working nyc
“Having the opportunity to work with Ashley is a highlight of my time at NYC Opportunity. Her ability to bridge teams and set priorities as a product manager elevated the development of Working NYC. The product was launched in record time, and it opened the doors for more streamlined service design approaches to be adopted into the development process. Her navigation of product, outreach, and design took into account the constraints of small teams with varying degrees of technical expertise as well as the voice of the community. She’s a rare gem of an individual who is mission-driven and genuinely works towards building positive outcomes for the underserved and underrepresented.”
Working NYC (nyc.gov/workingnyc) was created by the Mayor’s Office of Workforce Development in collaboration with the Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity. It was developed through a user-centered and iterative process with input from City agencies, provider organizations, and the New Yorkers it aims to serve. Version 1 of the site launched in August 2020, and it will continue to evolve to include new features and programs in future iterations.
Working NYC’s mission is to help New Yorkers connect to the services and resources that are offered through the City of New York that can lead to better job training and service outcomes.
Team
Darnell Sessoms, Laura Kerry, Kim Peng, Devon Hirth, Tina Qi, Laura Gibson, Chris Neale
partners
Mayor’s Office of Workforce Development
## Partnering Workforce Development Programs
Role
Product Manager
SKILLS & SERVICES
Product Management (JIRA)
SCRUM
Retrospectives & Debriefs
Product Co-Design and Planning
Usability Testing
User Research
Partnership Management
Communications (Mailchimp Newsletter development)
Personal Wins
Managing the first co-owned Product from the Product Team with the Mayor’s Office of Workforce Development
Co-designing the future and how we work together at every stage
Research, designing, and implementing a cross-team workflow optimization system for content delivery
Expanding the practice of content governance and web-design best practices to civil servants
Paying participants for user testing and user research
User Testing with a person who uses a screen reader and implementing those accessibility changes
Introducing website mechanisms to get feedback, update a program, and suggest a new program.
BACKGROUND
With COVID-19 sending low-income New Yorkers deeper into poverty, the Mayor’s Office of Workforce Development saw the need to put together a website that made accessing and navigating the City’s workforce development and adult education programs easier to discover.
Due to limited capacity, I developed a series of content development and governance structures that allowed all partners to participate and own the product, both in vision and in maintenance. By doing so, I was able to increase the capacity of one non-technical office and teach web-maintenance fundamentals that created an actively engaged non-technical team.
product research
User research
To develop the site around those who would actively use it, we initially spoke with those who are:
Client Connectors: Those who helped navigate clients to workforce development or adult education services
End-Users: Clients who were seeking or part of a workforce development program
to understand the ways in which they like to receive and share information about City-funded programs.
I developed the research protocol, interview guides, coordinated the virtual interview, paid out incentives to end users and synthesized findings of this work in order to drive future feature development.
Below are two of the personas that I created from this research. This information helped us make initial assumptions on the required functionality of the content, and. how to deliver it to end users and client connectors.
End-User Persona
Client-Connecter Persona
Usability Testing
Prior to launch, I developed the testing protocol to ensure usability of the product. We worked with those with disabilities, those who were elderly, and those who were currently. in workforce development programs.
product leadership
Product Management
After launch, I became the product manager for Working NYC. What that meant in practice was aligning the internal technical team on new feature developments and remaining pre-launch items, including the integration and enablement of Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and Google Tag Manager for reporting.
NYCO’s technical team included:
1 Front-end/Back-end Software Engineer
1 Content Strategist
1 Product Designer
1 Product Management Fellow
Product. management in the case of a jointly owned project also meant aligning the technical work with:
1 Commissioner for the Office of Workforce Development
1 Director of Workforce Development
1 Workforce Development Specialist
2-3 Workforce Development Interns
Co-Design quarterly product goals
Aligning each team’s distinct point of view on product goals and objectives for each quarter became an opportunity to do workshops and prioritization matrices to decide collectively.
