The challenge
The challenge here was three-fold:
- set up a new squad from nothing, defining how we would work together and interface with the wider department moving forward
- design a pan-BBC push notification strategy for Eurovision in 7 weeks
- carry out a deep study of how we use push notifications as an organisation, review any existing research and set the scope for further research
How I approached it
- set up and led team rituals, like daily stand-ups, Monday planning meetings and stakeholder checkpoints
- set up a series of stakeholder interviews to understand the current processes and people involved in sending push notifications from each of our apps
- carved the work into 3 workstreams and delegated them within the squad
- internal user research: to understand and improve internal processes and systems
- case studies and observation: qualitative and quantitate data-gathering from upcoming live events, such as Eurovision and the King’s coronation
- pan-BBC notifications performance: a deep dive into performance analytics and competitor benchmarking for push notifications across the BBC
- from there, we developed a huge and interactive FigJam timeline of BBC and competitor activity during Eurovision and the King’s Coronation
- we combined that with all of our data and started to share our findings with key stakeholders
The result
The result is still playing out now. But after sharing our work with UX leadership it was immediately escalated to our Chief Product Officer and the executive committee.
The research is being used to inform how we cover live events moving forward, and more broadly to understand how we could begin to shape a pan-BBC vision for push notifications - improving segmentation and personalisation capabilities, streamlining team processes, and consolidating the tools we use to send them.
Aside from the key project deliverables, we demonstrated the incredible value of our new squad model at our first time of trying, and have since built trust among key senior figures within the BBC.
