Team presenting an innovation concept during a design thinking workshop, with participants standing at the front and others seated, surrounded by whiteboards, journey maps, and sticky notes.

Sam’s Club Clubhouse

Operationalizing an enterprise innovation studio without scaling headcount

Role: Design Operations & Capability Lead (functional ownership)

Scope: Studio launch → demand surge → system instrumentation → scale phase

Transformed a high-demand innovation studio from a facilitation bottleneck into a scalable capability platform through measurement, routing, and operational systems.

Impact at a Glance

  • Supported 1,700+ associate engagements during launch without collapsing

  • 40% reduction in facilitation prep time through AI-enabled workflows

  • 1,000+ associates trained through a standardized delivery system

  • 90 associates operating independently after training, reducing studio dependency

The Problem

Clubhouse launched as a shared service for innovation, design thinking, and exploration. Demand quickly exceeded the studio’s ability to facilitate everything directly.

What was breaking

  • 150+ workshops and 1,700+ associate touchpoints in early months

  • Every engagement required hands-on facilitation

  • No clear criteria for when teams should self-serve vs engage the studio

  • No measurement connecting activity to reduced load or capability growth

Why leadership cared
The studio could not scale by adding facilitators. It needed to reduce dependency while increasing reach.

What was at risk
High activity with growing friction. A studio designed to accelerate innovation risked becoming a constraint.

Four people gathered around a whiteboard during a workshop, discussing ideas and reviewing notes together.
Brainstorming workshop with groups of people collaborating at tables in a shared space, including two participants using wheelchairs.
Groups of people collaborating at tables in a large workshop space, working together on laptops and materials.

The Decision That Mattered

How do we instrument the studio so capability scales faster than demand?

What I Built

Measurement Infrastructure

I designed an engagement funnel to distinguish exposure from capability. This surfaced a 9% conversion to sustained practice and gave leadership a way to see what was actually scaling.

Standardized Delivery System

To prevent one-off facilitation from driving load, I created a repeatable delivery system:

  • A 9-session portfolio combining foundational training with applied practice

  • Facilitator enablement materials allowing others to deliver with consistency

  • AI-assisted preparation and follow-up, reducing prep effort by 40%

Training became a capacity-release mechanism, not just an education function.

Work Routing & Intake Systems

I evolved the studio intake model to clarify:

  • Which work required facilitation

  • Which teams were ready to self-serve after training

Kickoffs assessed readiness, clarified outcomes, and prevented the studio from becoming default labor for executional work.

Accessibility as a Scaled, Embedded Capability

Working with a small cross-functional team, I helped establish the Disability Inclusion Lab as permanent studio infrastructure. The lab embedded accessibility directly into studio workflows, shifting it from a late-stage check to a repeatable, hands-on capability teams could use independently.

Welcome signage for the Disability Inclusion Lab, featuring a banner introducing the lab and a curved wall with textured floor markings that signal stopping points for visitors using a cane.
Interactive Disability Inclusion Lab exhibit featuring stories from a wheelchair user and a blind shopper, a video screen, and tactile products such as LEGO bricks with Braille.
Workshop participants using a low-fidelity foam-core prototype of an Rx counter to experience accessing the counter from a wheelchair, with others observing and discussing the interaction.

What Changed

  • Reduced repeat facilitation requests from trained teams

  • Clear visibility into studio demand, capacity, and adoption

  • Predictable engagement patterns without adding headcount

  • Teams applying shared standards independently

What Scaled Forward

  • Engagement funnel and reporting dashboards

  • Intake triage and readiness criteria

  • Facilitator enablement materials

  • Disability Inclusion Lab as permanent infrastructure