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IBM Connect to Cloud

Led design for a hybrid cloud platform connecting on-premise IBM software to the cloud, directing a distributed team across multiple releases.

Client
IBM
Role
Design Lead
Year
2016–2018

Thesis

I was the design lead for IBM Connect to Cloud, a hybrid cloud initiative connecting on-premise IBM software to the cloud through registration, usage, and cognitive advisory services. Across multiple years and many releases, I led a growing design team and represented design in customer engagements and executive playbacks.

The work was about organizing a team around a gap in the market, articulating the problem, and operationalizing design to solve it.

The role

Customers had no clear picture of the IBM software running across their data centers, and IBM didn't have one either, which made it hard to know what to charge them. Connect to Cloud closed that gap: it registered on-premise inventory to IBM Cloud and surfaced it through a coherent set of services, with cognitive advisory recommendations on top.

Connect to Cloud initial releaseWe built this product from scratch and established team processes and a design language that influenced IBM Design for years to come.

I led design from the initial whiteboarding to the eventual release and customer impact.

Setting the direction

Two personas defined the work. Andy, an IT administrator running data centers full of IBM software with no clear inventory of what was where. Anne, a capacity planner trying to right-size workloads, plan upgrades, and spot waste. Both had been guessing with spreadsheets for years.

Our design strategy moved the product up a maturity ladder, one stage at a time.

  • Reactive. Give customers an inventory so they could finally see what IBM software they had.
  • Preventative. Surface usage on top, so they could spot waste and right-size before it grew.
  • Predictive. Forecast anomalies and patterns from the usage data.
  • Prescriptive. Cognitive advisory recommendations that told customers what to do next.
The personas that guided our workAndy and Anne — the two users the product was built around. We conducted many research sessions and in person interviews to inform them.

Building the team

I led a team of seven designers and a researcher, distributed from Austin to the UK. Beyond the product features themselves, the team built design-ops infrastructure that contributed to future IBM Design patterns across the company. We created a Sketch nested-symbols system that eliminated redlining for engineering, established weekly design-share critiques, and focused on the content layer by creating documentation as we went (something design hadn't been a part of at IBM yet).

I directed the team and designed alongside them through the many releases.

Our team conducting design critiques / The design language we established / Our frequent user testing sessionsI made sure our team worked efficiently and collaboratively by setting up many touch points internally and externally and standardizing as many parts of the process that we could.

Working with customers and senior stakeholders

We relied on real customers to get accurate insights: the Sponsor User Program, workshops with global partners, and conference roundtables. A researcher backed the work with usability tests, ethnographies, and heuristic reviews.

I played design back to the Design Executives every two weeks, and during VP reviews I defended our design direction and choices.

What shipped + what carried forward

The product shipped GA on Bluemix in the first year. The platform migrated to IBM Cloud Marketplace in the second. By the end, the work had jumpstarted three core capabilities inside IBM Cloud Private, the platform that anchored IBM's hybrid cloud strategy.

The role was my first time leading designers and my first time sitting in executive playbacks. Both became a huge part of my career.

The cognitive advisory work was the first of many AI chat advisors I designed. A pattern that has become ubiquitous a decade later.

Part of the Connect 2 Cloud flowA selection of screens from the registration and usage workflow.
9 years
Still shipping.
Transformation Advisor remains part of IBM Cloud Pak for Applications

Note: Due to NDAs, some assets have been redrawn or generalized.