Design Engineering
Showcase 2020

By working in a large company, despite the limitations of working from home and never meeting the team in person, I was still able to learn how the different teams were integrated and apply my skills to many areas in the company. During my placement I learnt about new technologies regarding automation and the use of UI path within the robotics team. I’ve greatly enhanced my skills in branding and UI design through my projects with DDX and PSD2. I also improved my project planning abilities through leading the project and arranging meeting with different teams such as the DPT team who are responsible for connecting multiple departments in working towards a common goal. As I worked within teams who worked in an agile way, I was able to broaden my method of thinking.

During my first month in Innovation I worked with 2 other interns on creating a MVP for a new portal Coutts wanted to offer to clients. We started with background research into possible competitors before moving into assumption mapping to validate the idea and designs. We then helped produce a client survey to test assumptions and validate certain ideas which gained the company a better understanding of their customers and showed the demand for the product. Finally, we built a website and created high level wireframes which were approved by stakeholders and the project has been scheduled for delivery.

For the majority of my internship I was working in the digital product delivery team under PSD2 and was given the chance to take lead on a project involving the delivery of a feature next year which would improve the eCommerce journey for clients. My main contribution was designing the wireframes and ideating the specific features in a way that the final journey would be the most convenient for clients.

Another project that ran alongside the others was hosting a series of design thinking workshops with the other 5 interns. This gave us the ability to encourage and promote the design thinking methodology to people all over the company. We were able to have open discussions on how design thinking has benefitted us in our projects and how the tools can be better utilised in other areas. We created a workshop based around a brief I completed in my second year and ran up to six fully booked sessions. It was a very rewarding experience and I was able to develop my own design thinking skills.

Overall, my time at Coutts have been very beneficial for me and I feel that my deliverables and outputs will also benefit the company. I believe I have made a significant difference in several of my projects and that my work will be valued in the continuation of the project. On a personal level I feel that through developing my presentation and discussion skills I have gained confidence and will be able to effectively work in high pressure corporate environments in the future.