Context

**Some details have been removed due to confidentiality. Therefore, this case study focuses on my process rather than outcomes.

Involvement in Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) process can create intense professional and personal stress. It is a complex process that involves many stakeholders including the employee submitting the complaint, the person accused, witnesses, and the employees who lead the investigation.

“If you are a federal employee or job applicant and you believe that a federal agency has discriminated against you, you have a right to file a complaint.” - Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

I led a design team to identify ways to improve the customer experience during the EEO process. Specifically, my team looked for opportunities to: improve transparency, coordination, support, and proactively address issues early. I worked closely with my project partners, who were the process owners of the EEO process.

Process

The EEO process is a highly confidential and sensitive process, so I codesigned with process owners to improve known pain points and build their design skill sets to apply a customer-centric mindset beyond the project.

• Gathering background research: The team sought to understand processes at similar organizations and dive into the legal requirements of the process. I defined learning objectives and worked collaboratively with the team to build our understanding.

• Create experience maps: I planned and facilitated multiple working sessions with process owners so that we could collaboratively visualize the roles, emotions, and critical actions at each step. I used a modified six thinking hats method so that process owners who typically focused on the back-end of the process could change their perspective as we analyzed and mapped the process. The hats, or lens, were: facts, opportunities, risks, and emotions. After the codesign sessions, I created the visual maps.

• Testing: With our project partners, we used recent cases to test the accuracy of the maps and made modifications where needed. Due to confidentiality, I set up the testing parameters and the process owners did the testing with the confidential information.

• Synthesis: Based on interviews and working sessions, I led the team through synthesis sessions to identify frustrations and pain points.

• Brainstorming: I planned an approachable session to virtually bring together process owners and stakeholders from three offices to collaboratively identify customer-centric improvements. The solutions were prioritized based on impact and covered the topics of skill building, outreach, and communications.

My team’s final report included experience maps, opportunity areas, quotes from process owners, and quantitative data about the processes.

Feedback

“The way we approach issues and the way I think about solutions has changed greatly during this process and now the customer experience is always taken into consideration...I think our office is better because of this.” - EEO Executive Leader

“Lexi is turned to as a trusted team member to lead high profile project work, as evidenced in her end‐to‐end project execution for both the Complicated Personnel Matters project. Her inclusive and empathetic approach to project delivery resulted in collaborative and fruitful conversations with project partners.” - Manager