How I Help Build a Successful UX Team at PepsiCo
All proprietary information has been removed. Read below to understand my process and strategy to buiilding the UX team at PepsiCo.
Background
PepsiCo has a multitude of beloved brands, such as Mountain Dew and Gatorade. Some of the best and brightest talent keep PepsiCo number one across several ecomm categories. In the last several year, their focus has been on direct B2B and DTC sales across the digital channels. When I first started, PepsiCo had UX designers but no design leadership. They searched for over a year for the right candidate to lead the team. My experience with usability-winning sites like B&H Photo (Baymard Institute ranked them No. 1 in checkout) and major B2B companies like Pitney Bowes made me very attractive to their needs.
Team Fellowship
Because they way the ecomm team was structured, the designers were isolated. I knew to build the best team we needed more of a connection with each other and the rest of the team. Sync-Ups and Work-In-Progress meetings were my first step to bringing us together. We got to know each other and appreciate our rich experiences and backgrounds. I rebuilt the team with the right team members, bringing on new talent and letting go of toxic employees. I empowered each designer to take charge of their area and take pride in their work. In under a year, we have a rich design team that loved the work they did.
Building a Process
There was no process for how work should be approached, so deliverables were unpredictable. There was no visibility into our workflow either. With the help of the product team, we built a Design Jira board to align with the rest of the team. This allowed the design team to add discovery into the process which it was lacking. Also, there was no UX process on how to approach a project. I helped design get out of habit of just delivering new UI.
Research
The design team lacked any proper way to access research. This led to uninformed and best-guess designs. I spent some of my budget to get access to usability sites like Baymard Institute and Neilson Norman studies. We also needed user input, so I brought tools on like UserTesting. The broader team benefited greatly when we started show insights that shaped our roadmaps. Our team also helped to launch the first A/B test for the ecomm team.
Building Relationships
Since the design team was so isolated from their stakeholders, I knew I had to build relationships across all the different ecomm departments. Over the months, I was able to have stakeholders understand our full potential (beyond just UI), help align processes, and compose team KPIs and OKRs. Upper management now sees our team not merely as individual contributors but as vital strategists and collaborators.
Design Thinking
The most important quality I brought to the PepsiCo Ecomm team was the design thinking process. I am LUMA certified in best design thinking exercises. This knowledge has helped me align everyone on the same page, prioritizing features, and capturing the true problem and solutions we need to focus on.
Elevating the Team
In the continued effort to have the best UX team in the ecomm world, I have made learning paramount. I worked with leadership to send the design team to their first Neilson Norman conference. We also regularly meet to show the newest features we found across the world that could benefit our sites. Also, we are working on doing our first hackathon.
