Reimagining What’s Up Thursday to strengthen XD culture

I co-defined the refreshed strategy behind What’s Up Thursday, a bi-weekly design wide event attended by 500+ designers. The implementation has caused a sustained 97% average satisfaction and ~6% increase per quarter.

2024

Design strategy / Content strategy / Project management

In person experiences

Background

Experience design (XD) associates need time and space to connect with each other as one XD team and learn from their peers because feeling like a part of a community and having time for development and skill building leads to better engagement and feelings of belonging that strengthen our team and encourage retention.

The refresh of WUT has gained a quarterly satisfaction score of 95.7% and the average attendance for 2024 was 245 individuals which was a 46.14% increase from 2023.

User problem

Associates felt disconnected from each other and from XD’s larger identity. Events designed to unite the organization had low engagement, and the experiences have felt siloed and uninspiring.

Hypothesis

By reinvesting in What’s Up Thursday, we can drive better associate engagement, improve the in office experience and better connect associates across lines of businesses for a stronger XD identity that can attract and retain top talent.

Discovery

XD (Experience Design), Capital One’s design organization, has been facing a steady decline in associate engagement. Internal engagement surveys and qualitative research highlight a fragmented culture, dwindling participation in design wide events, and a deteriorating sense of XD’s shared identity. Teams are made up of associates with various tenure and levels and don’t map to geographic locations.

Why it matters

Industry research (Forrester, 2024) reinforces that intentional culture-building is a critical driver of the in-office experience and directly tied to talent retention. For XD, strengthening community and belonging isn’t just a “nice to have”—it is a strategic necessity to retain and grow top talent.

Pain points

  • Declining engagement in XD-wide events

  • Little to no sense of cross-tower connection

  • Lower engagement scores year-over-year

  • Qualitative insights: XD’s centralized identity had deteriorated

Hypothesis

If we intentionally invest in What’s Up Thursday (WUT) by improving the experience design, elevating leadership presence, and curating relevant content, then we will:

  • Increase associate engagement in XD-wide events

  • Strengthen the in-office experience

  • Reinforce a unified XD identity that can attract and retain top talent

Context

Key research insight

Culture-building initiatives succeed when they intentionally provide meaningful connection opportunities that align with associates’ day-to-day experiences and career aspirations.

Design

With this context in mind, we approached What’s Up Thursday not as an “event” but as a touchpoint in the associate journey where culture, leadership, and meaningful content intersect.

Strategic design levers and improvements

The whole process involved research, stakeholder alignment, ideation prioritization mapping, efficient programmatic rollout.

    • Provide lunch to drive attendance and casual connection

    • Book reliable, central spaces to reduce friction

    • Design moments for associates to actively shape culture through sharing stories or spotlighting different teams

    • Encourage VP+ leaders to attend and model engagement

    • Position leaders as storytellers and culture champions

    • Elevate perceived value of the sessions through senior visibility

    • Align topics with XD priorities and annual objectives

    • Balance strategic updates with associate-centered content (team case studies, SLT panels)

    • Create a repeatable content framework to ensure consistency and timeliness

Process to refresh WUT strategy

Learnings

Designing culture isn’t about one or two events, it’s about consistently curating experiences that connect people back to purpose and each other.

Results include:

  • ~97% average consistently throughout the year for satisfaction

  • Engagement survey comments showed positive shifts in sense of belonging (“WUT makes me feel connected to what XD is doing across towers”)

  • Increased visibility of leadership participation (VP+ presence rose from attending a WUT whenever they had the chance to consistently at least once a quarter

  • Associates reported stronger alignment with XD’s identity and priorities