Summary
Company
TraceLink
Role
Director, Product Experience
Location
North Reading, MA
Year
2020
This portfolio project highlights two key projects aimed at maturing and immersing User Experience (UX) Design and UX Designers earlier and further into the product development lifecycle at TraceLink. The first initiative, the “Experience Framework,” focused on the discovery phase, enhancing collaboration between UX designers and Product Managers while driving alignment from executive stakeholders. The second initiative, Cross-Functional Demos, aimed to improve product quality by increasing UX involvement and engaging external stakeholders during development and testing phases. Both initiatives fostered better collaboration, improved communication, and ensured higher product quality, leading to better market responses and increased stakeholder satisfaction. The idea was to squeeze the maturity into the process by bookending improvements on either side of the framework.
COVID & Communication
This initiative came at an interesting time, during the early stages of COVID. Although we had been creating various UX artifacts for years, with COVID preventing our whiteboard ideations for the foreseeable future, we needed a better way to discover, communicate, and align. As a very personable and hands-on group, we needed to find a more effective way to design virtually.
Objectives for the Experience Framework
01
Enhance collaboration between UX designers and Product Managers during the discovery phase of the double diamond design framework.
02
Create a structured approach to capture and present key UX and PM activities to ensure alignment, validate the customer need, determine the direction forward, and ultimately obtain executive approval before moving to development.
03
Improve product quality and foster greater UX involvement during the development and testing phases.
04
Address the issue of insufficient scrutiny of the UI from other members of the product development team.
05
Ensure business stakeholders who sell/market and support product usage get early access and an opportunity for feedback on products they are either working on a go-to-market strategy for or that they are supporting already in production.
Strategy & Implementation
Solution 1: Less focus on UI, More Focus on Alignment
Develop a framework and presentation template to capture essential UX activities. while placing key milestones into the PDLC where the experience framework would go through a gated approval process.
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What: Problem-to-Solve
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Define the core business problem the product aims to address.
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Outline the key pain points and user needs.
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Why: Solution Statement
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Describe why the proposed product or feature can solve the problem.
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Highlight the value proposition and expected benefits.
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Who: Personae, User Groups, and Roles
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Develop detailed personas representing different customers experiencing the problem or desiring the value.
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Identify all user groups and their specific roles and needs in order to implement and/or use the solution.
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Where: Information Architecture
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Design the structure of information within the product.
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Detail how our unique network navigation will be leveraged.
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Map out how information will be organized and accessed by users within each page.
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Determine key terminology and if a comp analysis is required.
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When: Process and User Flows
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Illustrate the sequence of user interactions with the product, starting with either an enterprise or multi-enterprise navigation flow.
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Define the key steps in user journeys and workflows.
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How: Wireframes, Mockups, and Prototypes
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Create visual representations of the product.
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Develop interactive prototypes to demonstrate functionality and design.
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Ensure to add design considerations to illustrate the thinking.
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Solution 2: Breaking Down Silos
Make a truly cross-functional demo a critical event for critical path products. Review and demonstration of the features and capabilities in a user-centric way:
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Weekly Review: The demo to allow stakeholders to review the progress made during this period.
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Feature Demonstration: Representative from a product demonstrates the functionality they have developed. This should be done in the "as a user I am trying to x".
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Stakeholder Feedback: The demo provides an opportunity for stakeholders to provide feedback on the delivered features. This feedback is crucial for refining and improving future work.
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Alignment and Transparency: The demo helps ensure that everyone involved, from team members to executives, is aligned on what has been achieved and what still needs to be done. It promotes transparency across the organization.
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Celebrate Achievements: It is also a chance to recognize and celebrate the hard work and accomplishments of the teams.
Project
Requirements
a.
Consistent usage across teams.
c.
Sales, Business Management, Marketing, and Services must be invited to the demo.
b.
Create a formal "design frozen" date based on alignments.
d.
Action items from the demos must be followed up on within the week.
Stakeholders
The benefits of an initiative like this one is how it can positively impact employee's engagement while greatly improving customer satisfaction, which is every leader's ideal.
Research and Discovery
Formal UX Education
Industry Thought Leadership
Process Definition & Execution
I served as the owner of this initiative with sponsership from Lucy Deus and with Joel Anderson consulting.
Challenges & Solutions
Initiative 1: Experience Framework
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Challenge: Ensuring alignment between UX and Product Management.
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Solution: Regular collaboration and communication during the discovery phase.
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Challenge: Resistance to the artifact being too “waterfall”.
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Solution: Create iterative review meetings showing the incremental discovery process with key stakeholders.
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Challenge: Resistance from PMs to maintaining another artifact.
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Solution: Pilot the framework with the most resistant PM to show the value.
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Initiative 2: Cross-Functional Demos
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Challenge: Shifting quality ownership from Product Management to UX.
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Solution: Gaining executive support and clearly defining roles and responsibilities.
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Challenge: Getting stakeholders to attend another meeting.
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Solution: Take a “word of mouth” approach and encourage evangelists to get the word out.
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Challenge: Getting teams to prioritize key issues found.
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Solution: Leverage the existing decision matrix to raise important issues.
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Outcomes & Benefits
Initiative 1: Experience Framework
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Improved clarity and alignment between UX and Product Management.
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Enhanced executive understanding and support for proposed solutions. Once our CEO had been part of iterative framework check-ins, he expressed, “...we should be doing this for every product.”
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Streamlined transition from discovery to development phases.
Initiative 2: Cross-Functional Demos
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Significant improvement in product quality, with bugs identified and fixed before deployment.
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Increased appreciation from stakeholders for being included in the design and development process.
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Training, support, and documentation were more efficient and delivered earlier.
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Enhanced product demos to prospects, generating more interest in new product lines.
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More confidence from sales and marketing in upcoming products and features.
Shabbir Dahod
Founder and CEO
“...we should be doing this for every product.”
Binu Jacob
Product Manager, Serialized Product Intelligence
"It is great seeing more polished documentation sent to customers instead of just an excel sheet. It feels like we're growing up"
Kristyne Guerin
Senior B2B Integration Developer
" It was easier for me to predict when work would come to me, and I even caught errors in my own development while reading the documentation!"
Conclusion
The Experience Framework and Cross-Functional Demos were instrumental in maturing and immersing UX Design and UX Designers into the product development lifecycle at TraceLink. The outcome was that our colleagues were far more equipped to do their jobs and bring us better business outcomes. By fostering better collaboration, improving communication, and ensuring higher product quality, these initiatives not only aligned the teams internally but also led to better market responses and increased stakeholder satisfaction.