The Accessibility Team of One's Survival Guide: Governance, Remediation, and Proving Your Worth
taught by: Heidi Kelly-Gibson
Session Summary
You're the only accessibility person in a 500 (or 5,000) person organization, and leadership wants results while developers want you to stop bothering them. This session tackles the real problems accessibility teams of one face: creating policies people follow, building remediation roadmaps when everything is a priority, and generating reports that actually move executives; not just dashboards. Learn guerrilla tactics, governance structures that scale from startup to enterprise, and which metrics truly change minds and momentum.
Description
You're the only accessibility person in a 500-person organization. Or maybe 5,000. Leadership wants results, developers want you to stop bothering them, and you've got 47 accessibility violations on the homepage alone. Sound familiar? This session is for everyone who's ever felt like they're shouting into the void about accessibility. We'll tackle the actual problems you face: writing policies that people follow instead of ignore, building remediation roadmaps when everything is a priority, and creating reports that make executives care. You'll learn guerrilla tactics for the team of one, see governance structures that work at different scales (from startup to enterprise), and discover which metrics actually change minds in the C-suite versus which just make pretty dashboards. Bring your hardest problems; we'll workshop real solutions.
Practical Skills
- Design lightweight governance structures and policies that create real accountability with minimal bureaucracy, including specific tactics for influencing decisions when you're not in the room.
- Build and defend remediation roadmaps using prioritization frameworks that balance user impact, risk, and organizational capacity—then communicate these plans in ways that secure resources and executive support.
- Maximize your influence as a team of one (or small team) by identifying high-leverage intervention points, building sustainable champion networks, and knowing what to own versus what to enable others to do.