The pen and ink drawing “two ships” by James Whistler

Human centered Customer Experience

Ishmael Interactive is the scientific method for business. Here's the proof of process.

Human-centered design drove:

  • A 35% increase in Trust Scores at the Department of Veterans Affairs (2016-2020)
  • A 34% decrease in digital footprint at the General Services Administration (2022-2024)
  • Over $11 million in cost savings at the General Services Administration (2022-2024)
  • $1,000,000+ in generated revenue for the Lab at OPM (2016-2020)
  • 2000+ trained professionals passing on the practice. This isn't consultant black-boxing; HCD is a learnable skill that we fully documented and will pass on to you.

Ishmael Interactive's HCD for Customer and Digital Experience is consulting that builds permanent capability.

What makes us different:

  • Our HCD Guide Series is the only proven & documented, field-tested & professionally developed authoritative guidance on human-centered customer, digital, and employee experience.
  • Innovation and process improvement projects that are as sustainable as they are ground-breaking
  • Measurable ROIs for new and ongoing projects within one year of launch.
  • Proven product and service development that scales up and down organizations and is yours to keep—forever.
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"[This approach] led to meaningful improvements in user experience, record-high compliance with standards, and collection of cost data agency-wide... impressed counterparts at ARPA-H, NASA, and NIH who are trying to learn more."

— Steve Brockelman, Acting Chief Customer Officer, General Services Administration

Black and white engraved portrait of a woman with short hair.

We know the challenge you face.

Public service, Non-profit, & Internal teams

You're charged with innovation or experience management; you prevent disasters or keep the gears turning. Your work is crucial to the growth and health of your organization, but you're either under the radar or so far upstream that people rarely see its value.

You might be perceived as a "cost center", and you might be told to "do more with less" every budget cycle.

We know that's a tough spot to be in, because everyone at Ishmael Interactive has been there in our careers.

Work with us and change that perception. Gain permanent capability on your own, or work with us directly to supercharge your progress.

Whether you're on an Innovation, CX, DX, HR, IT, or any staff or support team, you can show your value and drive your work through meaningful, replicable innovation & process improvement cycles.

We wrote the books on improving complex systems, and we have the evidence that the HCD system we work from, really works.

How we serve

We’ve intentionally created a gentle onramp to working with our partners, so that we can all find the level of partnership that works for the problem set, the stakeholders, and the budget constraints. 

While other consultancies can’t start work until a contract is signed, you can put our entire process to the test for less than the cost of a business dinner by starting with the HCD Guide Series, the standard for human-centered CX, DX, and innovation. This is the process we follow, and we wrote it all down so you can follow it, too. 

Want to get questions answered? Book Office Hours to ask them or to bounce ideas around. 

If your priority is getting everyone on the same page, we offer team trainings in both the full HCD cycle or at bespoke parts of it. Your team will come out of the training more collaborative, creative, and sharp than ever before. 

Don’t have time to figure this out on your own? We provide the type of bespoke consulting services that can only be realized when you have a team with over four collective decades of experience working with complex stakeholder groups. Whether your goal is innovation, process improvement, or experience management, we’ll work with you to anchor the project in a solid, replicable process that you own forever. 

What Makes This Different

We listen before we talk Most consultants show up with pre-packaged solutions. We start by understanding what's actually broken in your context—where past initiatives stalled and why—before recommending anything.

You keep the methodology
Your success doesn't depend on ongoing consulting relationships. We transfer systematic capability that your organization owns permanently.

We work within your constraints No expensive tooling requirements. No massive team reorganizations. We build on your existing organizational strengths and investments, not tear them down.

We're hands-on Our methodology was developed by high-ranking federal civil servants who led transformative work at enterprise scale. We understand infrastructure teams, cost center politics, and proving value when your best work prevents problems no one sees.

By The Numbers

When organizations apply these systematic methods:

$11 million in cost savings (2021–2024) while improving customer experience—achieved without reorganizations or service disruptions

34% operational efficiency improvement across digital infrastructure without disrupting services or reducing workforce

First enterprise-wide transformation system for 12,000-person organization, later adopted as federal standard across hundreds of agencies

Performance frameworks that document ROI and satisfy board accountability requirements

“That time savings certainly exceeded expectations!” — Federal Senior Executive

How It Works

We developed our human-centered method alongside senior executives, project managers, and evaluation scientists, taking on a wide variety of projects in organizations from a few dozen individuals to those with over 300,000.

Our approach produces measurable ROI. That's what you should demand when you're accountable for both results and impact. We're the only firm with documented evidence of systematic transformation at this scale.

Strategic Expertise: Enterprise Strategy & Execution • Organizational Design & Change Management • Performance Measurement & Evaluation • Infrastructure Team Positioning • Demonstrating Cost Center Value

Who We Are

Former federal civil servants who advised on and implemented wide-ranging policy initiatives on topics ranging from veterans health to digital modernization.

We led systematic change across the US federal government, an arena where every consultancy methodology has been tried, but ours was the first one to work across time, organizations, and hierarchy. 

We understand:

  • Cost- and investment-center politics
  • Board accountability and stakeholder management
  • Proving value when your best work prevents problems
  • Enterprise complexity and market pressures
  • What it takes to be a hands-on leader at scale

Ready To Build Permanent Capability?

Get in touch if you:

  • Lead internal or experimental teams that struggle to prove value
  • Manage board pressure for measurable transformation
  • Are tired of consultants who create dependency, not capability
  • Are ready to invest in methods your organization keeps forever

Trusted by hands-on leaders across government, healthcare, education, and mission-critical organizations.

Let’s work together

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