Design Research on Internal Communications for AMDOCS
How might we design an inclusive internal communication strategy for AMDOCS
INTRODUCTION
I was selected from Instillmotion to work with Whiteboard Consulting for conducting design research for Indian site of AMDOCS. The aim of the research was to understand context, gather information about existing internal communication and its impact in Indian Office.
Team: 3 Members | My Role: Design Researcher
January 2016
CONTEXT:
AMDOCS is an Israeli based telecommunication giant that has offices in the Israel, United States and India. They had concerns that their internal communication efforts were not effectively reaching all their employees and hence, they reached out to Whiteboard Consulting - a service design consulting in Israel. For research on their Indian office, we partnered with them. For their Indian leg of design research for AMDOCS, we joined them for doing research in Pune, India. To get a closer look at the scenarios in India, the plan was to interact with the employees and understand what they feel about internal communication.
RESEARCH OBJECTIVE
To understand the role of AMDOCS’ internal communication in the lives of employees in Pune, India. This was a research-centric short project. Aim was to conduct exhaustive design research and collate all the data, derive insights for Whiteboard Consulting. Internal Communication was all around from posters, emailers, chats, events to learning portals. It was critical to understand what was relevant, impactful and meaningful to employees of AMDOCS - India.
METHODOLOGY
Though Internal Communication was critical in the way everyone within the company communicated, it was not essentially core to everyday job functioning. Communication involved events to encourage a certain culture and thinking to regular updates regarding company progress. The methodology adopted needed to be non-intrusive and observant, as many facets of internal communication were all around.
Contextual Interviews | Shadowing | Cultural Probes | Design Workshop
Contextual Interviews
The aim of contextual interviews was to understand what does daily life of an employee look like. What modes of internal communication do they interact with, Is it two way or one way?
Sample Size: 18 people from diverse departments in the company
Detailed Interviews were conducted in their working environment (cubicles).
Ratings and emotions board was created to be used with contextual interviews. Participants were asked to fill this sheet, which contained a list of all the internal communication channels.
Shadowing
The participants who were interviewed were shadowed after the interviews. All the candidates were observed for a day post the interview. These observations were non-intrusive.
Cultural Probes
Cultural Probes were tools designed to further make unmonitored observations. This probe was given to about 10 employees who were not on the interview list. It required the participants to make observations regarding internal communication that they receive or interact with over the next one week. They were requested to note any messages they received, observed or interacted with on any medium. Take pictures from their phones, associate and articulate the emotions they felt when they interacted with it.
Design Workshop
Design Workshop was conducted with 15 employees. The same Design tool used for contextual interviews was used and further the results were discussed with the participants.
FINDINGs
RESEARCH OUTCOMES
1. There were too many modes of communication to the employees
2. The differentiator between critical and non-critical conversation wasn’t obvious to the employees
3. Activities conducted had an Israeli context which after novelty faded was irrelevant to Indian Employees
4. Town halls and other important meetings where the leadership shared the company progress lacked context to each employee though forced to attend
5. Innovation week was very popular, as employees connected and competed with peers in groups.
IDEAS PROPOSED
1. Storytelling can be a powerful tool for internal communication. But stories have to be of local context.
2. Reducing the number of modes of communication and choosing the few more strategically would be helpful. Many employees didn’t differentiate between internal communication and team initiated communication- as long as it was outside the realm of work, they associated that with internal communication.
3. Events and activities of local context need to be encouraged.
Whiteboard team conducted a similar study in the US and Israel Office and presented their strategy proposal. We had no visibility to it.
My Learnings
This was my first experience conducting research in a corporate setting. Designing the tools and using them to collate information was a huge learning. Also, I was co-conducting the workshop with the Senior Designer from Whiteboard. The conversations with the team, the process of debriefing and collating the data, creating a structure around it was my biggest takeaway.
