Emma Lamb

Back in 2019, I graduated from the University of Canterbury with a Bachelor of Engineering, with first-class honours, specializing in Civil. After two years of internships both onsite and in the office, I realized that although I loved the problem solving and the challenges faced within Engineering but it wasn’t what I wanted to pursue full time.

Two months after the completion of my final exam I made the decision to cross the ditch, trading in my steel caps for stilettos, and starting a graduate job in Strategy and Consulting with Publicis Sapient. Covid hit two weeks after I arrived so that was fun!

Throughout my first year I was exposed to all the capabilities and ultimately discovered I could leverage my problem solving and numbers brain in a creative manner within the Experience Strategy team. And I haven’t looked back.

5.30 AM

Although I am a city girl at heart, apartments can get a tad claustrophobic, especially when you’re also working from it. Back in NZ I grew up always on or around the ocean so I love to take the mornings to get in a run and swim, bonus if there is a good sunrise to match.

6.30 AM

Since I’m away from family, I like to use the mornings to call my mum or other friends. The two hour time difference definitely works in our favour here.

7.30 AM

Lifehack: Even if I’m working from home, I have a rule to get dressed and ready for work. Personally, I find this helps me get into a productive mindset. This was particularly important for me in Melbourne’s extended lockdown where it was super easy to find yourself in a rut.

I actually started this back in High School when I had to sit Chinese exams on a Saturday and found that I focused better when I wore my school uniform, even though I didn’t technically have to because it was a weekend. Highly recommend if you’re working from home.

8.00 AM

Quick coffee run to the local – a non-negotiable. Pictured: Me with my strong oat cap.

8.30 AM

Post coffee consumption, I make some brekkie and check over emails and Microsoft Teams chats to catch up on anything required prior to our 9 am team stand up. I’m at the tail end of an 8-week engagement so we’re spending the week finalizing our deliverables getting them ready for final handover.

For this particular project, the experience team worked alongside our tech experts to Enterprise Architecture recommendations for an iconic Aussie retailer. We used a customer-centric approach to define key moments that mattered within the customer journey for each of their brands, then worked with the tech team to decipher what systems would be required to make the moment happen.

The project was executed using two-week sprints per brand, with multiple streams working on different brands in parallel meaning there were a lot of moving parts.

9.00 AM

Days and routines are always different depending on the project you’re on. With this one we start our day with a stand-up - using 15 minutes in the morning, we get together with our immediate teams and identify key tasks for the day and highlight any blockers.

9.15 AM

After the stand up we all get onto our respective tasks covered in the meeting.

For me this consisted of touching up our customer journeys, detailing our moments that matter and finishing up our Desirability, Viability, Feasibility (DVF) canvas’. Last week we conducted stakeholder interviews and workshops that were used to discover and validate our insights and journeys.

12.00 NN

Due to the current covid climate we can’t head into the office, but restaurants are still open so all we make sure to still catch up. When offices are open the Melbourne team have a Friday tradition of heading out for a lunch. So today I headed into the CBD for coffee, to catch up with my colleague Lucas and celebrate his recent promotion.

1.00 PM

Back home and ready for the second half of the day. We’ve recently had a few new starters, so I have a few meetings to showcase our methods and outputs of previous projects I have worked on. Often coming into a new organization can be very overwhelming with the number of different tools and specific approaches used.

These informal chats are great for knowledge sharing and helping colleagues get their head around systems as well as where they can find resources going forward.

2.00 PM

After finishing up our retail project this week, I’ll be hopping straight onto a Federal Government piece on Monday – which is a bit of a change for me. We will be delivering a comprehensive, multi-faceted Customer Experience program of work that will inform their target state and digital transformation program.

Over the next 12-weeks we’ll be working to understand the internal and external journeys, the pain points experienced and identifying opportunities. This will be done using a combination of qualitative and quantitative research – including analysis of previously conducted research and internal documentation, stakeholder interviews, and distribution of surveys. These will inform our insight development and help us build out our deliverable artefacts including service blueprints, customer journeys and personas.

Project kick-offs are essential to meet your team and ensure we’re all on the same page surrounding the project prior to client interaction.

In the kick-off we also discuss tools that will be utilized e.g miro, confluence, Jira, and dovetail. The decisions surrounding tools is essential because this is how we will be collaborating as we continue to work virtually, so everyone must be competent and comfortable.

3.00 PM

After my deliverables for the current project have been reviewed, I go back and make the necessary edits and adjustments. Towards the end of the project, it is vital that all loose ends are tied up, which usually means finally getting around to those boring administration tasks I’ve been putting off.

6.00 PM

Once all my work is finished for the day, I check in with my team to see if there’s anything they need to support with, if not, I log off.

Particularly after extensive lockdowns, my mantra has evolved into ‘If you live for the weekend, you waste your weeks’

So every day I try do something that gets me out of the apartment after work. Today I’m catching up with a friend for dinner. Melbourne is known for its food so it’s only right we test out a new spot.