all teams were aligned and informed about project updates, reducing misunderstandings and allowing for early feedback.
Growth and Education – Empowering the Team
Visual assets were created to demonstrate the value and impact of UX innovation, showcasing successful outcomes and how design decisions aligned with business goals.
This way of working allowed not only for buy in to happen but also for the creation of ideas and concepts prior to build to ensure all scenarios and concerns were looked into. Users were shown the importance of collaboration with UX designers as this provided a common language to discuss global product decisions.
Driving for Innovation and Building Trust
By encouraging a culture of openness and creativity, input was gathered from various perspectives to generate innovative solutions. This collaborative approach helped to build trust among team members, users and stakeholders, as they felt their opinions were valued and integrated into the design process building trust.
Read more on the importance of employee engagement
The Wrap Up
Throughout the implementation of a UX-first culture, we looked to transition the design process to facilitate a more dynamic way of working, addressing current hurdles, nurturing and educating the team, driving innovation. The new design process brought structure and efficiency, permitting to build consistent user experiences across products.
By fostering collaboration and establishing clear communication channels, greater alignment between teams and stakeholders was achieved. Ultimately, resulting in improved product quality, increased user satisfaction, and a stronger culture of design within the organisation.
