TMTina Milinic · Experience Design & Program Management

Tina Milinic

Experience Design & Program Management

I design immersive, human-centered learning environments and facilitate experiential education programs that bridge the gap between academic theory and real-world execution.

The Portfolio:

The following case studies showcase my work at Emzingo. Emzingo partners with globally renowned universities (including USC, Cornell, Bentley, McGill, and IE University) to deliver immersive, study-abroad, leadership development programs. As the Associate Program Manager I am responsible for the end-to-end learning experience and student performance across different cohorts.

01

The 6-Week Architecture

The 6-Week Architecture details the overarching program ecosystem, demonstrating how instructional scaffolding is strategically faded over three phases to transition participants from dependent learners to independent consultants.

02

Demo Days

Demo Days introduces a custom assessment framework that replaces summative evaluations with weekly checkpoints to enforce continuous pacing and the practical application of design theory.

03

Activating Campground

Activating Campground showcases the structural revitalization of a passive learning management system into an active digital engagement tool that drives peer-to-peer collaboration and enables equitable, data-driven grading.

Case Study 01

The 6-Week Architecture

The Program:

The Global Impact Fellowship (GIF) brings international undergraduate students to Madrid for an intensive six-week program in which they are placed in teams to act as consultants for local NGOs or social enterprises. In these roles, students work to solve strategic business challenges, with their project execution supported by parallel academic sessions in areas such as Human-Centered Design, Systems Thinking and Theory of Change. As the Lead Program Manager for GIF, I architected this experience, designing the program to be driven by three distinct phases of instructional support and reinforced by continuous mentorship and cultural immersion.

Academic InstructionAutonomous Project WorkMentorship & Culture (Baseline)
Phase 1: High ScaffoldingPhase 2: Just-in-TimePhase 3: AutonomyContinuous Foundation: Mentorship & Cultural ImmersionWeek 1Week 2Week 3Week 4Week 5Week 6

A Three-Phase Progression

Phase 1

High Scaffolding

Weeks 1–2

The Execution

Weeks 1 and 2 are defined by a dense schedule of academic sessions and cultural immersion. Participants are heavily scaffolded while being introduced to basic consulting frameworks during their initial project research. Academic sessions focus on building high-performing teams, synthesizing client problems, and understanding the local context, while cultural activities are designed to build host city familiarity and cohort cohesion.

LXD Rationale

Cognitive Load Management

Strong instructional support mitigates the cognitive burden of adapting to a foreign city, new team, and consulting role, allowing participants to build baseline mental models without early-stage paralysis.

Fostering Cohort Cohesion

Shared cultural activities facilitate out-of-classroom bonding, building the psychological safety required for highly collaborative work later in the program.

Phase 2

Just-in-Time Application

Weeks 3–4

The Execution

Foundational frameworks shift to focused skill building in design and systems thinking, impact measurement, and project-specific topics. Classroom sessions gradually give way to larger “Project Work” blocks, while cultural immersions transition from active team-building to observational appreciation activities.

LXD Rationale

Constructive Alignment

To avoid knowledge decay, skills are taught exactly when needed to advance client projects. This ensures participants directly apply the frameworks to active challenges, further cementing knowledge retention.

Social Rebalancing

With the cohort trust built in Phase 1, collaborative social activities are intentionally scaled back. Observational cultural experiences still deepen understanding of the local context without draining the social energy now needed for intensive project work.

Phase 3

Faded Support & Autonomous Execution

Weeks 5–6

The Execution

Sessions are almost entirely removed, shifting participants’ focus to autonomous project execution and final presentations. Cultural immersion is consolidated into a single, high-impact end-of-week activity.

LXD Rationale

Faded Scaffolding

The intentional removal of the instructional safety net creates space for autonomy, transforming participants from dependent learners to independent consultants.

Reward Mechanics

Consolidating cultural immersion into a single end-of-week activity serves as a psychological reward after an intense week of autonomous work, relieving cognitive fatigue and ensuring participants finish their high-stress sprint on a high-energy note.

