SWIM Lessons
The Story Behind the System
Explores capacity, boundaries, and rhythm through personal experience and the Scale WithIN Means framework.
About Madelyn
I notice what people are carrying, and what the system is missing.
I'm Madelyn Estes, a systems strategist, author, speaker, and founder and CEO of Chic Geek Enterprises LLC.
For more than twenty years, my work has been about understanding how organizations operate, where their processes and technology fall out of step, and what it takes to turn a proposed change into something people can use.
The professional path
Where the experience comes from
My career has moved through automotive digital programs, global technology services, education technology, consulting and the nonprofit arts. The titles changed. The work kept coming back to the same thing: getting business goals, processes and technology to line up, and making sure change accounts for the people who have to sustain it.
I've governed roadmaps and delivery backlogs, coordinated cross-functional and vendor teams, aligned CRM and ERP processes, and led the requirements, documentation and training that help a system get used.
Recent roles
- Current
- Business Systems Lead and Salesforce Product Owner, an education technology SaaS company
- Current
- Website Administrator, Detroit Opera
- 2024–2026
- Technical Program Manager / Business Systems Analyst, a global technology services company
- 2021–2022
- Digital Program Manager and UX Roadmap Consultant, a global automotive manufacturer
- 2020
- E-commerce Program Manager, a vehicle launch for a global automotive manufacturer
- Earlier
- Engagements across automotive, enterprise software and professional services organizations
How I notice
The details people stop seeing
I pay attention to the details: the request that arrives without the information someone needs, the decision nobody knows they own, the workaround that has quietly become part of everyone's job.
In practice, that means sitting with how an intake form is actually filled out, following a handoff from one team to the next, and asking who updates the CRM when something changes. Those small answers usually explain the big problem.
Float. Breathe. Move.
My understanding of systems also comes from home. My father taught me to swim with three words: Float. Breathe. Move. My mother taught me to write things down. My grandmother taught me to pay attention and advocate for the people in my care. I return to those lessons throughout my writing because they still shape how I approach a problem.
I've also had to apply that thinking to my own life. Work, family, grief, ambition, and responsibility all ask something of us. Learning to account for that became the foundation of SWIM, Scale WithIN Means, built on three pillars: capacity, boundaries, and rhythm.
RAMP IT UP brings my attention to another part of the same question: how do we make change work for the people who have to live with it? It looks at process, technology, and user perspective together.
Where I see from
Detroit is part of how I see the world.
So is my faith, which shapes how I think about purpose, stewardship, and service. Writing gives me room to explore those connections with honesty, humor, and sometimes a poem.
Across the work, I keep returning to a practical question: what needs to be in place for this to work in real life?
Credentials and service
The short version
Experience
20+ years of enterprise technology experience
CRM and ERP alignment, digital programs, business systems governance and organizational change.
More of my career on LinkedIn (opens in a new tab)Credentials
Six Sigma Black Belt Professional
Six Sigma Lean Professional.
Visit Gemba Guru (opens in a new tab)Founder
Founder and CEO, Chic Geek Enterprises LLC
A Detroit-based business ecosystem of companies, frameworks and creative work.
See the ecosystemService
Founding board member
Gifting Awareness Back Nonprofit.
Visit Gifting Awareness Back (opens in a new tab)Author
SWIM Lessons and RAMP IT UP
Plus Lyrics & Lines, published through Colorful Perspectives Media Group, my creative partnership.
See the booksSpeaker
Talks and workshops
Capacity, purposeful growth, organizational change and technology that fits the people using it.
See the talksBooks and writing
The ideas behind the work
Each book takes up a different part of the same question: what needs to be in place for this to work in real life?
RAMP IT UP
The Triple-Lens Framework for Rapid Change in a Chaotic World
Examines organizational change through process, technology, and user perspective together.
Lyrics & Lines
From Colorful Perspectives Media Group, my creative partnership
Makes room for reflection through poetry, coloring, and music.
Lyrics & Lines · poetry and coloring book
In the Margins · music as OnycaMarie
Creative work
Sometimes a poem. Sometimes a song.
Writing and music give me room to work through what the frameworks can't hold on their own. Through Colorful Perspectives Media Group, my creative partnership, I made Lyrics & Lines, a coloring book that brings poetry, coloring, and music together. I also write and release music as OnycaMarie, including In the Margins.
For organizers and media
Short bio
Madelyn Estes is a systems strategist, author and speaker who helps organizations and founders make sense of complicated work, improve the systems behind it, and build what they can sustain. She brings more than twenty years of enterprise technology experience across automotive, technology services, education technology and the nonprofit arts. She is the founder and CEO of Chic Geek Enterprises LLC, a Six Sigma Black Belt Professional and Six Sigma Lean Professional, and the author of SWIM Lessons: The Story Behind the System and RAMP IT UP: The Triple-Lens Framework for Rapid Change in a Chaotic World. She is based in Detroit.
Let's find the right way to work together.
Explore my work, invite me to speak, or tell me what you're working on.