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Decoupling design work from Slack: the Alley-oop intake system

Senior Design Operations Strategist • PENN Entertainment (theScore / ESPN Bet) • Apr 2024 - Oct 2024

📉

70%

reduction in context-switching

⚙️

automated workflows

🔎

100%

requests tracked & auditable

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interruptions during intake

Context

PENN Entertainment's UX team — spanning Product Design, UX Research, and Design Systems — was operating without a structured intake process. Every design system request arrived through Slack, creating a constant stream of untracked, unstructured interruptions with no SLAs and no accountability.

The problem

Context-switching was chronic. Design and engineering couldn't predict incoming work or plan around it. Requesters had no visibility into status. There was no audit trail, no way to measure volume, and no baseline for improvement. The team was reactive by default.

My approach

I started with a service blueprint, mapping the full lifecycle of a design system request from the moment someone had a need to the moment it was resolved. That map revealed the root cause immediately: there was no front door. Every fix had to start there. One entry point, structured routing, automated notifications, and clear SLAs. All built and tested in close collaboration with the team before launch.

The work

Service Blueprint - mapped the full intake journey end-to-end, identifying every friction point and handoff failure across design and engineering

Architecture - designed a single intake interface branching into 6 distinct automated workflows based on request type, eliminating Slack-based intake entirely

SLA Framework - defined and communicated clear service level agreements per request type, setting expectations upfront for every requester

Automated Notifications - built automated timeline alerts so requesters always knew where their request stood without needing to follow up

Workshop & Prototype Series - facilitated workshops and retros throughout the design process, testing multiple prototypes before committing to the final architecture

Results

The Alley-oop launched to strong adoption and measurable results across the org:

70% reduction in reported context-switching for design and engineering

All intake fully decoupled from Slack, zero unstructured requests post-launch

100% of requests tracked, time-stamped, and auditable from day one

Measurably reduced response times and improved request clarity through SLAs

Increased overall team satisfaction across design, engineering, and stakeholders

What this shows

The Alley-oop is a clean example of how I work: start with the real problem, not the stated one. Map the system. Then build something that solves it durably. The 70% reduction in context-switching is significant, but the more important outcome was giving the team back their focus.

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