Gonzo
Meetings about technology vendors ended without a fix. I interviewed the people with the problem, found them in eight organizations, and connected their data.
Finance
Industry
Enterprise
Company type
2017 to 2018
When
Role
Team
Outcome
What everyone assumed
Vendor management was one team’s problem, so that team’s tools could fix it.
What changed
The people who had the problem sat in about eight organizations across the bank, so the fix needed their data in one place.
Who I talked to
Ethnographic interviews with the employees who manage technology vendors, in about eight organizations across the bank.
Beginnings
First whiteboard of the activity stream home: headline numbers, upcoming events, a feed of product and release updates, and the team.
The products page: products you follow in a carousel above a category-tabbed grid with sorting.
The product profile: process badge, reviews, similar products, evaluation, key issues and a recommendation.
The simplified home, drawn later the same day: three numbers, then upcoming, my team and recently added.
How it unfolded
Bank of America’s teams chose, evaluated and approved technology vendors, and for a few years the meetings about it kept ending without a permanent fix. It looked like one team’s problem.
After the interviews I designed a shared place for that work, where anyone could find a vendor’s products, follow them and see where each one stood.
An activity stream home with headline numbers, upcoming events, recent changes and your team.
A products directory you can follow, filter by category and sort.
A product profile with reviews, similar products, evaluation status and a recommendation.
An approval pipeline that shows each product moving from preliminary review through the CIO, CTO and PM to a final decision.
I worked with engineers and product owners to pipe in data from across the firm, in sprints where each story went through design critique before it became a prototype.
More work
Let’s talk
I’m looking for contract work. Have a product to figure out, or want to read a private case study? Send a message, or book a call.