CASE STUDY PREVIEW
Digital transformation: Empowering public services with a new approach to journey and service management
Client
x2 Service Design Leads
x1 Junior Service Designer
x2 User Researchers
x2 Data Analysts
x1 Project Manager
Project
2024
9 month engagement
The challenge
When we began our partnership with the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), we were met with a significant challenge: how to enable genuine, sustainable digital transformation across a complex, multi-functional government body.
The CMA was already facing growing demands due to post-Brexit regulatory responsibilities and high-profile cases like the Microsoft-Activision merger and the Adobe-Figma acquisition. Internally, however, they were grappling with siloed functions, outdated tools, cultural resistance to change, and a lack of coherent digital strategy.
Our mission was to:
Systematically map transformation opportunities across 12 frontline departments
Support the design of digitally enabled processes for newly established regulatory functions
Create a long-term digital skills strategy for over 1000 staff
What made this particularly complex was the cultural friction between disciplines (e.g. lawyers, investigators, intelligence services, digital forensics, etc.) and a prevailing reliance on manual, analog ways of working. There was widespread use of "grey tools" (e.g. Excel), variable levels of digital fluency, and little cross-functional knowledge sharing.
In essence, we needed to align people, processes, and the technology & data estate in order for the CMA to fulfil its 2024 – 2025 business goals.
The approach
We approached the CMA’s transformation through the lens of service design, seeing the organisation as a system of interdependent services, behaviours, tools, and cultures. Our role was to connect the dots between people, processes, and technology and to reframe complexity into clarity.
We grounded our work in human-centred research, conducting in-depth interviews, contextual enquiry, analysis of service desk data, an audit of the CMA's technology and data estate, co-creation workshops, and process mapping across core 12 frontline service functions.
My role as a Service Design Lead
As the Service Design Lead on this programme of work, I was responsible for structuring our approach to discovery and how we made sense of complexity.
What I'm most proud of from this project was the way I was able to blend traditional human-centred design practice with some novel frameworks I introduced, such as polarity management and the 4Ps of knowledge. While I worked with a team of brilliant fellow service designers, user researchers, and business/data analysts, my personal contribution was that I enabled our team to move beyond silos and surface-level diagnostics without compromising the methodological rigour of how we conducted our discovery.
I proposed an approach to structuring our insights using a mixture of qualitative and quantitative methods, as well as a Jobs To Be Done (JTBD) framework, which formed the basis of the strategic roadmap we delivered to the CMA.
Core design activities
Over a period of 9 months, our team met with dozens of departments and conducted mixed methods research, prototyping, and co-design. Due to NDAs, I cannot go into specifics or share visuals, so I have included some illustrations below, courtesy of Midjourney:
In-depth design ethnography
We conducted qualitative research across 12 frontline departments. This included contextual interviews, co-creation workshops, service walkthroughs, and team ethnographies.
These helped us understand the day-to-day realities of CMA staff, the manual workarounds in use, and the landscape of change.
Cross-organisational surveys
To complement our qualitative research findings, we launched several questionnaires targeting digital skills, shared pain points, and target outcomes for different types of services.
The resulting data enabled us to create heat-maps that visualised where the problems were across each journey in the service lifecycle.
Journey management & a taxonomy of shared service patterns
Through service mapping and Jobs To Be Done (JTBD), we developed a taxonomy of shared journeys around the core components of each service the CMA offers.
This helped shift the conversation from a siloed approach to service delivery to a systems-oriented view of cross-functional work.
Roadmap & co-design
We facilitated prioritisation and framing sessions with CMA leadership and service delivery teams.
This resulted in us co-authoring a two-year strategic roadmap with 23 programmes of work tied to service design, automation, use of data, infrastructure, tooling, and digital skills development.
Unconventional frameworks I introduced to structure our approach to sensemaking
As part of our approach, I introduced several unconventional frameworks that brought depth, nuance, and insight to the CMA’s transformation strategy:
1. Value Polarities
Rather than seeing tensions (e.g., structure vs. flexibility, security vs. openness) as problems to solve, we treated them as dynamic polarities to manage. Based on the framework of value polarities, we ran workshops to help staff and leadership understand how both poles in a tension can be indispensable and mutually interdependent.
This reframed many binary debates, like "Do we standardise all our processes… or encourage siloing and bespoke solutions?" into system-aware design questions such as, "How might we address the fears that exist within organisational silos about the opposite side's approach, so that we get the best of both worlds rather than change paralysis?"
2. 4Ps of Knowledge
In workshops focused on digital skills development, I applied a framework from cognitive science called the 4Ps of knowledge to explore where knowledge gaps truly lay.
We learned that the problem among frontline staff wasn’t simply a lack of technical skill, but a deficit in perspectival awareness (how digital fits into their work) and participatory comfort (feeling confident in using and testing new tools). This was critical in shaping our recommendations for digital skills and capability building.
3. Jobs To Be Done (JTBD) + Service Outcomes
We used JTBD to link a thematic analysis pain points to the associated outcomes staff aimed to create, which we uncovered through contextual inquiry with each frontline service area. This gave us a powerful method to articulate prioritise problems and outcomes, as well as define shared service patterns across departments. It also informed our taxonomy of journeys and shaped the two year strategic roadmap we delivered to the CMA.
The outcome
One of the most valuable outcomes was cultural change at the CMA. We were able to co-create a shift from isolated, reactive behaviours toward more joined-up, proactive, and transparent ways of working.
Delivered a comprehensive digital transformation strategy, rooted in both people-centred research and operational realities.
Developed a taxonomy of 20+ common service patterns, nested within a newly created experience hierarchy to help guide future service development and technology investment.
Produced data visualisations and heat maps identifying high-friction workflows across all departments.
Defined and prioritised 23 programmes of work, shaping the structure of the CMA’s future-facing transformation programme.
Introduced behavioural hypotheses and value-based decision-making frameworks, helping the CMA align strategic priorities with actual staff experience.
The impact
While it's difficult to quantify immediate impact as an external agency / partner, these are some forms of impact I can speak about publicly:
Shifted the CMA's core narrative around service improvement from ‘tools and efficiency’ to ‘capability and culture’, as well as redefined what 'digital transformation' really means in a regulatory context.
Fostered a culture of reflection and learning within the CMA, helping staff articulate their own transformation stories and co-own the roadmap forward.
Created new spaces for cross-functional collaboration, breaking silos and embedding shared accountability for change.
Enabled CMA leadership to make evidence-based investment decisions, underpinned by both qualitative insight and quantitative data.
