My first task at Microsoft was to create a learning and development strategy for our products’ and community’s organizational readiness to develop accessible features across the company, something that had not been attempted before. I decided the basis of my strategy would be a needs analysis listening tour across the company, talking to experts, leaders and new engineers about the challenges and opportunities they faced in their daily work. I accomplished this through one-on-one interviews as well as more structured focus groups, talking to over 60 experts from the Puget Sound and globally.
The result was twofold: I uncovered 120+ learning and development projects of high value to the enterprise, and developed a change management strategy to transform the Accessibility organization and product groups from the present to our desired state.