The Ecosystem Engines

Engine 1

Weekly Pinnacle  Rhythm

The Execution

The curriculum is designed as a series of agile sprint cycles rather than a linear six-week marathon, with each week culminating in a high-stakes milestone like a Demo Day.

LXD Rationale

Peak-End Rule

Structuring each week around a high-energy pinnacle prevents mid-program slumps, maintaining urgency and ensuring teams experience a tangible sense of achievement every single week.

Engine 2

Continuous Project Mentoring

The Execution

In Week 1, each consulting team is assigned an expert mentor who guides them through roadblocks toward high-impact solutions. While academic scaffolding intentionally fades, project mentoring remains a constant force throughout the program.

LXD Rationale

Psychological Safety

Mentorship bridges classroom theory and client reality and provides teams with confidence and a stable foundation to transition to full autonomy.

Engine 3

Project Ownership

The Execution

Program staff do not interfere in the team-client relationship unless project execution is at severe risk. Teams take full ownership of initiating contact, scheduling meetings, and navigating client pushback.

LXD Rationale

Authentic Stakes

Absolute ownership builds accountability and highly realistic professional engagement, requiring participants to actively develop skills in professional communication, stakeholder management, and boundary setting.

Case Study 02

Demo Days

The Challenge

01Poor Pacing

Distracted by the study-abroad setting, participants would often cram six weeks of consulting work into the final two weeks of the program. A lack of milestone scaffolding to drive steady pacing resulted in stress buildup and poor-quality deliverables.

02Theory Disconnect

While academic sessions taught Human-Centered Design, the program lacked a formal mechanism to enforce that learning in practice. As a result, classroom theory and project execution disconnected, and teams frequently bypassed critical design steps.

03Feedback Void

Evaluating teams solely on their final presentations created a critical blind spot. Without formative feedback loops, early project misalignment went unnoticed until the program's end, eliminating any opportunity to refine deliverables before final presentations.

The Intervention

Demo Days

I designed Demo Days, replacing a single summative, end-of-program assessment with a series of structured weekly checkpoints.

Structure: Each team delivers a 7–10 minute presentation, answering targeted prompts. The presentation is followed by an actionable feedback portion.

SME Co-Design: I co-designed the prompts in direct collaboration with our Human-Centered Design facilitator, ensuring weekly deliverables perfectly mirrored the project stages and frameworks being taught in the parallel HCD sessions.

The Goal

To push teams to achieve 
specific project milestones, creating steady pacing and accountability.

To give teams an 
opportunity to refine their work before final presentations.

To prevent teams from bypassing critical design steps and connect theory to practice.

To encourage meaningful peer-to-peer collaboration and active cohort engagement.

DEMO DAYS DEEP DIVE

Demo Day 1

Discovery

The Prompt

Focus: Who is your client? What do they do? What problem are you solving?

Required Content: Client Introduction, Problem Context, Research & Action Plan, Current Progress, and Anticipated Challenges

LXD Rationale

  • Establish a deep understanding of the client and the core problem.

By requiring participants to articulate the client's context and outline a concrete research plan in the first week, Demo Day 1 ensures teams fully understand the problem and there are no initial misalignments. The immediate feedback corrects any fundamental project misunderstandings at the starting line.

Demo Day 2

Definition

The Prompt

Focus: Synthesize research.

Required Content: Context (problem and personas); Insights (focusing only on the strongest insights linking to the HMW); “How Might We” (HMW) question

LXD Rationale

  • Prevent jumping to solutions prematurely and synthesize raw research data into actionable insights.

Because participants often rush straight to the solution brainstorming, this Demo Day serves as a filter, requiring teams to stop, define their user personas, and formulate a grounded “How Might We” question. It teaches them a critical consulting and design skill of separating “interesting observations” from real insights that drive targeted solutions.

