The existing workflow of internal merchants and buyers in creating new promotions is highly repetitive and manual. The company's process of creating and maintaining promotions was ancient, highly inefficient, and super prone to human-error.
I worked in a team of a Product Manager, Engineering Manager, a Sr UX Designer, and 11 Software Developers/Engineers.
Companys often build upon what is currently existing, be it services, workflows, products, and even jobs. As such, this set of processes for creating and maintaining promotions had a slew of other systems and processes interdependent to each other. A giant grab bag of system dependencies.
But wait! Every system is tied to someone or some...thing. We had a stakeholder (or a whole team of them) for each dependency on the list. You still with me?
This product was one of the first few products with which we were leaning on the expertise of our wonderful Pivotal Inc. friends. Our company was still in its very early stages of going through the technology-transformation, so an experts' help was necessary.
As a Jr UX Designer, this opportunity was absolutely golden, as our Pivotal partners taught our team how to work together collaboratively, effectively, and efficiently through their double diamond product development process.
Best part about it? Engineers get to see and hear about what the end-users are having frustrations with.
The infamous double diamond to turn a problem into a workable solution.
To understand the lay of the land: who is involved in what processes, which systems are embedded where, and why.
Who are we designing for? What do they do in this system? How do they achieve their goals?
Ever heard of it? Ask me about it!
2x2's, prioritization matrices, etc.
Regular brainstorming sessions held collaboratively with the team and stakeholders.
From low to high fidelities; made with love using: pen&paper, Sketch, InVision, html/css/Javascript
Regularly keeping stakeholders up to speed on the latest and greatest
It is pivotal that the whole team is consistently aligned on process and progress.
The journey has been long, and I can't decide which parts to sew in here; if they're even legal for me to discuss...
Don't Fret.I'll write more in here. For now, please see the next section about the most important takeaways!
The larger the company and wider the scope of product, we're bound to handle more stakeholders. When working with such products, always take time to communicate with them and prioritize their importance. Being transparent throughout every step of the design & development process is key to avoiding bigger issues that may cost the company millions.
There are times when the stakeholders are of equal importance to the product, with different goals. Quickly realize this is the case, bring it up to the group and propose a compromise. When in doubt, take the side of the end-users!
When developing a product, going through its discovery and framing journey, it is highly beneficial to bring the stakeholders along for the ride. Consistent communication and updates will give them confidence and a sense of opinion on the direction that your team is taking the product.
The company's internal priorities and focus changed numerous times during this journey, which forced our stakeholders to switch directions and change their minds quite often; however, becuase we iterated fast, we were able to sustain our pace of development.