Resume

Erika Flowers

SENIOR LEADERSHIP FOR EXPERIENCE STRATEGY & DESIGN

eflowers@gmail.com   —   linkedin.com/in/flowerserika   —   helloerikaflowers.com

Senior experience and innovation leader with 25 years of history driving product and service strategies, leading design teams and initiatives across diverse, high-impact organizations.

  • Inventor of the "Practical Experience Blueprint" framework and curriculum, and author of "Your Guide to Blueprinting the Practical Way."
  • Proven expertise in customer experience, service design, and systems thinking, with an emphasis on prioritizing end-to-end solutions and customer-backed outcomes.
  • Expert in leading cross-functional teams, advising senior leaders, group facilitation, mentorship and coaching, championing innovation and organizational change.
  • Accomplished author and educator, known for demystifying complex concepts, nurturing design talent, and affecting cultural change through the distilling and sharing of knowledge.

Work History

NASA - United States Government
Customer Experience, Facilitation, and Design Leader (Digital Service Expert)
6/23-Present — Space travel, climate science, universe exploration — nasa.gov

Driving high-impact design and facilitation initiatives at NASA, delivering customer-centered solutions and guiding leadership on digital transformation, risk reduction, and consensus-building. Sought-after partner, advisor, and leader for agency initiatives that need essential human centered approaches.

  • Leading the human-centered design and facilitation of the agency-wide AI-Readiness Initiative, shaping the outcome goals, research strategy, workshop design, and output synthesis. Efforts inform critical digital transformation roadmaps and guide investment decisions for the Chief AI Officer and Chief Information Officer.
  • Drove the design, facilitation, and synthesis of a multi-month initiative to research and assess the current state of NASA’s External Collaboration capabilities, informing top priority 5-year planning decisions for NASA’s Workforce Collaboration Services. Served as agency-first initiative for co-creative, design thinking practices with large group facilitation.
  • Oversaw the research, planning, and execution of workshops for a NASA-wide Federated Search initiative, assessing the state of customer experience and need across the agency. Outcome resulted with initiative being awarded funding for development.
  • Key architect in the NASA Digital Service’s business model, pioneering a human-centered approach to project intake, design, and execution of tailored engagements, workshops, and advisement. Efforts awarded a commendation from the Chief Information Officer.

Mural
Sr. Principal Experience Strategist - New Business Initiatives, VR/XR4/21-Present — Digital Collaboration — mural.co

Senior leader guiding strategic initiatives across product design, onboarding, and innovation. Drove significant improvements in user engagement, retention, and product org culture.

  • Led research and design for Mural + Meta’s VR collaboration initiative, executing events and validating virtual environments for remote teamwork. Planned, designed, and facilitated collaborative research events in VR prototype environments for external customers.
  • Drove the strategy and execution of critical research and design plan for new-user onboarding and retention. Led a blended team across design, product, and data to address a dismal 25% retention rate. Spearheaded vision creation for company-wide effort to change new user’s critical “first seven days” experience.
  • Senior principal leader within Mural’s product design organization, driving cultural change and maturity through mentorship and strategic consulting across product teams, partnering closely with executive leadership to accelerate the growth and impact of the design organization.
  • Led strategic initiatives to test and launch new business and product innovations, focusing on the future of work, smart-AI Mural canvas, asynchronous collaboration, and facilitation activities. Conducted rapid experiments, prototypes, and customer engagement sessions to quickly validate ideas for further exploration and executive sponsorship.

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Intuit
Principal Product & Service Designer, Principal Design Technologist
2/14-4/21 — Financial Technology — intuit.com

Led transformative ecosystem design initiatives at Intuit, embedding service design practices and delivering strategic and tactical outcomes across the organization.

  • Led cross-functional team to assess and remediate QuickBooks Online's billing and subscription experience, addressing systemic customer pain points that drove 20% of all support volume. Developed and executed an end-to-end service design research, blueprinting, and strategy initiative, significantly reducing support volume and improving customer satisfaction metrics.
  • Led the experience strategy and definition of the QuickBooks Partner Program, conducting deep qualitative research and co-creation workshops to identify and address the unmet needs of integration partners. Developed a data-driven, tiered partner program that aligned with partner growth goals and Intuit's business scaling objectives.
  • Led the experience strategy for the redesign and replatforming of the QuickBooks App Marketplace, Apps.com, driving creative direction and assisting with technical strategy. Developed the company’s first formal mobile-first, responsive site architecture, designs, and training.
  • As Intuit's first Principal Service Designer, led initiatives to integrate customer-backed methods into complex, interconnected product and service ecosystems. Pioneered the adoption of service design at Intuit, transforming the approach to customer experience across the organization. Created and delivered workshops, built internal capabilities, and evangelized principles across the company.

Jive, Design Director
6/13-2/14 — Cloud Video & Voice — jive.com

Venafi, User Experience Manager
 8/11-6/13 — Cybersecurity — venafi.com

User Experience Lead, Helix Education — 10/10-8/11 — Vertical Marketing — helixeducation.com

Sole-proprietor design consultant — 2006-2010 — Design Consulting

Web & UX generalist, Various web and product firms — 1998-2006

Education

B.S. Psychology, Southern Utah University, 2005

Emphasis in applied psychology, research design, neuropsychology, and practical methods of psychotherapy

Social Work intern for the State of Utah Division of Child and Family Services, working with foster children, case workers, at-risk youth, and court-ordered adults.

Intuit-trained Innovation Catalyst

Presentations, Publishing, Projects of Note

Speaking and Workshops

  • Service Design Network Dallas 2020 - Exploring the Practical Service Blueprint
  • Google's “Sprints” Conference 2017 - Service Blueprinting at Scale
  • Service Design Week Boston 2017 - Service Design Bootcamp, Board Member
  • St. Louis STLX Design Conference 2017 - Service Design Super Powers
  • Service Design Network National Conference 2017 - Introduction to Service Design
  • San Francisco Design Week 2017 - Beyond the Product: Silicon Valley Needs Service Design
  • Service Experience Chicago 2016 - Life on the Service Design Working Ranch Workshop
  • O’reilly Design Conference 2016 - Demystifying Service Design
  • Evolve UX 2016 - Turning Customer Experience Pain into Service Design Opportunity
  • Adaptive Path Service Experience Conference 2015 - Practical Service Blueprinting Workshop
  • Service Design Chicago 2015 - Practical Service Blueprinting Workshop
  • Adaptive Path Service Experience Conference 2014 - A Service Design Odyssey

‍Co-founder of Practical by Design

Practical by Design is an online learning resource focused on practical methods that make it easier to do design, innovation, and strategy. Co-creator of the best-selling online course “Introduction to Practical Service Blueprinting” with students from around the world utilizing the format in companies throughout the Global 2000.

Co-author of “Your Guide to Blueprinting the Practical Way” book, a detailed, step-by-step guide on the method, framework, and facilitation of creating current- and future-state experience blueprints.

Personal interests

I have a deep and uncompromising love of fiction storytelling and the fundamentals of story and plot structure, and maintain a consistent level of effort in the pastime of fiction-crafting.

I am the author of “The Dauntless Gambit,” an ongoing 4 book series in paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats. See more at erikaflowerswrites.com.