How I’ve approached content operations at BT
If content strategy is the engine, then ops is the oil — making sure all the strategic elements work effectively and efficiently and can scale. But when processes and working methods are already well established, how do you approach ops?
I joined BT in the Spring, and it’s fair to say the content team of 66 was fairly well scaled up! The content lead Rebecca had done a wonderful job of growing a team quickly and making sure the ratio between content designers and product designers was almost equal! But though a team of that size sounds wonderful, it does present some challenges. My role was to help make the lives of content designers and content editors easier by removing some of the barriers to good work — enabling delivery and optimising their existing processes.
In a content strategy model where a content lead plans and implements the work, I’d be running alongside the lead, a bit of a right-hand woman!
Discovery
There’s only one way to approach a new project — discovery. I needed to learn all I could about the current team, how they worked, what the pain points were and how I could help them. I began by using all my introductory sessions as stakeholder interviews. I let people tell me about their role, but then delved deeper, asking questions like ‘What is the one thing that stops you from doing your job properly?’ or ‘What’s not going so well in the team?’
I was keen to understand the expectations of my role, so I also asked people what they thought content ops was, and what was the one thing they wanted me to help them with.
Identifying pain points
A large part of an ops manager’s role is to identify how systems, processes, and ways of working can be improved to help improve efficiency. Throughout my discovery process I needed to learn where the biggest pain points were for content designers and content editors, or team members that worked with them. This meant not just learning about the systems and processes, but also learning about how content practitioners worked within their teams and the barriers they had to overcome. I also wanted to know what training they had available to them, or how the content team furthered their own capabilities to further the practice of content design.
Turning insight into opportunities
I captured all my research on a giant Miro board, where I then grouped my notes into key themes. These fell into the following categories:
- Content quality
- Process
- Systems
- Ways of working
- Organisational education
- Tools
- Measurement and insight
- Connecting organisational content
I was keen to get some more brain power to help come up with opportunities, so I created 26 wide-ranging How Might We statements around the key insights. For example one of these statements was ‘How might we demystify the process of content design?’, and another ‘How might we identify areas for improvement and efficiency creation in current workflows?’
I then hosted two sessions, one with the design ops team and another with the content design managers, to brainstorm solutions. I was keen to do this collaboratively so that I could hear from the people I’d be working with, but also so they’d understand the rationale behind whatever projects I’d end up prioritising. At the end of each session we voted on which ideas would be the most impactful for the team.
Telling the story
I had the idea of turning my insights and opportunities into a kind of experience map, which would show where the pain points were for content designers at each phase of their role. The phases I included went all the way from joining a squad, through the content design and production process, into ongoing learning and development. This meant I could see which of these phases presented the most barriers.
Once I had created the map I was able to walk stakeholders through it, and point out the key areas I’d focus on. The key three areas where I could make the biggest impact for the content team were capability-building, improving content management processes through identifying automation opportunities, and supporting the design system creation. These have formed the basis of my ops roadmap and led to my objectives for the year.
Going through this exercise meant I can now understand and empathise with the team I’m working with, and I have a clear idea of how I can help them optimise their work.
I’m now fully focused on producing a world-class content design training programme for the team, creating structured content for a digital playbook, and helping identify content automation opportunities to reduce content management time.
The best thing about content ops is being able to help content design managers and our content lead get ‘unstuck’ with some of the challenges they don’t have time to focus on. Being outside of product teams gives me the advantage of time to focus on the more strategic work alongside our great content lead, Rebecca. Often in large organisations, it’s hard for a content lead to focus fully on strategic work because people management is also such a large part of their role, and that’s where ops can really help.
Of course being fully remote for my first few months has presented some challenges, but approaching ops with design-thinking meant I was able to immerse myself much more quickly and also bring more people along the journey with me.
