The Project
Sapient/Nitro and Cigna were engaged in a long-running, multi-faceted UX assignment that involved overhauls of the Cigna customer portal (MyCigna); the Cigna health-care provider portal; the MyCigna physician and services search tool as well as a rework of the user registration and login process.
These projects required teams of IAs, designers, front end developers and writers to work quickly and efficiently to reach their multiple goals. In 2010, mid-way through the first year of this multi-year partnership, exUrban, Inc. contracted to manage this team and establish processes to help it succeed.
The Challenge
We needed to get up to speed quickly in order to manage a series of interrelated, fast moving engagements with multiple partners and many moving parts. Our primary mandate from program leadership was to increase visibility into the pipeline of in-flight, completed and delayed elements. Closely related to priority one, we were needed to develop ways to improve communication flow across disparate groups and areas of specialty to help the team reach their goal.
The Solution
exUrban, inc. established a manageable process that enabled a comprehensive overview of where individual elements were in the process, who was working on them and when it would be completed. Key steps to making this process successful were:
- Conduct a complete inventory of all assets within the IA, design and development tracks and identify their status: pending, completed or in-flight
- Create a robust tracking tool which assigned specific tasks to each resource within the work streams so responsibilities were clear and team utilization was optimized
- Funnel all project communication through a central point of contact to ensure proper management of information flow, and proper timing of delivery
Lesson Learned
While we often believe that today’s digital age of instant messaging, texting and calendar sync can help reduce staff and make self-management more achievable, the strategic placement of a production partner can make all the difference in the world to budget containment, project delivery and, ultimately, improved client satisfaction.