2025 - 2026
Improving Experiences for Young People
As a senior service design consultant embedded within the BBC for 12-months I have held two primary responsibilities:
Embedding new agile project management practices & standardisation of how the BBC describes, plans and aligns around the execution of work across departments.
The enhancement of Children and Young People’s experiences at the BBC.
A breakdown of what I have done:
1. Discovery with pan-BBC internal teamsConducted research with a cross-section of BBC teams to discover how they plan, prioritise, describe and execute their work across a wide range of disciplines.
2. Change management communication at scalePresentation of how ‘design language’ and methodologies can efficiently sit alongside agile project management methodologies to senior leadership team/ chief design officer.
Recording and presentation of pan-BBC wide videos describing the change management work underway.
3. Research with content supply chainsCarrying-out contextual interviews with internal supply chains, roles and tooling. From commissioners of programs, to production, compliance, editorial & curation. Getting close to productions end-to-end ranging from Glastonbury to The Traitors.
4. Research with external audiencesCommissioning of external audience agency, while supporting them to frame, shape and conduct qualitative and quantitative research methods at scale with younger audiences. Reaching 1000+ homes across the UK with the remit of personalisation of content experiences, while safeguarding young people.
5. Synthesis of research at scale (out in the open)Led a process of synthesising research at scale by applying a Jobs-To-Be-Done (JTBD) lens to user needs. Producing 5 high-level UX goals for Children & Young People’s experience which the BBC must deliver on.
6. Facilitation of strategic direction & futures thinking with senior organisational leadersImmersing senior organisational leaders in the synthesis of evidence from the Children & Young People’s experience research, presenting futures thinking to inspire decision making and facilitating opportunity solution tree/ theory of change direction setting.
Presenting & Communicating Change
The BBC is a large public organisation, and change internally as well as for audiences takes time to implement.
An ability to bring stakeholders with you, immerse them in the insight captured and what it’s telling us about strategic direction grounded in needs is a vital skill to demonstrate.
There is often a need to showcase where we are within a design or change management process.
So What? (The big wins)
Alignment of multiple teams involved across the BBC organisational estate (from compliance, editorial, tv/live/mobile experiences in the direction the BBC must take to deliver on children’s experience priorities.
Working in the open, with emergent needs of audiences represented throughout all decision making touch-points pan-BBC.
Communicating the nuances, pain-points and stumbling blocks within varied content supply chains reaching younger audiences.
Narrowing down a large scale qualitative and quantitative research study (over 1000+ individuals) into actionable UX goals, business logic and technical capabilities in the form of Opportunity Solution Tree visualisation and delivery planning. Honing-in on 5 high-level goals to improve Children & Young People’s experience across multiple touch-points with the BBC.
Summary of methods applied:
1-2-1 contextual interviews and qualitative workshops with internal teams.
Jobs-To-Be-Done (JTBD) synthesis and presentation of user needs.
Systems thinking & causal loop diagraming in early discovery of the problem space.
Opportunity/Solution Tree mapping.
End-to-end journey mapping of content supply chains.
Video presentations, updates and communication of change and positioning within it.
Illustrative futures thinking, mock-ups and lo-fidelity/ high-fidelity prototypes based upon audience research & competitor analysis.
Challenges
The BBC is a large organisation with many different departments and competing work streams, for every step forward or evidence informed ideation within one space (say children’s experience), there is an overlapping work stream (for example short-form video enhancement) within another area of the organisation.
Aligning and bringing these work streams together for mutual gain, shared analysis of a problem space, or mutual ideation can be challenging.
One thing I have learned in the last 12-months is to strive to achieve a ‘birds eye view’ of the business at all times, while making meaningful interpersonal connections is key to success.
A window into the work
Synthesis of a large body of qualitative and quantitative research with Children, Young People & Family audiences of the BBC down into 5 User-Centered Goals with connected levers to achieve fruition around these goals, analysis of the BBC’s current positioning against each audience goal, as well as opportunity/ solution tree mapping.
“I feel like I belong here”
“This space feels like mine”
“This experience feels exciting”
“The BBC brings my family together for spacial moments”
“My parent/ guardian feels confident I’m safe here”.
Including illustrative futures thinking, mock-ups and prototypes grounded in evidence of need, inspired my competitor analysis and designed as provocations to challenge the organisation to achieve audience needs.
Further role dynamics
Project leadership & accountability for senior service designer, senior UX designer and senior user researcher.
Management of budget, project reporting and commercial client relationship.
Supplementary work for the BBC
Supporting the BBC agile project management and standardisation of how work is planned, described and executed.
Implementing design & research methodologies into organisational project management strategy.