Rivian
Case Study 1: Standardizing Global Terminology and Diagnostic Workflows
Focus: Content Governance, Cross-Functional Leadership, and Information Design
This project demonstrates leadership in content governance, your ability to facilitate complex cross-functional alignment, and the application of information design principles to highly technical documentation for a major electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer.
The Challenge: Terminology Chaos and Diagnostic Inconsistency
Context: At a major Electric Vehicle (EV) Manufacturer (Anonymized as "Advanced Mobility Company"), rapid growth led to decentralized naming conventions for internal and external components, features, and tools. This nomenclature chaos caused friction between teams (Product, Engineering, Marketing, Service) and directly impacted the accuracy and efficiency of Service Technicians.
Goal 1 (Nomenclature): Establish a centralized, governed process for defining and approving all company-wide terminology to ensure consistency across all user-facing and internal content. Goal 2 (Workflows): Design, standardize, and train global service advisors and technicians on complex, multi-step diagnostic troubleshooting workflows to increase first-time fix rates and reduce administrative time.
My Strategy & Process
Nomenclature Governance
My initial role as a participant evolved into leading and formalizing the Nomenclature Committee.
Process Formalization: I reorganized the weekly meeting structure and implemented a formal request intake process, migrating submissions from ad-hoc Slack messages/emails to a centralized project tracking tool (Jira).
Cross-Functional Inclusion: I expanded attendance to include mandatory representation from Legal, Brand, and the requesting XFN team. This ensured that naming decisions were vetted for legal risk, brand alignment, and technical accuracy before implementation.
Governance Artifacts: Maintained and enforced the single source of truth for all terminology on a central repository (Confluence/KB), ensuring all stakeholders had access to the final, approved list.
Diagnostic Workflow Information Design
As part of the Diagnostic Content team, I focused on designing and standardizing the information architecture for technical service documentation.
User-Centric Design: The core "users" of this content were Service Advisors and Technicians. I co-developed over 80 troubleshooting workflows (and trained on the "Quest Editor") to ensure they provided accurate, consistent, and scalable guidance.
Standardization (SSOC Workflow): I defined and championed the SSOC Troubleshooting Workflow (Steps 1: Concern, 2: Symptom, 3: Workflow). This standardized, 120+ symptom-based process ensured that every advisor followed the exact same troubleshooting steps, promoting consistency and gathering comprehensive data needed by engineers.
Nomenclature Integration: The new workflow structure was designed to use the approved terminology from the Nomenclature Committee, eliminating confusing technical jargon and ensuring clear communication from the customer concern all the way to the final repair ticket.
Outcomes & Impact
This work transitioned content from reactive, decentralized documentation to a proactive, standardized, and governed operational system.
Strategic Outcome Specific Result Achieved Skills Demonstrated
Content Governance Formalized the Nomenclature Committee and standardized naming requests via Jira, ensuring XFN alignment on all company terminology.
Leadership, Change Management, Governance
Workflow Scalability Developed 80+ standardized diagnostic workflows and defined the terminology (e.g., Workflow Node, Test Boxes) for the Quest Editor, preparing the system for rapid expansion (e.g., R2 vehicle launch).
Information Architecture, Content Modeling, Training
Operational Efficiency The new SSOC Workflow was designed to reduce repeat concerns and prevent downstream delays by ensuring accurate, consistent data capture at the first step of the service process.
Process Optimization, Service Design
Key Takeaway: Content strategy in a technical environment is about process control. This project demonstrates the ability to lead content governance, define strategic architecture, and align highly technical XFN partners to drive business-critical standardization.
