Leading design in IBM's prestigious internship program

IBM Extreme Blue is IBM’s prestigious summer internship program which operates in IBM sites across the world. IBM Hursley is one of these sites, and for twelve weeks every summer the studio is transformed. Sixteen interns embark on a mission to create the best possible solutions for their clients. It’s a fast paced, caffeine fuelled, emotional roller-coaster which leaves everyone involved exhausted and enchanted. 

For two years I operated as the design lead for the Extreme blue program in IBM Hursley, and have mentored teams for a total of 4 years. In this time I instigated a re-structuring of the program, hiring design interns for the first time and mentored 4+ teams. Throughout the years I have been responsible for:

Each year IBM Hursley hires 16 interns, these interns are separated into 4 teams and given a client brief to complete over a twelve week period. Each team received guidance from design, business, and technical mentors. Every week the interns must present their progress to their clients and an auditorium full of IBMers. At the end of the summer teams from across Europe gather to exhibit their work and compete to be the team with the most innovative and successful project. 

In my role as design lead for Extreme Blue, I made the case to hire design interns into the program for the first time. To this point the internship had only consisted of technical and business interns. Having mentored teams for two years prior to instigating this change, it was evident there was design skill lacking the teams. Design research was often rushed or poorly executed, little consideration was made towards user experience, and the final solution often lacked a professional appearance. To add to this, design mentors whom were working with the teams often felt ignored as they didn’t have the representative mentee to direct their advice towards. It was clear that hiring design interns could have a huge impact on the success of the projects.

Having successfully persuaded the business to hire design interns the responsibility fell to me to hire 4 designers for the summer of 2019. Working with the team of design mentors, we contacting multiple universities and advertised the positions. This generated a healthy number of applications which we later screened then invited the best candidates for an interview. From this we successfully hired 4 design interns for the summer.  

To better understand the intern experience and how it could be improved, I organised a workshop with a selection of Extreme Blue alumni who now work at IBM. The objective of the internship program to recruit the best possible talent to IBM, it’s therefore integral that the interns have the best possible experience and want to return IBM. In this workshop I asked the alumni to map out an as-is scenario of their experience. From this we were able to identify the limitations of the experience and address them in the following years.

One of the biggest limitations I observed during my time working in Extreme Blue was the preparation of mentors. To my surprise, little was done to introduce mentors to the clients, to the briefs, or to one another. As a result mentors were often mis-aligned and provided inconsistent feedback to the intern teams. Worse yet, they were completely disengaged and didn’t provide support to the teams at all. To better prepare for the mentors I organised a workshop where all the mentors had the opportunity to meet, to align executions, and discuss how they could best support the teams. This small meeting went a long way in improving the support given to each team. 

There’s no denying that small events go a long way in making people feel more comfortable and integrated. Throughout the internship program I organised a number of social events such a trips to the pub, sporting events, and shared lunched to bring interns into the community at IBM. 

The Extreme Blue summer internship is a huge part of our design culture in IBM Hursley. For the summer, the studio would come to life with new faces and new ideas. It was a world free of constraints, fuelled by the young energy of the interns whom were all thrilled to learn new skills make an impact. It allowed mentors to step outside their day job and engage with a completely different project and completely different clients. There was a constant buzz of energy in the studio. Each week the interns would present their progress to an auditorium full of IBMer’s and clients. It was fast paced, chaotic, unpredictable, and fun. 

Since getting involved with Extreme Blue I’ve had the opportunity to mentor four teams (plus some additions). Each of these teams have worked on a different client brief, and all of them have had their own unique challenges. For each of these teams I’ve provided education and guidance on the design thinking process, I’ve hosted design thinking workshop with the client to kick off each project, and provided continual coaching on the research, prototyping, user testing, prioritisation, and implementation phases throughout the summer.