Derrick Blackwell-Hunt

03 / Selected work

Redesigning a statewide service-academy nominations workflow.

The process covered intake, validation, review, decisions, communications, and reporting within fixed legal and privacy requirements.

Strategy & Operations · Product OperationsAcademy Nominations Coordinator · Reconstructed diagrams

The responsibility

An annual process with fixed rules, many handoffs, and sensitive applicant information.

I needed to make intake, completeness, review, decisions, communication, and reporting easier to manage while protecting the people in the process.

Fig. 01

Fragmented to unified workflow

  1. 01Intake

    Multiple entry points

  2. 02Validation

    Manual completeness checks

  3. 03Review

    Limited shared state

  4. 04Communication

    Separate follow-up

  5. 05Reporting

    Reassembled after the fact

Original reconstruction using generic labels only.

How I approached the work

Understand → Structure → Execute → Improve

01

Understand

Learn who is involved, what they need, and what limits the work.

02

Structure

Define the model, workflow, requirements, or plan.

03

Execute

Build the process, product, controls, and communication needed to deliver.

04

Improve

Test the result, use feedback, and fix what does not work.

Understand

Design around the service, not only the form.

Applicants and families experience requirements, deadlines, and uncertainty. Staff manage completeness and exceptions. Reviewers need a controlled decision environment. Leadership needs visibility without compromising deliberation. The redesign treated those layers as one service.

Fig. 02

Service blueprint

Applicant-facing

Understand → Prepare → Submit → Respond → Receive notice

Operations

Intake → Validate → Route → Coordinate → Report

Review

Access complete files → Assess → Record decision

Control layer

State visibility → Exceptions → Privacy → Traceability

Generic layers and handoffs. No official form, applicant record, internal system, dates, or security control is reproduced.

Structure

Make state and exception handling explicit.

The improvement came from showing what was missing, who owned the next action, and whether a file could advance. That reduced ambiguity without reducing human judgment.

Fig. 03

Validation-state model

  1. 01Incomplete

    Required information outstanding

  2. 02Complete

    Validated for review

  3. 03Under review

    Controlled panel workflow

  4. 04Decision recorded

    Authorized outcome captured

  5. 05Notified

    Communication state complete

Fictional record flow. No realistic personal identifiers are used.

Execute

Coordinate the work across the state.

The process involved applicants and families, schools, interview panels, academy liaisons, internal operations, legal, IT, communications, and leadership. The scale figures come from the résumé and describe the working scope of the role.

4service-academy pathways
200+applicants in the annual pipeline
up to ~80nominees, subject to vacancies and limits
362school districts in the outreach universe
Applicants & familiesSchoolsInterview panelsAcademy liaisonsInternal operationsLegal · IT · CommsLeadership

Improve

Make progress and exceptions visible.

The redesigned workflow made documentation, completeness checks, and collaboration easier to manage. This page does not state a cycle-time result.

Next / from operating systems to strategic foresight

HEC Paris