Getting to know BPP

my first three months as Head of Product Design

Murray Brown — Head of Product Design

I’ve just finished three months at BPP. Here’s my personal account of what it’s been like.

Stepping up to the role as Head of Product Design and immersing myself into an industry I’ve not worked in before sounds daunting doesn’t it? Read on to find out what it was like.

I’ll be covering three main areas about my experience.

1. What the business ‘feels’ like. What kind of business have I stepped into?
2. What the Product Design team is like and what does their work look like?
3. What the vision is for BPP and how it looks like we’re going to get there.

But first who are BPP? BPP is…

This is something that’s hard to pin down.
It’s an educator, a University but not just a University, a business school.
It’s for: apprentices, graduates and professionals
The motto that captures its purpose is ‘Building careers through education’
So it’s education for professions then? Hmm, no not entirely.

1. What the business ‘feels’ like

This is a very subjective account, and I’m coming to BPP having left Which? who have also been on a huge digital transformation over the last few years.

First impressions we’re pretty good to be honest. I visited the Portsoken Street building first which was very spacious, cleanly designed with lots of BPP branding, so it was really clear that I was in the right place. This is where I picked up my fresh-out and-the-box MacBook and got all my credentials sorted. Pretty effortless to be honest but I think a lot of companies have been trying to make this initial interaction as smooth and simple as possible. So this was a big thumbs up. The only struggle I had was getting Slack on my phone, it was a little fiddly but got it sorted in the end.

2. What the team is like. And what does their work look like?

BPP have contracted consultants who have supported mapping out the work to be done and begin to design and build the new products for our Application and Enrolment experiences.

The designers from the consultancy make up the majority of the Product Design team at the beginning of my time here at BPP, but we’ve since also hired some fantastic freelancers and seen the work of the in-house designers too.

Lots of the early investigative work had been done, but my goodness there’s lots of it and it does take a while to absorb and get up to speed with things. But the work I’ve seen coming from the designers has been impeccable.

They have given it excellent thought; clear rationale and they already have ceremonies established to ensure there was strong consistency between products.

Seeing this great work really did a fantastic job of allaying my fears that there would be a hodge-podge of design thinking and mis-matched style guides. I instantly developed a strong sense of trust for all the designers, which was great because it meant that I could focus on where I can add value without having to guide individuals and I could begin to consider how we shape this team for the future and enable them to grow.

But what have I done?

I’ve been able to help steer the team by focussing on the Design System.
This is something that had just been established before I started but meant that I could help set some good direction and standards going forwards for how we want to develop excellent design-thinking and systems-thinking. There’s been no trouble with getting designers to use the Design System because we have very open discussions about: how to develop it, what should and shouldn’t be in it, setting the vision for the future.

We’ve got alot of things ship-shape pretty quickly, partly because a fair few of us in the business are a dab-hand at Design Systems now but also because everyone has bought into the value of the Design System and how it greases the wheels for increased cadence and valuable output.

3. What the vision is for BPP and how it looks like we’re going to get there.

In my first few days at BPP I began to discover just how extensive the company is. It’s something I had an inkling about before I started. It’s all very well looking at the customer-facing website and thinking oh that’s it. But no-no there is more, much much more.

It’s clear that the world of student enrolment and course eligibility is a wide and convoluted one. I’ve learned a lot in the last three months, from how international students must provide numerous documents and qualifications to even find out if they’re eligible for a course, to how apprenticeships are vetted, managed and funded.

Over the years as BPP has added strings to its bow, the processes for these prospective students have become labyrinthine and is now at a point where any further expansion of the company or increased intake of students is putting pressure on numerous teams. And it’s this pressure that we’re going to alleviate with the digital transformation project. We’ll be easing the routes for learners to access courses and materials.

The vision for the company is bold. It involves radical transformation along with growth.

An analogy I heard the other day was ‘it’s like flying the plane and trying to change its engine at the same time’.

But… I have confidence in this strategy.

Why? Well the leadership team are focussed. There is a clear roadmap and it’s being stuck to.

But as and when bumps appear there is quick resolution. Certainly no dawdling happening here.

And it’s this mindset that I’ve seen spanning across teams and levels. There’s been a surprising speed in getting stuff done, things that I’ve known in the past to take weeks and even months, like paying for a decent Figma plug-in or getting Whiteboarding software established has happened in days.

I feel trust for the leadership team and in return I sense that they trust me. We’re not trying to swindle anyone by getting a Figma plug-in and the leadership can see the benefit of it. Also, it makes working life so much easier when we dont have to give so much effort to prove that something will improve our work and the work for the company. So there we go, that’s it, that’s pretty much all the rationale we need. Lo-and-behold stuff is getting done.

So it’s been thanks to an honesty like this that has allowed us progress swiftly with defining and building out a Design System. We’ve been able to quickly setup a Figma workspace for all the designers and spin up Storybook for building out the React components. We’re now at a point where we’re looking to establish the Design System further, this includes things like documentation of our ‘systems thinking’, applying theming to some components and beginning to devise a more robust governance process.

Naturally, I had nerves about beginning work with a company I’ve not heard of before and in an industry I’ve not ventured into. But I’m heartened to see so much commonality of good product design processes and a great culture of test and learn. Although its early days here at BPP they’re certainly having no trouble in recruiting some excellent talent.

So here I am facing forward and genuinely excited to see how I can support & steer BPP and discover where this role leads me.