Resource Management at CogniSaaS - Efficiently allocate and oversee project resources
OVERVIEW
CogniSaaS is a customer-centric onboarding and implementation platform that helps enterprise SaaS businesses achieve faster time to value. Resource Management in CogniSaaS was introduced to help enterprises optimize efficiency, reduce costs and ensure project success through streamlined resource allocation.
MY ROLE
I was the sole product designer working on the resource management feature right from scratch by strategizing, conceptualizing, designing and delivering the hand-offs to the developers. My primary responsibilities included defining the product strategy, wireframing low-fi designs to prototyping hi-fi designs and collaborating with product managers and developers by managing the entire design lifecycle in bringing out the product live.
PROBLEM STATEMENT
CogniSaaS was looking to provide more flexibility to project managers through their product, and as per feedback received from customers and the market, Resource management came out as a crucial feature. Project managers use resource management feature to help them allocate resources during the project planning phase. These make it easy to optimize the scheduling and keep the team organized. Lack of this feature was forcing them to continuously switch platforms.
OBJECTIVE
Research, strategize and design an end-to-end resource management experience to help the project managers plan, track and optimally utilize all the available resources for a project.
ANALYZING FEEDBACK AND REVIEWS
Feedback from platforms such as G2 was collected and analyzed. A lot of it was direct feedback, but some of the indirect feedback was also dug into.
USER INTERVIEWS
Initially, we identified and talked to some prospects and existing customers, with regard to resource management and any platforms that they had used for this purpose. The interviews revealed key insights, pain points and needs of users regarding resource management.
UNDERSTANDING THE USER
The users in this scenario were project managers and approval managers who lead cross-functional teams and manage complex projects. As was evident from the interviews and the insights from direct as well as indirect reviews, the user -
Looks for efficiency - Aligning resources with project objectives
Makes data-driven decisions - Relies on data-driven insights.
Believes in sustainable resource stewardship - Factors in long-term resource development, training, and career growth in his allocation strategies
KEY FOCUS AREAS
Some of the key focus areas identified were -
Resource Allocation Optimization
PMs deal with a lot of problems while allocating team members and assets to projects. This leads to inefficient project timelines and outcomes.
Real-time Visibility
PMs don't have a real-time visibility into resource availability and utilization.
Data-Driven Decision
Having large amount of data at hand, teams generally consume a lot of time analyzing them and making informed decisions.
COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
Other tools and platforms were analyzed to know what was working and what can be improved in the flow for the users.
Other key observations -
Separate people and projects sections - Although people were assigned under different projects, this type of arrangement reduced a lot of cognitive load for users.
Color coding - Different colors were used in different bars and sections of the designs to help the user distinguish amongst the features and options.
Timeline bars - Many platforms had different timeline bars, but some of the most important functionalities depended on these.
BRAINSTORMING IDEAS
Brainstorming sessions were held and though many ideas were proposed, some which were similar to each other were merged and some which could be accommodated elsewhere were taken off.
Then the ideas belonging to a common concept were grouped together to analyze those properly.
NOW-WOW-HOW MATRIX
The ideas were next arranged on a NOW-WOW-HOW matrix to know the feasibility of each idea, and where it would stand if implemented.
DETAILED FEATURES
After analyzing the ideas in the brainstorming and ideation sessions, we finalized four main elements that would address the concerns of the user. These are -
USER FLOW
Designing for the user experience began from sketching out a typical user journey based on the accomplishment of specific tasks within the platform.
WHITEBOARDING AND SKETCHING
As a first step to give the ideas some shape and structure, whiteboarding and sketching was carried out to make different forms and figures of how different screens as well as different design elements might look like.
LO-FI PROTOTYPES
The Low fidelity prototypes helped us take the sketches to a next level but a step before the high-fidelity mockups. These prototypes were of great help in understanding the placement of each element on the frame.
UI STYLE GUIDE
Although we were on a tight deadline, we made sure that a UI style guide was followed so that all elements could be visually consistent with each other throughout the flow.
FIRST ITERATION
The first versions of the hi-fi prototypes were prepared and tested with internal teams as well as some existing customers. Their feedback was noted and analyzed.
The month in the left top corner did not follow a hierarchy and confused the user, also the drop-down option didn’t align well with the horizontal based alignment of the timelines.
Timeline bar at the top table lacks clarity for proper planning for the user.
Color of the total hours of a project was blue. This conflicted with the fact that blue was generally used in the design system to mean that the project/task is completed.
The icon representing resource management in the left nav panel didn’t have much of a similarity with the user’s thinking that conveyed it’s meaning to them.
No distinction in the timeline bars of the people, hence doesn’t convey if they are being over used, or at break-even capacity.
No option that facilitated long term view.
The month dropdown at the top and the scroll view of the weeks didn’t go well with each other with respect to user’s cognition.
Although the capacity in terms of percentage was expressed, a system for exact number was not present.
Although the shades of blue worked in a way to show the user the capacity in terms of percentage, better indicators were explored.
Most Approval managers didn’t allocate task specific resources, rather they operated based on projects and other variables.
Table column names of certain fields seemed like they might be a bit ambiguous to the user.
The user was not provided any flow to convey the unavailability of any resource as per the request.
FINAL DESIGN
After taking in various feedbacks and considering some use cases(due to time constraints), final screens were made with the user in mind. Preserving the user flow was the key.
DEVELOPER HAND-OFF
The screens were showcased to other members of the team and their approval and feedback was sought, before proceeding with the handoff process.
Script notes were provided alongside each design to convey the important points. This ensures that the engineers can always refer to the notes and be sure about how it’s intended to be.
MY IMPACT
Shipped full end-to-end flow within a short period, collaborating with cross-functional partners across all stages, from research, design, to execution.
Built vision, ran user research, and defined product feature framework using lo-fi and hi-fi prototypes.
Created cohesion and strong integration by delivering designs that can be applied to multiple teams.
Managed to convert 2 prospects into full paying customers within few months of the feature release.
FUTURE SCOPE
The design is likely to mature more as more and more users’ feedback is received and constantly iterated. The ideas put in the HOW quadrant of the NOW-WOW-HOW matrix were highly innovative and might become very feasible in the future.
Concepts such as resource swap, automated resource conflict resolution and gamification might be explored in the future, as these were not feasible within this project timeline.
LEARNINGS
One major learning was we must learn to prioritize and re-prioritize our daily tasks according to the available bandwidth of each team ( eg - dev team, CS team, etc ). This helps us to make the project move seamlessly.
Every feedback is important. Whether it comes from within the organization, or outside of it.
User description is important even after you have designed a product. That becomes important while iterating any changes upon receiving any feedback.
