Mar 2022 – Jan 2023
Overview — 001
Working alongside a cross-functional team, I led the 0 → 1 design of HelloTech's new project management platform. The new platform streamlines previously disjointed workflows and enables data-driven optimization to help scale the company’s B2B partnerships business.
Functions
Product Design, 0 → 1
UX Research
Enterprise UX
Design System
Design Team
Kareem Soliman (me) – Product Designer
Addison Smyth – Director, Product Design
Patrick Martin – Senior Visual Designer
Status
Shipped
Platform
Desktop, Web App
My Role
Design Lead
Timeline
Mar 2022 – Jan 2023
.webp)
.webp)
The platform serves as a unified hub for project creation and management, replacing the need for a patchwork of external and legacy in-house tools. Project managers are now empowered to make edits freely throughout a project's life cycle.
The platform streamlines project tracking with statuses that update as requirements are met, providing stakeholders with greater data visibility. Project controls contextually adjust based on the phase of the project, whether it's in the planning stage or already launched.
The new platform offers project managers the flexibility to bulk-edit both projects and their nested details. A streamlined toolbar, coupled with built-in search and filtering, simplifies the management of these edits.
Context — 002
HelloTech is a gig-economy platform that connects expert technicians with customers seeking smart-home services.
In 2021, HelloTech expanded its B2B partnerships, becoming a preferred installation partner for industry leaders in several rapidly growing markets. These new partnerships drove significant growth, which led to the establishment of a dedicated Partner Success team by the year's end. As the operation scaled, so did the demand for in-house tools to manage project workflows.
Problem — 003
Listening to the team's frustrations, we learned how creeping operational inefficiencies were hindering their ability to scale and deliver optimal value to both partners and the business.
Research — 004
To get a more in-depth understanding of the challenges faced by the team, I actively took part in user and stakeholder interviews and conducted a contextual inquiry to get a detailed overview of the existing toolset and workflows.
Understanding our users and their needs was fundamental to our approach. Here's a brief breakdown:
Project Managers on the Partner Success team are the main leads managing and overseeing various B2B partner projects.
Team Leads benefit indirectly from a Project Manager’s follow-up and support for ongoing B2B partner projects.
The key insights we uncovered influenced our design methodology and informed our implementation of the product strategy moving forward.
Limited metadata & interoperability
Projects often began with missing details and required manual updates to the backend code. Adding to the complexity, project managers had to spoof a technician's web app (used to record job progress), as their tools lacked any semblance of interoperability.
Limited controls
In the existing workflow, project managers grappled with tools that lacked bulk editing functions and had insufficient search and filtering capabilities. This deficit complicated project and job management, leading to inefficiencies and extended task completion times.
Fragmented data & tooling
The Partner Success team grappled with fragmented data sources and disjointed tools, leading to operational bottlenecks and hurdles in scaling partner operations. These issues further impeded efforts to optimize workflow processes.
Manual project tracking
Project managers were tasked with manually updating the status of each project in an external tool, taking into account the unique needs of every phase. This process not only drained valuable time but also heightened the risk of mistakes, undermining efficiency.
Opportunity — 005
After carefully reviewing these insights, we concluded that the Partner Success team's needs had far outgrown the existing toolset. It was clear we couldn't make sufficient improvements to any individual tool and that it was finally time to build a robust, integrated platform to address all issues.
Strategy — 006
After identifying the key problems, we translated these challenges into actionable goals. This allowed us to focus on what we needed to achieve from both a user and a business perspective.
Consolidate the currently fragmented toolset into a single platform for ease of use.
Streamline existing workflow by enabling the creation, editing, and management of projects.
Drive operational efficiency and scalability to match the rapidly growing B2B partnerships business.
Unlock key data insights through automation for better workflow optimization.
Process — 007
Kicking off the design process, I dove deep into the myriad functions and flows that were currently scattered across multiple ad-hoc tools. I took stock of all these functions using the JBTD framework, ensuring the design would be firmly rooted in actual user needs.
Project Managers voiced their need for a consolidated, adaptable tool. They wanted to manage the entire project lifecycle, from beginning to end, and make updates at any stage. The old system required engineer input for minor changes and didn't support non-linear updates. This was a significant bottleneck, especially when partners often provided incomplete project details.
Informed by user feedback, I restructured the platform's IA and outlined key user flows. My goal was an intuitive, expandable IA. I integrated "project creation" into the top navigation and added a contextual sidebar for in-depth management. This enabled flexible, non-linear editing, directly addressing project managers' needs.
As I refined the IA, I zeroed in on project managers' need for real-time, granular updates post-launch. Their existing tool, a manually updated Asana dashboard, was more hindrance than help.
I responded by designing a system that auto-updated statuses as certain milestones were hit, syncing with the technicians' web app for live updates. This gave project managers the interoperability they needed to provide optimal support for technicians. Stakeholders also got the data visibility they needed to make decisions on workflow optimization to strategically scale operations.
While overhauling project statuses another insight arose: the need to track progress non-linearly towards project launch. My solution? A launch checklist that, once complete, enabled a manual launch function. This put the project managers firmly in control.
But my design didn't stop at launch. We ensured that contextual options adjusted dynamically post-launch, keeping our platform relevant through every project phase.
Leveraging the updated IA and status system, I integrated features like search, filtering, and bulk actions into a unified toolbar. This not only streamlined the user experience but also empowered project managers to multitask effectively. For the first time, I added job-specific controls that achieved feature parity with the technician web app, allowing PMs to edit jobs without spoofing a technician's account.
Perfecting bulk action flows proved to be a significant hurdle due to numerous backend constraints. In close collaboration with engineers, we successfully navigated these constraints to achieve the best possible solution given the limitations. The resulting bulk action capabilities now offer a streamlined, user-friendly experience that meets the team's complex needs. For project managers, the inclusion of these functions elevated the platform from optional to table stakes.
Impact — 008
The launch of the new project management platform was a significant boost to project manager productivity and key driver towards optimizing operations at scale. This transformation led the B2B partnerships business to eventually eclipse the core D2C business in revenue.
Reflection — 009
Reflecting on my journey with HelloTech's project management platform, I must highlight that this was my first 0 → 1 project, and the learning curve was steep but incredibly rewarding. A lot of the growing pains came with tackling complex enterprise design patterns for the first time and juggling many connected systems.
Navigating the sheer scale presented its challenges, particularly in managing the handoff process and design QA. The key takeaway? Effective collaboration is indispensable, and I honed methods to optimize it for better outcomes.
.svg){kind=icon}