Workflow Management Tool

I acted as the product manager and sole product designer for this enterprise workflow management tool that was deployed worldwide. The Customer Service Portal, as it is called, is a collection of modules deployed across the business to facilitate a range of complex business processes. The portal acted as a one stop shop for global customers to submit requests, a centralized and streamlined tool for the business to manage a series of interconnected workflows, and a transparent and analytical tool for leadership to manage resources.

Challenge

There were dozens of business processes across the bureau facilitated through emails or phone calls with no way to centrally track, manage, and analyze the work being completed. Handoffs were slow and inefficient, rework was common, workflows were inefficient and opaque, and there was significant frustration for both customers and the business.

Approach

Following lean/agile and human-centered design methodologies, the team met with a diverse range of stakeholders - from senior management, to the business, to customers around the world - to understand their current processes and challenges. To minimize the time to launch, the team designed and developed a small-scale MVP that addressed one business process. After deploying the MVP, the team took the lessons learned to scale up the portal to include many more business processes. This approach allowed us to test the product at a small scale with minimal risk and incrementally scale up.

Modular, Scalable Design

A primary goal of the Customer Service Portal was to minimize the customization of the tool for each subsequent business process. From the very first iteration of the first module, we were building with modularity and scalability in mind. We designed a solution that worked for 80% of the business use cases, standardized the data fields to the extent possible, and created a consistent and unified user experience. As we scaled the tool, onboarded more teams and processes, and deployed to more customers, we started from an 80% solution and were able to quickly and efficiently scale.