Each quarter I work to align the team about the future of Working NYC. We do this through a co-design workshop. Here is an example of a workshop I led with technical members of the Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity and the Mayor’s Office of Workforce Development.
I did this by first opening up a form that asked, “What should we focus on in the next quarter”. The full team filled it out the form. I then sorted this information into thematic buckets.
Expand to see thematic buckets
One those thematic buckets were formed, we came together as a group to understand our priorities from an individual and group level.
An example of an individual workshop participant’s priorities
How we combined the individual priorities to step back and see what we had prioritized as a group
We then sought to understand the work that was needed in each of the features through a prioritization matrix.
Prioritization matrix based on time capacity and impact
Finally, through synthesizing the priorities and balancing the work and capacity of the team, I was able to present the team with a quarterly roadmap that also included sprint timelines and team recommendations.
Sample of a quarterly planning overview document for the full team
FEATURE DEVELOPMENT
meta descriptions and Open graphics
One of the most received bits of feedback were about an individual’s ability to readily share an opportunity to their network or to an individual. Prioritizing this, I worked with a Design intern to develop Open Graphics on all website pages. By doing so, each time someone share’s a Working NYC link, they are also showing a pleasurable graphic with the page’s description. and relevant information. Meta-descriptions fill out the rest of the information not available in the open graphics display.
develop feedback mechaniSMS
With a team who had limited technical proficiency, it was important for us to automate or make available any processes that would help the team keep content up-to-date and relevant.
Some of the most critical concerns of a content-rich site is:
How to know when content is out of date
How to know if users are getting what they’re looking for
How to add an additional program to a site that someone knows about
cross-team workflow optimization system for content delivery
Understanding the limited capacity of the Mayor’s Office of Workforce Development to maintain and manage the tasks associated with content maintenance, I set out to simplify the process through the use of Airtable, Asana, and Gather Content.
This started with first understanding the “end users”–in this case, the two Workforce Development staff themselves.
I first worked to surface gaps in understanding and pain points of the content process.
More information on this process can be found here.
results
A new way of working on a technology product with civil servants
A full product developed and launched in 4-months
$250,000 funds allocated to pilot a neighborhood call center in the Bronx to connect New Yorkers to opportunities
Over 50 workforce development and adult education program content pages on Working NYC
Over 15 Agencies/offices engaged and working to maintain content
Additional referrals made to Parks Opportunity Program, City Clean Up Corps, and other quick community hiring opportunities
Job training is not always possible for those deepest in poverty
We may imagine that providing rich opportunities for training would be the pathway out of poverty, however, if training is not coupled with a living wage or guaranteed job outcomes, those in poverty simply can’t afford to take advantage of the most well intended programs.
Content and information maintenance should be a standard skillset for City employees working to promote and engage others in programs
Without clear documentation, concerted efforts to update and maintain information, all the technical work of a technically proficient team can go to waste. By training up individuals to work with how to collect, write, and maintain content, technical teams can continue to develop other products while guaranteeing a high standard for content delivery.
Localized help is still unknown at scale
While we can maintain and update large scaled workforce development and adult training programs, many of the programs and services that get folks to job placement (OSHA training, for example) can be found free in community. At this time, the City is unable to source and meaningfully deliver that content.
learning and
reflection
Building in the Workforce Development ecosystem showed me there’s much to be done for the City’s services and programs that can lead to richer outcomes.
While working with different agencies, and programs within. those agencies, it became apparent that the system of programs is lacking in its clarity to deliver a pipeline experience centered on a New Yorker’s experience. There’s little information out there that can suggest what the first, second, third, or last step should be in the job development process.
By having agencies work together to intentionally build programs that lattice together to create pipelines to jobs, we can go past the initial assumption of perceived choice, to a clear latter of mobility.
Those in community know about community resources
There is an open opportunity to get neighborhoods involved in collecting and maintaining localized information that can connect New Yorkers to appropriate programs. These collectors can also act as help desk operators, directing New Yorkers in localized areas to free and available resources for workforce development and adult education.