Cognos Adventures
Visual Design
Project overview
Cognos Adventures was a project I worked on during the 2018 Q2 Design Jam. Design Jam was a one-day design hackathon for all IBM designers. Our task was to help IBM sellers to become well-versed in the IBM product portfolio to meet aggressive sales targets.
My role
I joined the team as a visual designer. I created the illustrations and animations for this project. I also helped to craft the final presentation narrative.
Problems
IBM field sellers were under a lot of pressure to become well-versed in the IBM product portfolio to meet aggressive sales targets.
When time was a scarcity and information was abundant, it was difficult for a new seller to know where to go to access the right information, at the right time, with the right amount of domain knowledge to confidently go to market.
"There are so many products in the IBM portfolio. Many seem to overlap in terms of feature set and functionality. It doesn’t help that they tend to sound the same or have confusing acronyms"
"If knowing what a product does is an issue...how can I sell it with confidence without pulling in a SME? I need the right content. And yesterday."
"I feel pressure to meet my target each quarter. I am going to actively seek out products and customers that allow me to hit my number as quickly as possible."
Design process
- Came up with the pain points that we needed to address based on our research for the as-is experience and user interviews.
- Based on the pain points, we identify three main need statements
- Facilitated a sketch session to generate ideas
- Started to create a storyline for the final presentation
- Created final mockups, visual elements, and animations based on the final storyline
About Cognos Adventures
Cognos Adventures is a fun and interactive way for sellers to discover, learn and enhance their knowledge of IBM products and boost their credibility to go to market without depending on subject matter experts.
Streamlining existing resources, the team behind Cognos Adventures has provided easy-to-use learning paths for sellers (new and experienced) to jump start their understanding through a series of exciting quests and challenges.
While the competition is fierce, sellers are never alone. Build your sales force by adding adventure allies to your squad to unlock advanced levels of sales training.
Solution scenarios
About our user
Saleeha is a new field seller to the Cognos Analytics sales team. She needs to get up to speed on the product and the portfolio so she can go to market to seek out and engage prospective clients.
"I need support to help me increase my product knowledge as quickly as possible."
"My reputation is on the line with every deal."
"I will do whatever it takes to meet my number for the year. "
Saaleha just lined up a sales call with the head of analytics at Race Car 77 - an up and coming automotive manufacturer who is starting to look for a new analytics solution. In Cognos Adventures, she looks for a specific adventure related to the auto industry. She knows that every week new adventures are added and trusts that she’ll find what she’s looking for.
She spots Cognitive Driver - an adventure that promises to rescue automotive prospects from data darkness!
She starts the adventure and goes through the individual quests.
The quests are concise and comprehensive, packed with useful tips and talking points.
The last quest - Show ’n Shine arms Saaleha with actual use cases of automotive clients who have harnessed the power of Cognos Analytics to achieve exponential business outcomes. It walks her through a demo of how Toyota discovered a gap in the market while using Cognos Analytics. Using the new smart discovery capability - Explore, Toyota discovered an opportunity in the Sports Car segment - where they didn’t have any existing offerings in market.
Some say that Cognos Analytics was the real reason the Supra’s making its glorious return next year.
Sell sheets that provide tips to tell an authentic story for a specific target audience and helps sellers build and execute a strategy to win.
After completing the Show 'n Shine quest, Saaleha receives a toast that tells her that she's earned the Cognitive Driver badge and has unlocked the ultimate sales kit for automotive that includes customizable assets she can start using immediately.
Going into her meeting well-prepared, Saaleha meets with Race Car 77 and impresses the room with her vast knowledge of the industry and how Cognos Analytics has been turning challenges into opportunities for other automotive companies. Without the need for a subject matter expert, Saaleha not only qualifies the lead but signs up a new client that she plans on keeping for a really long time.
As she gains experience as a seller, she continues completing quests in Cognos Adventures, earning badges and unlocking assets to help her close deals and seize opportunities. Today Saaleha is the number 3 seller and continues to exceed her targets every quarter.
Outcome
Our team won the "Outstanding narrative" award for the 2018 Q2 Design Jam ! 🎉🎉🎉
"Cognos adventures was a nicely branded solution with a well put together, nicely paced deck. The solution focused on making learning fun. The team took an interesting approach to solving for education with a scalable, tailored approach."