This is as true in our personal lives as it is in the workplace. It’s why organizational change management is so hard. Shifting how teams operate is always going to be difficult. But honing how people collaborate to define and solve problems can make a huge difference.
To make this kind of change happen, building trust is key. And this is exactly what Fearless has done on our CMS OIT HCD contract.
To improve systems and processes for end users and internal staff, CMS has been working to embrace HCD in recent years. Fearless was brought on to support these culture change efforts.
Through our work, we’ve built CMS’ trust in HCD’s ability to improve products and experiences and in our practitioners’ ability to lead not from out front, but alongside. In this way, we’ve partnered with CMS to provide change management in OIT and beyond.
HCD is one of our guiding design principles at Fearless, so we began by creating awareness and understanding of the practice. This would enable teams across OIT to perform and champion its value.
Agility and user-centered thinking were also going to be key components of our work. To embed these tenets and create lasting culture change at CMS, we had to understand the agency’s people.
Building this understanding of CMS’ people was a core focus of our discovery phase. We met with OIT’s administrators, Product Owners (POs), executive leaders, and practitioners. In these meetings, we worked to understand their unique roles, goals, and frustrations.
This work resulted in key personas and a clear roadmap. We also ran a pilot program with OIT. As a result of this exploration, we saw improved culture across project teams. This work also resulted in better comprehension among OIT employees.
Using our personas and roadmap, we developed resources and facilitated services. We worked to build alignment and understanding with both employees and vendor teams. As they gained new skills, we provided employees with full support.
We created everything from interactive, self-paced learning courses to practicums and open studios. Throughout this effort, our team worked to provide both structure and flexibility. We aimed to act as a partner for CMS employees on their upskilling journeys.
By meeting them where they were, we were able to achieve high rates of adoption.
Culture change requires people to adopt new habits and routines. To achieve this at CMS, we worked to make our methods and tools accessible and approachable.
One of the ways we did this was by designing, launching, and maintaining a custom microsite tailored to our audience. The microsite serves as a one-stop-shop for any CMS employee wondering how to get started with HCD.
As you can see in the below screenshot, our eHCD at OIT microsite is a one-stop shop for any CMS employees who want to learn about HCD. Its content promotes engagement with education-based tools and services. Through the platform, people can sign up for upcoming events or reach out to the eHCD team.
As understanding of our work grew, our practitioners' function started to change. We began to shift the focus of our culture change work away from just building awareness. At this point, we wanted to start proving our value. Projects in varying states of play across CMS were hungry for more hands-on support. POs were also eager to start putting these fresh concepts into action.
We shifted our team’s focus from education-based training to service-oriented support.
We developed an operational model for HCD-as-a-Service from scratch. We plugged into multiple product teams and consulted across a variety of workstreams. By modeling methodologies and scaling real-time recommendations, we provided the most meaningful outcomes.
One area where we made a particularly big difference was in our work with the existing CMSConnect platform.
Built using ServiceNow, CMSConnect is a help center hub for CMS employees. It offers access to critical agency services and resources. But before we came on board, CMS teams struggled to use it to enhance user-centered solutions.
Communication was siloed, and there was a focus on outputs over meaningful outcomes. Design iterations mostly focused on visual aesthetics. And internal reviews were increasingly cyclical, with individual preferences driving most decisions.
By building off of this help center, we knew we’d be able to ingrain HCD best practices within CMS’ workforce. And in this way, we could support lasting culture change.
To start, we worked with POs to solve the issue at the highest level. We then developed a global Design System for CMSConnect. The system is rooted in usability, consistency, and best practices. Our comprehensive component library organizes UI elements alongside corresponding design rationale. Product teams are now empowered to make objective, user-centered design decisions. And they can do this in harmony with the decisions made by partners across the broader ecosystem.
Below, you can see a snapshot of CMSConnect component libraries and corresponding rationale within a Figma file. This tool can be used by anyone to guide iteration and support objective validation.
Culture change is challenging work, and people within organizations are often resistant to it. But our team's focus on teamwork and experimentation helped increase collaboration over time. And once our team had demonstrated the effectiveness of HCD, requests for hands-on product support flooded in.
To maintain quality and avoid practitioner burnout, our model focuses on growing comprehension. It provides a consistent approach to measuring and advancing HCD maturity. To develop it, we worked closely with our stakeholders. We refined our vision, mission, and values to better reflect our desired culture. We also established a rubric of measurement. This helps us recognize when we're succeeding in creating a positive work environment.
In a matter of months, this pilot program led to real culture change across CMS. Practitioners and vendors are collaborating in a “badgeless” fashion. And they’re aligned on a shared mission. By advancing human-centered solutions, we can inspire a meaningful connection with the user.
Our work has led to a range of near-instant improvements. We saw increased energy, efficiency, communication, and quality of delivery. It also empowered HCD leads to have the right partner conversations. It enabled practitioners and POs to consistently champion the mission. And it helped match recommendations to varying levels of comprehension and understanding. We built on the existing skills of requesting teams in a way that met them where they were and ensured growth. And in this way, we laid the groundwork for lasting culture change across CMS.