⚡️Outputs
+ 40,000 county clubs on FA Full Time
+ 150,000 FA Match Day downloads
+ 60,000+ Wildcat signups
+ 25% increase in youth registration
+ CX ratings surged from 71% to 94%

⚡️Methods
+ User-centered design
+ System mapping
+ Design operations
+ Design system build
+ Design research

How can we transform The FA to be relevant to individual players, coaches, officials, volunteers, and fans alike.

Just kick it.

Football is the nation’s game, enjoyed by millions of men, women, and children who take to pitches, parks, and playgrounds every week, in every corner of England. In its sheer scale alone, it is more than just a game — it’s a movement, built on the passion and commitment of every player, coach, official, volunteer, and fan. However, The Football Association (The FA), the governing body of football, was facing challenges in keeping pace with the rapidly changing world of football and reclaiming its status as a world-class sporting organisation. Including:

⚽ Retaining and growing the number of people playing in the grassroots game 

⚽ Developing a better understanding of the wants and needs of participants  

⚽ Instilling trust as the administrator and regulator of the whole game globally

⚽ Communicating better the good work we do across multiple facets of the game 

⚽ And of course achieving the senior teams international success 

⚽ The approach

The FA needed a strategy that would allow for rapid development, testing, and deployment of these products while maintaining a high standard of quality and user satisfaction. Our primary challenge of the project was to develop and deliver twelve engagement products within a 24 month timeframe, whilst ensuring that the FA provided continuous value to users across the nation. The complexity of the project required a coordinated approach involving multiple agile squads working in unison.

To address this challenge, I designed a an approach where multiple cross-functional teams focused on a specific products. These products were interconnected and relied on centralised services centralised micro-services that were modular, independently deployable, and able communicate with each other through APIs. A dedicated team overseeing the micro-services, ensuring that each shared standards for security, performance, and scalability.

Automated testing, continuous integration, and continuous deployment pipelines were designed to maintain the reliability creating enormous flexibility, scalability, and rapid iteration across all the various products, all while ensuring that the centralised services provide a stable foundation for the entire ecosystem.,This approach was designed to facilitate continuous delivery and rapid value generation, ensuring that multiple product could be developed, tested, and launched in an efficient and effective manner, without creating rework. The project began with a comprehensive analysis of the FA’s existing infrastructure and research into audience needs. This analysis identify the value in the products and allowed the team to prioritise products that would deliver the most significant impact fast.

⚽ Design approach

Research Each team began by engaging their various stakeholders, including players, coaches, officials, volunteers, fans or local officials. This involved conducting interviews, surveys, and workshops to gather insights into their needs, pain points, and aspirations. All harvested insights (quant and qual) being centralised and tagged for teams to access.

Analysis The teams collectively analysed the insights to identify common themes across their products and the challenges in both grassroots and professional levels of the game. This research constantly informed the design goals and objectives, ensuring they were grounded in real user needs.

Co-creation With fresh aligned insights, the teams could engage in collaborative designing sessions, often involving players, coaches, officials, volunteers, fans or local officials to generate innovative solutions. Teams were encouraged to develop low-fidelity prototypes to visualise solutions and gather early feedback, testing ideas with real users, including players, coaches, and officials.

Validation Once each team was confident in their solution, validation workshops were conducted with stakeholders to ensure the solutions met their needs and aligned with The FA's objectives. Given the federated nature of The FA these meetings were crucial to gain local level support ad buy-in.

Rollout The products were launched in phases manner, starting with local pilots in selected regions before rolling out nationally. This approach allowed us to monitor performance, gather additional feedback, and make necessary adjustments before full-scale implementation.

⚽ Kicking balls

The framework for delivery involved multiple squads working in parallel efforts on different products. Each team operated within its own lifecycle, allowing for the flexibility to adapt to changing requirements and feedback. Regular cross-squad synchronisation ensured all teams remained aligned with our overarching project goals and timelines. The first three products being:

Organising and attending events
One of the first products developed was a comprehensive event management product. This platform allowed users to organise, promote, and attend games seamlessly (at the local, club, county and national level). The product integrated features such as online registration, real-time updates, and feedback mechanisms to enhance the experience. The product has attracted 677,000 users, 36.2 million sessions and 388 million screen views in its first season alone!

Enabling female participation
The next product focused on increasing female participation. This included developing targeted campaigns, creating online communities, and providing resources and support for girls interested in playing football. The product offered mentorship programs, training and success stories to inspire and engage. The product in its first season encouragde 60,000+ new enrollees young girls to join football clubs

Single view of participation
This key product aimed at creating a single view of participation, consolidating data from various sources to provide a holistic view of engagement with football nationally. This product facilitated personalised experiences and tailored communications, enhancing satisfaction and retention and creating a single sign on in mechanism. The product driving a 25% increase in youth registration for England Supporters Club and ticket sales alone!

⚽ Continuous research, delivery and testing

The framework enabled the continuous delivery of product increments. While regular releases allowed for early feedback, which was crucial in refining and enhancing all of the products. This iterative approach ensured that each product was aligned with audience needs and provided tangible value to the FA.

Agile research, characterized by its iterative, flexible, and collaborative approach, was an integral part of the product process. Regular research provided valuable insights into how the products were being used and identified areas for improvement for example:

Continuous feedback
Continuous feedback and testing, was instrumental in shaping all the products. By regularly involving participants in design and testing to gather feedback, the teams could identify pain points, preferences, and areas for improvement.

Rapid prototyping
For the FA’s program we quickly prototyped products and features, testing them and iterating based on the feedback received. This approach allows for the identification of what worked and the timely removal of what wasn’t.

Cross-functional insight
Research fostered a collaborative environment where insights and feedback are shared seamlessly across functions. I believe this collaborative approach enhanced the overall coherence and integration of each squad.

Insight-driven decisions
By continuously collecting and analysing data on interactions, engagement, and feedback, we made more informed decisions and ensured that the whole project remained aligned to user needs and business objectives.

⚽ What was the score?

The transformation initiative not only achieved significant milestones with the successful launch and integration of all twelve products into The FA’s ecosystem but also effectively addressed several critical challenges facing the organisation:

Match Day app has generated over 150,000 downloads and boasts 68,000 weekly users. Nearly 1,700 clubs have set up accounts to take payments from over 80,000 players — double the expected target!

Full Time has generated over 48M page views and signed up 2.2M users, with over 40,000 county teams across the UK, resulting in a 17% increase in traffic year-on-year.

Just Play attracted over 90,000 footballers who wanted to simply turn up and play the game in the park with friends!

Wildcats an initiative to encourage young women to join football, has had over 60,000 new joiners in 12 months

⚽ Personal learnings

Managing multiple product teams taught me that over communication is crucial, and a unified strategy must be consistently reinforced to create the opportunity for autonomy! Clear, continuous communication ensuring that all my teams stay aligned with the overarching goals, while a well-defined strategy provides the necessary direction and cohesion across different teams to allow for each product team to experiments.

I also learned that in collaborative cross functional environments with business consultants, it’s not uncommon for them to take credit for a Products Designers work, sometimes without being actively involved with a project!. This taught me the hard way that continuously advocating for your teams contributions is need when working with consultants.

I was honoured to win "Deal of the Year" at Cognizant for guiding this project from the first meeting through to successful delivery. This underscored my ability to navigate complex projects and deliver results that have a lasting impact.