Overrides

Overrides was the third piece of Capital One's Help Me Catch Up experience, focused on a specific and sensitive moment in the flow: customers who needed a loan extension but didn't automatically qualify. These cases required a human override — a judgment call made by an escalation manager based on account history and context.

This project had two layers. The first was the product problem: replacing a manual, inconsistent eligibility process with a clear digital signal. The second was a leadership challenge: a junior designer on my team owned the execution, and I was responsible for helping her deliver her best work.

Determining whether a customer qualified for a loan extension override was a fully manual process. Phone agents had to analyze account details individually, relying on institutional knowledge rather than a clear eligibility framework. Escalation managers received override requests without the context they needed to evaluate them quickly.

The result was delays, inconsistency, and friction on both sides of the process. Agents weren't confident in their calls. Escalation teams were making decisions blind.

My role on this project was to guide rather than execute. The junior designer owned the design work; I showed up as a thinking partner, critique facilitator, and occasionally as the person who helped her see what she already knew but hadn't articulated yet.

We ran structured critique sessions at each major milestone — not to tell her what to change, but to help her identify what she wanted to change and why. When she got blocked, I'd ask questions before offering answers. When the design was strong, I said so explicitly. Building confidence is part of building a designer.

The solution added a dedicated view to Capital One's existing back-end agent tool that surfaced a customer's override eligibility — based on account history, past extensions within a 12-month window, and qualification criteria — in a single, scannable panel.

Agents no longer had to reconstruct the picture from multiple data sources. Escalation managers received override requests with the relevant context pre-populated. The signal was clear; the decision was still human.

The feature reduced agent processing time for override evaluations, surfaced consistent eligibility criteria for escalation managers, and resolved bottlenecks that had been slowing the escalation workflow. It passed QA and entered development on schedule.

The outcome I'm proudest of is harder to measure. The junior designer who owned this project delivered one of her strongest pieces of work to date — and left the engagement with more confidence in her process, her craft, and her ability to navigate a complex, stakeholder-heavy environment.

Mentoring through a high-stakes delivery taught me that good design leadership is mostly about creating the conditions for someone else to do their best thinking. That means structured feedback, honest praise, and knowing when to get out of the way.

I came away with a stronger belief that mentorship is a design discipline in its own right — it requires the same precision, the same attention to the person in front of you, and the same willingness to iterate when something isn't working.