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This project started more than a year into my tenure, so I approached it with a robust toolkit of feedback, institutional knowledge, and experimentation under my belt already.

When approaching projects, I generally prefer to start with smaller experiments to test ideas before investing significant time and resources into large-scale execution. However, my team’s ability to segment students into test groups was limited by program structure and complexity; too many variables impacted student progression to derive meaningful insights from career program variables, and lack of automation meant that any test groups would have to be manually tracked.

As a result, it was not practical on a time or technical level to test multiple hypothesis through small-scale experiments. Instead, we had to take a “big bet” approach by focusing on one very well-informed hypothesis, and making the resultant program as modular and flexible as possible should major changes be needed later on.

Given the weight of the decision, I invested ample time in the research and exploration phase. This was also critical to gain buy-in of key stakeholders later on. I started with guided brainstorming sessions with career coaches, Outcomes, leadership, instructors, and current students. This helped me refine program goals, blockers, and potential solutions.

From there, I compiled feedback into three potential solutions, none of which were perfect, but all of which balanced input from stakeholders, goals, and logistical constraints. I presented these three solutions to leadership and stakeholders, facilitating dialogue between groups and collecting feedback. At the end of the feedback session, I made my recommendation for the chosen solution, which aligned with leadership and most stakeholders' recommendation.

Once a solution was agreed upon, the design process began. Using a target launch date in Q4, I planned backwards to create a detailed project plan that outlined every action item, due date, and owner. I worked closely with a curriculum developer on my team to partner on creating curriculum and content, and simultaneously created internal trainings, SOPs, and data collection processes.

We launched the first unit to the first cohort of students while later units were still in draft phase; this allowed us the flexibility to learn as we went and reflect those changes while authoring future units. Incorporating feedback during the authoring progress allowed us to avoid potentially needing to duplicate large amounts of work, which saved valuable time in a project of this scale.