Demo Day 3

Develop & Deliver

The Prompt

Focus: Develop and deliver first solution ideas.

Required Content: Three distinct solution options and a prototype for each. This should include expected benefits, potential limitations, and specific questions designed to gather stakeholder feedback.

LXD Rationale

  • Cultivate an iterative and objective design mindset.

Having teams develop three distinct solutions prevents them from “marrying” their first idea. It shifts the focus from delivering a “perfect final solution” to embracing an iterative process. The requirement to explicitly state each solution's limitations prepares them for an argumentative defense of their ideas.

The Impact

Elevated Quality

Continuous iteration loops significantly improved the final deliverables. Compared to four prior cohorts, post-program client surveys showed an increase in average scores (out of 7) across the board:

5.86.3Overall quality
5.96.3Relevance
5.36.1Actionability

Reduced Stress

Achieving steady pacing and weekly milestones resulted in less stress buildup at the end of the program. Compared to four prior cohorts, the percentage of participants who reported feeling “severely overwhelmed” with the workload dropped dramatically from 46% to only 18% in the post-program surveys.

46%18%severely overwhelmed

Targeted Support

Increased visibility into projects allowed our team to provide better and more relevant feedback and support, as well as prevent any last-minute surprises during the final presentations.

The Limitations

Critical Reflection

The Pacing
Trade-off

While participants appreciated Demo Days for creating steady pacing and keeping them on track, feedback showed that a weekly deadline inadvertently rushed the experience. The pressure to finalize deliverables for Friday presentations forced some teams to speed through critical design steps instead of fully exploring the problem. The frequency of these milestones needs to be reconsidered to balance accountability with the time required for meaningful iteration.

Case Study 03

Activating Campground

The Challenge

01

Underutilized Asset

Originally designed as a continuous learning community to connect alumni, partners, and social innovators, our digital platform, Campground, had been reduced to a mere “filing cabinet” for program materials. 

02

Siloed Learning

Teams were isolated while working on their specific challenges, creating project silos and preventing peer-to-peer engagement. Furthermore, insights from live academic sessions decayed without a dedicated space for reflection.

03

Assessment Flaws

In programs where participation impacts the final grade, measuring it across cohorts of 40+ participants using only observational methods during live sessions was highly subjective and inequitable.

The Intervention

Activating Campground

I implemented a structural revitalization of Campground, transforming the platform into a valuable asset in program execution.

Passive repository Engagement tool

The Execution

Weekly Prompts

I introduced targeted weekly prompts inside the “Discussion Forum,” opening up space for participants to share their key insights from sessions, panels, or class debates.

Cohort Advice

I encouraged teams to actively share their project roadblocks or breakthroughs, crowdsourcing advice from the entire cohort.

Engagement Analytics

I utilized the platform's backend analytics to track and measure engagement.

The Goal

To transform our platform from a passive repository to an active continuous-learning tool.

To drive peer-to-peer engagement and knowledge sharing.

To prevent team isolation by cultivating a collaborative cohort experience.

To democratize participation and implement data-driven metrics in grading.

The Impact

Active Engagement

The active learning experience was successfully extended beyond the physical classroom. This structural intervention drove a 73% increase in overall platform visits compared to the prior cohort.

Unified Cohort

Breaking down project silos through cross-team collaboration created a more unified cohort experience. Additionally, providing a dedicated space for post-session reflection successfully cemented knowledge retention.

Equitable Assessment

Supplementing classroom observations with quantifiable digital metrics created a more objective and holistic grading system. Removing synchronous bias allowed reflective learners to contribute without the pressure of live discussions.

The Limitations

Critical Reflection

Short-Term
Engagement

While the redesign successfully drove high engagement during the live program, it did not achieve the platform’s broader goal of becoming a continuous learning hub. Once the program ended, student activity on Campground stopped entirely. The intervention worked perfectly as an active tool for the current cohort, but it failed to transition those participants into a lasting community.