AIR lab
Overview
AIR lab is a multifaceted team that I created to bring innovation to the public sector. Bringing the team to life through each hire, and then seeing the team realize its full potential has easily been one of the most exciting projects I have taken on to date.
What I accomplished:
Team’s Identity
When I was first tasked with building the team, I knew that I wanted to create something special, something people were proud to be a part of. To accomplish this, I created a 50-page vision document that detailed every aspect of the team from job descriptions and branding to even what the team’s ideal work configuration would be. Fighting each battle to bring that vision to life was taxing, but is something I am truly proud of.
Team’s Talent
Given the business needs that I identified, I knew that I needed to develop a team that was in part focused on developing digital products and services, and in part focused on carrying out research and analytics work. Therefore, I fought the norms of the public sector and brought on new staff to fill a variety of positions with titles like Data Scientist, Data Engineer, Product Manager, and Design Researcher.
Team’s Value Add
With the new roles, each new hire enabled us to take on new initiatives. For example, our team was able to introduce the following despite having no previous precedent:
- a user research practice,
- a design process,
- data products to make information accessible to non-technical users,
- a program evaluation practice to evaluate the impact of projects,
- predictive and presciptive analytics
