The Task

Create centralized data platform and processes for data collection, analysis, and reporting to reduce burden on States, charging providers, and other stakeholders.

Onboarding

This project was the first Joint Office between the department of energy and the department of transportation. It had high visibility as it was a large investment and initiative from the Biden administration. We started by deep diving into the Mission and all of the goals it set to accomplish.

Kick off Workshop

After deep diving into all of the documentation we setup and in-person kickoff workshop. My team setup a full working session with the following goals: Get to know our new teammates, setup ways of working protocols, establish ownership of workstreams, build a clear vision statement and future state vision. This initial workshop proved to be wildly successful and set the project up for success.

Research

Once we had a clear understanding of the goals we set out to figure out how we were going to accomplish them. We worked to establish a set of reliable SME’s in every user group. We setup the proper channels of communication and proceeded to do a deep dive into what our users process and needs were. We designed a clear user journey for each persona and made sure to clearly show how the information needed to flow and where the greatest opportunities for automation existed.

Wireframes

I established a regular cadence for our design team to work with the client. We sketched and white boarded in real time with the client. They wanted to be hands on with the build process and were completely on board with the design thinking process. We were able to problem solve in real time and get feedback immediately. This sped up the foundational infrastructure build. Once we had established some of the more fundamental flows and components, we were able to start building high-fidelity wireframes. We decided on utilizing the USWDS design library (with a few minor adjustments for branding purposes). We setup a reusable library within SKETCH for all of our designers to utilize and make sure there was consistency and cohesion. Once we had a foundation of a few approved high fidelity wireframes we worked to integrate ourselves into a SAFe Agile workflow with the development team.

Accomplishments

• Successfully hit our target of launching the pilot program to two State departments on time

• Held multiple in person PI planning sessions which ultimately ended up winning us several contract extensions

• Fully Modern Application Development

  • Cost savings by fully cloud native and serverless

  • Modern DevSecOps Pipeline

  • Scrum & Kanban approach

• Changing minds on User Research

  • Started with no trust in engaging with users

  • Proved design team’s value

  • Grew size of design team & duration