Service Design Blueprint for Career Development at BCG
Aligning people, platforms, and processes at scale.
TL;DR
I designed a first-of-its-kind service blueprint to visualize and align BCG’s global consultant feedback and development process. The blueprint clarified responsibilities across 3 core teams, informed 7 business-critical decisions, and became a foundational tool for platform redesign and strategic planning.
Challenges
BCG’s development process was high-stakes and highly fragmented.
BCG runs on a high-performance, feedback-driven culture. But the end-to-end process — from staffing and onboarding to development conversations and CDC meetings — was spread across multiple tools internal tools, multiple teams, and no shared map.
Each Special Business Unit (SBU) had adopted its own version of "how things work," making it nearly impossible to:
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Compare practices across geographies
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Identify systemic issues
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Streamline platform or process decisions
The result? Slowed feedback loops, unclear handoffs, and CDAs doing detective work before every CDC (Career Development Committee) Meeting.
Visualizing the core flow of feedback and performance tracking across a case lifecycle.
This illustration helped teams align on “what’s actually happening” versus what they assumed — and became the foundation for mapping deeper process gaps.
My Responsibilities
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Led 30+ stakeholder interviews across geographies and teams
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Synthesized systems, roles, and workflows into one detailed blueprint
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Ran co-creation workshops to align teams and validate flow
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Created training and async walkthroughs to drive adoption
Outcomes
Used by 100+ stakeholders across global Career Development teams
Informed 3 business-critical decisions — including reviewer logic, Career Development Committee prep, and platform notifications
Clarified responsibilities for 3 business units:
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Career Development Advisors (CDAs)
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Career Development Facilitators (CDFAs)
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Staffing & Talent Business Support
✔ 17+ staff members’ workflows realigned
✔ 9+ systemic gaps uncovered across reviewer assignment, timing, and data handoffs
In Action:
SBU Variance Workshop in Lisbon, 2025
In May 2025, the blueprint was tested live during a Special Business Unit Variance Workshop in Lisbon.
The goal of the session:
Identify where key SBUs deviated from the intended career development process — and explore how that variance was impacting feedback culture, tool usage, and staffing decisions.
How the blueprint was used:
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Served as the central visual alignment tool across teams from Europe, APAC, and North America
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Helped surface 9+ process deviations across feedback timing, reviewer logic, and CDC readiness
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Sparked real-time conversations between CDAs, Talent leads, and CDFAs about what “good” looks like
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Led to 3 immediate workflow standardizations and 2 backlog updates for the CD+ platform
Outcomes:
Several participants described it as the “missing map” they didn’t know they needed. It gave leaders a shared language to address process gaps — without finger-pointing.
“This made invisible work visible. We now have a way to talk about variance without getting lost in it.”
— Workshop attendee, Lisbon 2025
"I want to print this map and hang it in my office, so that I can see it everyday"
— Workshop attendee, Lisbon 2025
