Scaling Operations & Knowledge Management for a 95+ Person Microsoft Research Org
Rapid growth broke their legacy infrastructure. Discover how I engineered a centralized knowledge hub and eliminated a 7-step operational bottleneck for a scaling Microsoft organization
The Context (The Friction)
The Client: XC Research, a Microsoft UX research org
The Problem: The organization more than doubled in size during the pandemic and the legacy infrastructure collapsed under the weight of this growth.
The Symptoms: New hires were lost in a maze of outdated, redundant OneNote files. Meanwhile, the org’s primary research publication (+1,000 subscribers) was bottlenecked by a convoluted 7-step authoring process and broken legacy templates that took hours to format.
The Strategy & Execution (The Flow)
Pillar 1: Architecting a Scalable Onboarding Experience
Audited and deprecated the legacy OneNote system, consolidating redundant information into a single, centralized SharePoint hub.
Designed an interactive, self-paced onboarding module (simulating a mobile UX) to guide new hires through complex information without overwhelming them.
Pillar 2: Streamlining Publication Operations via Product Negotiation
Led an internal UX research study to identify the exact pain points in the team's newsletter publication process.
The Pivot: When existing tools failed to meet the MVP requirements, bypassed standard workarounds and negotiated directly with the owners of a beta platform.
Partnered with VP-level leadership to define MVP requirements, successfully convincing the platform developers to build custom features to support our org's specific needs.
Pillar 3: Change Management & Adoption
Designed and executed a comprehensive change management strategy, conducting targeted alignment sessions with eight distinct sub-teams to ensure a seamless transition to the new platforms.
The Impact (The ROI)
80% Reduction in Support Overhead: Technical inquiries regarding the newsletter template dropped immediately.
Increased Output: The streamlined authoring process resulted in a higher volume of researchers regularly contributing content.
Sustainable Maintenance: Transitioned the maintenance of the newsletter platform to a dedicated development team, eliminating the need for manual, continuous workarounds by the research team.
Centralized Architecture: Eliminated nested folders across fragmented sites, creating a single source of truth for the organization.
The Takeaway
Legacy opinions often mask the right solution. By conducting independent user research and building a structured change-management plan, I was able to secure buy-in for a platform that leadership had previously rejected, ultimately solving the operational bottleneck.
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