Team USA Creates Game-Changing Playbooks to Accelerate Communications

The Challenge

The U.S. Olympic organization oversees both the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee, and also serves as the supervisory umbrella that supervises over 50 national governing bodies. This includes groups such as USA Basketball, USA Swimming, and USA Gymnastics. All aspects of other individual sports, from youth programs to master and senior-level championships for athletes 55 years old and over, are managed by this group. Further, every team organization has its own independent nonprofit, governed by its board of directors.

Though the 54+ National Governing Boards (NGBs) are connected, they don’t have the same needs or operational methods in place, which created a lot of miscommunication. The complex structure of Team USA made it difficult to align all the various organizations and communicate efficiently. They needed a way to bring everyone together. Previously, knowledge sharing for all Team USA organizations and groups was limited to emails which led to significant clutter, and second-hand sharing. Other information-sharing platforms were tested, but none completely fit their needs.

The NGB needed a solution that would go beyond engagement or simple interaction. They wanted a central source of truth that could be accessed beyond email inboxes or links. There was also a need for multi-directional communication between the various governing bodies. The solution needed to be simple, familiar, and easy to use for existing employees and new users.

The Result