Adobe Experience
By Trevor Denney
I heard about the Adobe project in the first SIBC meeting of the spring semester. I had previously worked on a project for Tesla Motors and thought this project would be an awesome progression. By early March we had a team and we started meeting weekly. The team was tasked with analyzing Adobe’s executive onboarding processes and proposing a modified, tailored solution that was globally scalable. We conducted extensive research, identified best practices within the tech industry, found opportunities for improvement in the current process, and proposed research backed solutions. Mapping out Adobe’s current executive onboarding process using a service blueprint was challenging and took longer than expected. However, it was worth the hard work, as we quickly realized we needed a strong grasp of their current processes if we were going to identify issues and come up with solutions to the issues. A couple weeks into the project our classes went remote and the project was put on hold. The team voted to continue the project through the school closure and we began meetings weekly via Zoom. Collaborating while working 100% virtually was challenging. On previous projects, team members would meet in classrooms and use the whiteboards to collaborate and quickly get things done. We ended up utilizing Google’s collaboration tools. This helped us stay organized, keep relevant documents available to the team, simplify communication and work assignments, and show suggestions on each other’s work. We found that the most effective virtual meetings were short and took care of only the essentials; the remaining work was done individually then shared and reviewed by the team outside of meeting times.
We were really happy with how the presentation of our deliverable turned out. While we were looking forward to traveling to San Jose and presenting at the Adobe headquarters, the final presentation (via Zoom) was equally as satisfying. Our full team, all of our advisors, and 6 or 7 people from Adobe were on the video call. We ran through the presentation many times, stepped up our attire, selected appropriate Zoom backgrounds, and assigned presentation segments based on our strengths. Everything went to plan and we got great feedback.
If there is one club you should join during your time at USD, it's the Student International Business Council. The real-world application of business and consulting principles is unparalleled. Between my experience on the Tesla project and the Adobe project, I have grown so much and simply wouldn't be working at the level I am today if it were not for SIBC. You should join SIBC to gain project experience and learn skills that will be useful when applying for jobs. I am an Engineering student looking to work at the intersection of business and technology. The SIBC has provided me the business experience I need to fill the gaps and make this transition in the years to come. One of the most valuable aspects of doing a project for SIBC is the opportunity to learn from professors that have years of industry experience. I worked closely with Dr. Daspro this semester and learned so much about designing a methodology and framework for these types of consulting projects. I’ll take everything I learned from her into my last year of classes at USD and into my career.