CASE STUDY: BRISTOL MYERS SQUIBB
Co-creation to transform collaboration

We started with a question from our stakeholders: how can we help make it easier for research chemists to conduct analysis on experimental data? Luckily, they gave us the opportunity to spend time with chemists to talk about how they work and the tools they use. I planned ethnographic one-on-ones with our prospective users where they created, accessed and analysed data: in labs and offices and shared workspaces. 

It turned out their real problem was managing, sharing and finding all the research that their and other teams generated.

My team and I (a UX designer, business analyst, solution architect and delivery manager) went back to our main stakeholders and shared what we'd heard: the real issue was way upstream from data analysis. We presented some rough designs for how a collaboration and knowledge management platform could work and a provisional architecture to solve the technical challenge of integrating diverse information stores (ELN, experimental data, Sharepoint, etc). A month later (after some revisions and socialization with senior leadership), we presented our vision to the broader research organization. It was called "Knection".

But we faced a challenge: we couldn't design Knection without the expertise of our research colleagues. Luckily, BMS was an enthusiastic partner and happy to support our request for collaborative, co-creation sessions with chemists, research leads and technologists to design the platform. I made a rough map of our product scope and a six month sprint plan for the experience design team. Twice a week, I organized a caravan of designers from Philadelphia up to New Brunswick to spend a couple hours sketching, sharing and refining the platform experience. 

(Also, we had a collaborative Spotify playlist that helped lighten the long drive.)

These working sessions were invaluable, not only because they allowed us to rapidly gather insights and sense-check solutions, but also because they ensured that when we had to make a major pivot, we didn't have to justify to stakeholders why we'd made decisions - they'd been integral to decision-making all along. We also conducted iterative user testing every 3-4 sprints to gather perspective from the broader community of future users. We used this feedback to align stakeholder decision-making and ensure that we didn't get caught in an echo chamber with our co-creation partners.

We were also one of the first design teams at EPAM to work in a generative agile approach, aligned with development. That cohesion was critical to our speed-to-MVP (9 months from zero to one), because the architecture team was able to refine integration and platform recommendations alongside design definition. It also meant we were able to conduct user testing with a functional prototype prior to completing design, which enabled us to refine dashboard presentation and modules to ensure best fit to the needs of research chemists.

More details on the approach and project can be found in a talk I presented with one of my BMS partners in 2017.