NextEra Energy Onboarding Project

BACKGROUND

IT4U, a ticket management system built on the ServiceNow platform, serves over 15,000 employees and contractors at NextEra Energy, facilitating IT service requests since its introduction in February 2020.

GOAL

The project aimed to refine the onboarding experience for employees, contractors, and hiring managers by incorporating automation, applying enterprise design system standards, and enhancing ticket visibility.

TIMELINE

The project spanned from March 2021 to December 2021, with the MVP launching in December 2021 to all NextEra Energy employees and contractors.

DISCOVERY

Our discovery phase revealed that a small group of employees managed multiple tickets on behalf of their teams, contributing to over 80% of IT4U ticket submissions. This inefficiency and the existing system's lack of visibility were costing the company significantly in terms of productivity losses.

IDEATION AND DESIGN

I conducted a comprehensive review of the IT4U portal, focusing particularly on the IT Workplace Essentials (ITWE) form and the My Requests page—the start and end points of the ticket submission process. A heuristic evaluation identified numerous usability issues. Our lead designer reimagined the entire user journey from ticket submission to fulfillment, incorporating essential features identified from user interviews and addressing noted usability flaws.

Through multiple iterations with the project manager, business analysts, and developers, we prioritized features for the MVP that would prevent duplicate tickets and improve visibility. Other features, such as submitting a single ticket for multiple requests, were scheduled for later releases following our agile methodology. The MVP was then rigorously tested with hiring managers before proceeding to development.

CHALLENGES

The project faced significant hurdles midway when we experienced budget cuts and staff turnover. In response, we swiftly onboarded new UX designers in early November, integrating them into the project by pairing them with existing team members. This strategy facilitated a rapid knowledge transfer, enhanced team collaboration, and significantly smoothed the learning curve. 

RESULTS

The redesigned onboarding process not only streamlined the experience for users but also led to substantial cost savings in unproductive expenditures for the company. The integration of new features and enhancements in the IT4U portal has set a solid foundation for ongoing improvements and scalability.

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