Publicis Sapient: foundations for education

Strategic Discovery Leadership | Service Design & Capability Uplift | Roadmapping & Change Management | Design Thinking Enablement | Stakeholder Alignment & Coaching | Workshop Design & Facilitation | Research-Led Strategy | Scalable Tools & Frameworks

Context

Publicis Sapient was engaged by ASQA, the national regulator for vocational education and training, to lay the groundwork for a multi-year digital transformation. This phase wasn’t just about defining a vision or delivering design work. It was about creating the right conditions for lasting, systemic change.

Our role was to set a strong strategic foundation for how work would be surfaced, prioritised, and evolved. We shaped not just what the agency would focus on, but how it would operate moving forward.

Beyond uncovering and validating opportunities for transformation, we also:

• Built trust-based relationships with senior leadership, bringing design-led thinking into strategic conversations and governance
• Fostered cross-department collaboration, breaking down silos and enabling alignment across policy, operations, and digital teams
• Drove the adoption of new ways of working by coaching and co-creating with internal teams to embed discovery and design thinking practices
• Partnered with other government agencies to contribute to shared regulatory initiatives, co-design strategic responses, and align on ecosystem-wide transformation efforts

Our approach was scalable, participatory, and embedded—blending deep research, organisational strategy, and capability uplift into a unified model of transformation.

This was ultimately a rare opportunity. We weren’t just defining new systems and services. We were helping build the internal structures, rituals, and relationships that would sustain ASQA’s evolution for years to come.

How might we help a traditional government agency confidently adopt digital-first, user-centred ways of working—at scale and with lasting impact?

My Role

As Lead Product & Service Designer, I worked across strategic discovery, capability building, and cross-organisational engagement. My focus was on helping ASQA become a confident, discovery-led, and design-literate organisation.

Key responsibilities included:

• Designing and leading discovery across multiple streams of transformation
• Mentoring and enabling internal teams to own and run discovery independently
• Running workshops with multiple project teams to build skills in digital transformation and design thinking
• Developing self-serve toolkits and templates for future initiatives
• Embedding lightweight governance and rhythms to sustain new practices
• Acting as a bridge between internal stakeholders, leadership, and external partners

This work needed a careful balance of strategic thinking, hands-on delivery, and long-term enablement.

1. Multi-Stream Discovery Across Transformation Programs

I led discovery efforts across several critical transformation areas, working on 5–7 projects in parallel that spanned operations, workforce tools, regulatory processes, and inter-agency coordination.

My work involved:

• Planning and facilitating discovery sprints tailored to each domain
• Conducting qualitative research to identify unmet needs and systemic pain points
• Synthesising insights into future project briefs and investment cases
• Mapping current and future-state workflows to guide solution scoping
• Supporting prioritisation decisions with evidence-based storytelling

Each discovery output directly fed into a strategic transformation roadmap, forming the pipeline for upcoming years of work.

2. Design Capability & Internal Enablement

To make sure change would last, I created a suite of reusable discovery and design tools that helped teams confidently run their own initiatives without needing ongoing external support.

Key initiatives included:

• A flexible, step-by-step discovery toolkit with journey maps, interview guides, insight capture sheets, and decision frameworks
• Ongoing coaching and pair working with 15+ staff, adapting methods to suit their needs and maturity
• Introductory and advanced training sessions on research, synthesis, and service design
• Championing an internal model of peer-to-peer support and knowledge-sharing, to decentralise expertise

Rather than only delivering outcomes, this work ensured long-term design fluency across the organisation.

3. Cultural Shift & Change Integration

Partnering with internal change teams, I helped embed discovery and design rituals into ASQA’s evolving culture, including:

• Co-created change pathways for different teams based on their readiness
• Introduced new team cadences (e.g. research playback, discovery wall walks)
• Facilitated cross-functional alignment workshops to spark shared ownership
• Regularly presented to executive stakeholders, building trust and momentum
• Supported cross-agency partnerships, especially where transformation efforts were shared (e.g. shared platforms, aligned regulatory frameworks)

This human-centred approach helped move ASQA from ad hoc delivery toward a more strategic, collaborative, and design-driven organisation.

Outcomes & Impact

• Repeatable discovery model embedded across teams
• Multiple individuals and teams now able to independently run their own research and framing work
• Fully operational toolkit used to onboard new team members and enable self-service discovery
• Research directly shaped ASQA’s strategic roadmap for future investment and transformation
• Strong buy-in from senior leadership, with design and discovery now present in ongoing governance
• Early indicators of culture shift: teams asking better questions, engaging users earlier, and shaping scope collaboratively

This work helped ASQA shift from a compliance-first mindset to one of curiosity, collaboration, and continuous improvement—supported by the very people inside the agency who would carry that change forward.

"The most valuable thing we delivered wasn't a roadmap—it was the ability to create one without us."