Mike Grayson Email & Phone Number

Sammamish, Washington

• Planned and conducted both agile and traditional user experience research for the Microsoft Teams (O365) organization. Conducted studies with IT admins, MS Teams owners, and end customers, using a variety of tools and.
• Conducted end-user research across various MS Teams capabilities, including persistent group and 1-on-1 chat, document collaboration, online meetings, and the Teams mobile client.
• Implemented and delivered across a broad range of UX vehicles, from agile “Flash Feedback” studies (single-day, speed-dating style studies with multiple researchers and participants) to single-handedly conducting.
• Provided the primary generative and evaluative research for a new and robust MS Teams administrative portal, couched within the Office 365 administrative experience.

Sammamish, WA

• Developed targeted technical marketing content for Cadence customers.
• Managed and developed sales and marketing content, including coordinating and conducting source interviews, capturing scenarios and field activities, and writing case study documents.
• Wrote and consulted on various technical white papers, presentations, and articles, covering a broad range of topics, e.g., cloud computing, core infrastructure optimization, and business-ready security.

Redmond Washington

• Planned and conducted user experience research studies and provided recommendations for the improvement of a broad range of online services and products delivered by Microsoft’s Engineering, Community, and Online (ECO).
• Conducted User Experience studies and delivered specific recommendations to improve the UX of various support apps, online services, and portals, including the Microsoft Support site, Microsoft communities, Microsoft.
• Conducted high-level scenario-based value proposition studies targeted at identifying customer acceptance of the scenarios used to prioritize Microsoft Services and Support 3-year planning.
• Collaborated with data scientists in combining qualitative and quantitative data to identify and begin implementation of a $12 million cost savings opportunity among Xbox support agents.

Redmond Washington

Worked as a contract user experience researcher for Microsoft Corp. Conducted a wide variety of user research activities and research projects, including lab studies, focus groups, surveys, card sorts, among others. Much of this work continued as I accepted a full time position with Microsoft in May of 2012. (Please see that entry for a more thorough.

Sammamish Washington

• Wrote and consulted on targeted technical content—e.g., white papers, case studies, courseware and assessments—for Microsoft marketing organizations.
• Wrote and consulted on various technical white papers and presentations targeted at Enterprise customers, covering a broad range of topics, e.g., cloud computing, volume licensing activation tools and services in.
• Wrote and consulted on courseware and assessments for the Microsoft Partner Network.
• Conducted heuristics reviews of the Microsoft Core Infrastructure University Optimization Site

• Researched, developed, and championed the long-range (1-5 years) product visions and feature sets for Microsoft technical support online portals and services.
• Drove change in a pre-existing product improvement model based on anecdotal evidence and hunches to a defined process of requirements development based on primary and secondary customer data representing actual.
• Acted as the customer advocate on multiple key interdivisional, cross-functional business initiative teams, serving as a peer with leaders from marketing, service delivery, engineering, and executive management.
• Personally conducted and led large ethnographic research projects, surveys, focus groups, customer and stakeholder interviews, secondary research reviews, and other types of qualitative and quantitative research

• Managed a team of Customer Support Content Managers responsible for assessing ITPRO and Developer customer content needs and prescribing targeted Knowledge Base articles and online solutions for Microsoft server products
• Drove a consistent strategy and process for ITPRO and Developer customer support content development using site usage and service request metrics, customer satisfaction data, and other forms of customer feedback
• Regularly and successfully drove key cross-group/department content initiatives, e.g., the integration of customer support content with other Microsoft WEB portal content strategies (e.g., Microsoft TechNet and MSDN.

• Managed a team of product designers, visual designers (including branding consistency), user experience researchers, and user assistance authors (technical documentation)
• Drove the introduction of and User Experience Research and Design into the earliest stages of product planning for MS Exchange Server 2003
• Co-facilitated the 2nd phase in a division-wide four-phase planning process for MS Exchange 2003
• Personally led an eight-member team including leaders from software engineering, PM, test, and user experience research and design in developing the first set of customer scenarios and feature requirements for MS.

• Managed a diverse set of centralized teams, including user assistance (technical documentation) design, usability, business analysis, internal software tools development, production, and editing
• Managed multiple program managers assigned to key business initiatives directly related to changing the department business model, e.g., developed partner programs for generating supplemental product documentation and.
• Personally drove and contributed to key division initiatives, e.g., engineered (1) a single process for developing and delivering Microsoft Server products across multiple international organizations and (2) a common.

• Managed the MS Commerce Server and MCIS UA teams, including content development for both UA and product UI, editing, production, and build
• Managed an existing UA team through the last five months of a turbulent product release cycle, bringing the product successfully to RTM and preparing for the next release cycle
• Strongly contributed to a GM-directed management team initiative aligning objectives, processes, and commitments across a newly centralized international organization

• Directed localization and internationalization of all Novell products, both software and documentation, for worldwide distribution into twenty-plus language markets
• Directed the development, maintenance, and support of corporate tools and systems used by all technical publications departments and localization orgs. Worldwide
• Successfully reorganized two disparate localization organizations (Novell acquisition of WordPerfect Corp.) into one centralized organization with common processes, strategies, and objectives
• Refined vendor and partner relationships and introduced a product life cycle and active continuous improvement program, reducing all costs associated with product localization from 3.16% of total Novell expense in Oct..

M.S., Instructional Science

Emphases: Instructional Design and Computer Assisted Instruction. Additional instruction in statistical analysis, research, measurement.

B.A., English

Magna Cum Laude, Dean’s Scholar, Department Senior Achievement Award. Self-supported education.