Miles Macleod

Miles Macleod

Miles Macleod offers wide experience of helping businesses improve their performance through

• more informed management
• more effective knowledge sharing and communication
• processes and technology that are appropriate and usable

His work centres on helping organisations

• clarify stakeholders' vision and identify what customers need
• establish effective ways of meeting those needs
• agree what changes are needed to deliver the greatest benefit
• find effective ways to implement them.

Miles has worked internationally over the past twenty years in the fields of human performance development, organisational change management, interaction design and usability evaluation, across research and business. 

Before establishing Performance By Design Ltd in 1998, Miles was at Andersen Consulting (Accenture) in the Change Management practice (1994-98), working on performance design and development, interaction design, usability and knowledge management.  From 1991-94 Miles was at the UK National Physical Laboratory, where he was the founding Head of NPL Usability Services (which later became Serco Usability Services).

Consulting experience

His consultancy experience includes work for clients in financial services, energy, utilities, retail, government, pharmaceuticals, manufacturing and e-commerce.  

Miles has contributed to many initiatives to establish new business capabilities and new ways of working in organisations.  His areas of work have included:

• research for clients around organisational effectiveness

• user needs analysis for web-delivered services

• usability initiatives for new processes and technology

• intranet-based communications and organisational knowledge management

• establishing better 360 degree feedback processes

• innovative initiatives to enhance learning and personal development, including business simulation and e-learning

• mentoring and coaching schemes for managers

• performance support to help people learn at the point of need

• customer experience evaluation and interaction design

He believes solutions must be tailored to the specific needs of businesses, their people and their customers, and be flexible enough to deliver continuing value.

Miles works with people at all levels of management, to support them in developing solutions, managing change and delivering better results:

• providing consulting services to inform and facilitate decision-making

• supporting and reviewing projects

• providing coaching to managers and their teams.

• giving independent input on user-centred design and user testing 

• facilitating learning workshops

Role at Andersen Consulting (Accenture)

While at Andersen Consulting (Accenture), Miles managed consultants and client staff in initiatives to improve business effectiveness, enhance customer service and sales, and enable better learning and knowledge sharing, for clients principally in financial services and energy.  He provided consultancy across industries on human performance development, interaction design, usability, innovative learning strategies, business simulation and knowledge management.

He also contributed to advancing the firm's performance design and development capability, and to building appropriate skills and enhancing the personal and professional development of consultants and managers. He further developed his skills in change management, coaching and facilitation at the Center For Professional Education at St Charles, IL, USA.

Miles led numerous workshops and learning events internationally, in the areas of human performance improvement and interaction design, and he contributed to the firm's internal knowledge management and human performance knowledge capital.

Usability Services

From 1991-1994, Miles was at the UK National Physical Laboratory. As Head of Usability Services he established and led the provision of consultancy in usability engineering, observational evaluation and 'model office' business simulations, helping client organisations build a capability for such work, and transferring skills.

In collaborative European work, Miles led the development of tools for observational evaluation and the measurement of usability. He also helped develop practical methods for assessing technology-supported workplace performance, and a tool for context analysis. He led research and consultancy on multimedia interactive shopping, and contributed to initiatives in computer-supported collaborative working.

Wider activities

While at NPL, Miles chaired the UK Department of Trade and Industry-sponsored Usability Forum -- bringing together usability professionals, industry and academia -- organising and promoting professional workshops, meetings and tutorials to further understanding of user-centred design and user evaluation internationally.  For five years he also contributed to UK professional development in human-computer interaction via the British HCI Group, helping manage and promote the group and organise events.

Previously, Miles was at Hatfield Polytechnic, researching (in liaison with Rank Xerox EuroPARC) into the psychology of user-centred design, cognitive ergonomics and interactive learning, plus teaching human-computer interaction.

His academic background is in psychology (BSc, University of Bristol), education (PGCE, University of London), computing science (MSc, Hatfield Polytechnic), and cognitive ergonomics research .

He has written extensively, reporting research and its application.

Miles's wider interests include local politics, cycling, swimming, playing bass guitar, and enjoying the tranquility of the English countryside.