Business Innovation · AI Strategy · Organizational Design
Finding value in the gaps
Turning overlooked UX demand into an AI-enabled business development system.
Faced with low utilization and a team at risk, I transformed an informal approach to identifying missed UX opportunities into a repeatable system for discovery, qualification, and sales engagement.
What began as an urgent pipeline initiative evolved into a new operating model that expanded commercial relationships, built team capabilities, and made UX a more visible contributor to business growth.
MY ROLE
Strategy Lead · System & Operating Model Design · Team Enablement
SCOPE
Internal Innovation · Cross-Functional Sales Enablement
ORGANIZATION
Technology Consultancy
THE CHALLENGE
The work was there. We just weren't seeing it.
Our UX practice was facing significant utilization pressure. With much of the team on the bench and limited work entering our pipeline, relying on traditional sales channels wasn't enough.
Yet potential UX needs were appearing throughout the organization—in AI applications, technical engagements, and existing accounts planning their next phase.
I had been identifying these opportunities informally, but the process depended on my individual knowledge and investigation.
The opportunity was to turn that intuition into a repeatable system the entire team could use.
DESIGN CHALLENGE
How might we uncover overlooked UX demand and empower our team to act on it—without waiting for opportunities to reach us?
THE INTELLIGENCE LAYER
Turning intuition into intelligence
I examined how I recognized potential UX needs and translated those patterns into a structured signal-detection model.
Using AI, I developed a workflow that analyzed internal sources—including sales transcripts, Slack conversations, and opportunity records—to surface engagements where UX could create value but hadn't been included.
The system organized findings into a shared opportunity board for human review, qualification, and action.
THE OPERATING MODEL
From discovery to action
Finding opportunities was only half the challenge. We needed a way to move them forward.
I created the Void Reclamation Unit (VRU), a four-stage operating model that distributed responsibility across the team.
Rather than assigning everyone the same work, I allowed team members to choose where they could contribute based on their strengths, confidence, and development interests.
THE TURNING POINT
The bottleneck wasn't discovery. It was confidence.
As the system gained traction, an unexpected pattern emerged: people were comfortable finding and researching opportunities, but very few volunteered to initiate sales conversations.
When I investigated why, I found that the hesitation wasn't a lack of expertise. Team members weren't confident approaching account executives, positioning UX commercially, or responding to objections.
I developed a second layer of enablement: sales personas, relationship intelligence, AI-powered conversation simulations, and a shared library of outreach examples.
Each objection—whether about budgets, existing design teams, or the need for UX—became an opportunity to improve our positioning and prepare the team for the next conversation.
Instead of mandating participation, I designed a way to make participation easier.
IMPACT & REFLECTION
Building momentum beyond the pipeline
VRU generated qualified opportunities and contributed to new business, but its broader impact was organizational.
As more team members participated in outreach, UX became increasingly visible within the sales organization. Individual practitioners developed direct relationships with account executives and began receiving invitations to sales conversations without needing me to facilitate every interaction.
The initiative helped shift UX from a reactive delivery capability toward a more proactive commercial partner.
60+
opportunities identified in about 60 days
52
sales and technical relationships directly engaged
4–5
active outreach participants, up from about 2
67%
March utilization, up from 20% in January
What I took away
I built VRU to solve an immediate pipeline problem, but its value extended beyond lead generation.
The work reinforced that operational innovation is rarely about designing one perfect process. It's about recognizing where the system breaks down, understanding why, and creating the conditions for people to succeed.
Finding the opportunities required intelligence. Acting on them required confidence. Sustaining momentum required ongoing ownership.
The system's activity eventually slowed, but the relationships, capabilities, and organizational visibility it created continued beyond the initial effort.