DESIGN LEADERSHIP: PROCESS & INFLUENCE
Leading a team to design a predictive AI SaaS tool
TEAM
Product Designers, Product Manager, Delivery Manager, Back-end Developers, Front-end Developer, Data Scientist
ROLE
Design Lead
KEY SKILLS
Workshop Facilitation, Design Leadership, Product Design, User research, User testing, Prototyping
TOOLS
Figma, Miro, Adobe Illustrator
Impact
Created and set up design ‘rhythms of business’ that delivered high quality design work at pace (design crit, internal review, user testing)
Raised visibility of power of design thinking in the wider org and how it could raise team efficiency and delivery
Shipped bespoke 0-1 product, ensuring scalability to other clients
Delivered team aligned product principles that enabled efficient collaboration and decision making
Problem
The Problem Statement
Team problem: New cross-functional team unfamiliar with design processes working remote for first time, delivering on tight timelines
Business problem: Businesses are seeking more from their promotion plans in supermarkets and open to using new tools to maximise profits.
Context
Team context: A new team was forming during the pandemic and we working in new and unfamiliar ways.
Business context: Planning promotions for products in Supermarkets has traditionally been based human experience, there was opportunity to leverage AI to process several data sets to make this more efficient and profitable.
Why was this important?
Business goal
Develop a user friendly AI-powered tool for a client to generate in-store promotion plans (stretch goal: make this scalable to other clients).
Team goal
As a design leader I identified an opportunity to embed a design culture and adopt a cross-functional way of working to increase speed and quality of delivery.
Setting the team up for success
As we were a new team I saw opportunity to set out a new design led way of working …
I organised and facilitated a Ways of Working workshop to define how we would work together as a team.
20 team members
New to working remotely
Working cross-functionally on a complex product
Defining principles as a team I lead and facilitated and generated outputs and then circulated to the team.
WORKSHOP OUTPUT: WAYS OF WORKING PRINCIPLES
01
Open and transparent comms
02
Move fast with quality
03
Ruthless prioritisation
04
Everyone has a valuable perspective
05
Embrace failure
06
Value time and share responsibility
07
Democratise information
08
Bring your authentic self to work
COLLATERAL FOR PRINCIPLES: POSTER & ZOOM BACKGROUND
Process
Discover
LIVING OUR PRINCIPLES
SPEAKING TO 6 SUBJECT MATTER EXPERTS
CONSIDERATION 1
Trusting the calculations from the AI is key for users
CONSIDERATION 2
Comparison between older and newer plans essential
“
Users will likely be wary on a computer programme planning their promotions for the year.
“
SME: Key account manager
CONSIDERATION 3
User’s will have specific targets they are trying to hit
CONSIDERATION 4
Xxx
Define
USER FLOW
“
Users will likely be wary on a computer programme planning their promotions for the year.
“
SME: Key account manager
Ideate
Our primary users: Key Account managers planning promotions in stores for a selection of SKUs / Products. For example Dove Shampoo and Conditioner in Tesco stores across Essex.
Using internal SME’s and Design Days to focus on ideas quickly with creatives and experts - we did not have access to users.
What information should we show for a promotion event in TPO?
Prototype & Test
We recruited 6 users from large businesses planning promotions across the UK. We tested with on a bi-weekly basis and then refined our designs after feedback for the the next session.
TESTING WITH USERS
INSIGHT 1
Users want to see different goal metrics depending on org
INSIGHT 2
Business terminology changes between orgs
We used a stepper component to create a ‘New Scenario’ wizard to walk users through the process.
“
How does this new plan compare to my plan from last year?
“
Key account manager for Large Supermarket chain
INSIGHT 3
We need to be clearer about how we got to an answer
INSIGHT 4
User’s requested seeing a calendar view
Develop
Adding modal so we could show our workings and adding a calendar view as well as the list view.
DESIGN CHANGES BASED ON USER FEEDBACK
Validate
Trialed with 1 client to plan their promotions and got feedback…
Launch
Launched with 1 client to then be rolled out to 2 further clients in different geographies.
THE KEY VIEWS: LIST & CALENDAR
Impact
Created and set up design ‘rhythms of business’ that delivered high quality design work at pace (design crit, internal review, user testing)
Raised visibility of power of design thinking in the wider org and how it could raise team efficiency and delivery
Shipped bespoke 0-1 product, ensuring scalability to other clients
Delivered team aligned product principles that enabled efficient collaboration and decision making
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