Alan’s Projects
Specific projects that I have worked on. How the problem was defined, how it was solved, and everything in between.
Project: Activity Development Workflow
Time
July 2022 - September 2022
Setup
An ed-tech non-profit has been developing child-facing educational activities using curriculum designers, artists, and a development team.
Problem
There is no defined workflow connecting the teams and pointing them in the same direction, resulting in delays in activity development.
I began by conducting internal stakeholder interviews to better understand where the touchpoints were and what dependencies needed to be satisfied before being able to move onto the next phase of development.
Where was product?
The curriculum team was essentially acting as the product team but lacked the experience in product development to properly articulate activity requirements.
Where was UX?
The UX team was a combination of the art team and curriculum team, neither of which were UX designers. Between the two of them, they would communicate activity themes and concepts to the developers to generate prototypes from hard code.
Where was communication happening?
With no formalized product team, requirements were written in various formats. From the curriculum end, it was in an Excel spreadsheet, while the developers used Confluence. There were some meetings, but no formalized ceremonies with actionable steps.
It was clear that the issue stemmed from a lack of project management. Outlining a workflow from the UX perspective first allowed me to introduce a new actor in a theatre that never had one before.
The next step would be to start exploring the problem space with the people it impacted most.
Defining Requirements
I established a kick-off meeting of sorts to get the requirements written into a new form in Confluence that served as the requirements documentation template. Creating spaces for each team involved in the activity process to establish what was required in the activity.
Establishing RACI and Actionable Steps
After meeting with team leaders, I established a RACI (responsible, accountable, consulted and informed) hierarchy for each stage of the activity development process, using FigJam flowcharts to identify when and where which RACI is used.
Breaking Up the Development Process
Previously, engineers were developing prototypes and pulling in assets from the art team under instruction from curriculum. With the addition of UX, I was able to take the burden of prototyping and ideation away from the developers and allow them to focus on developing “dev ready” activities.
This essentially divided the workflow into two clearly defined sections: asset development and activity development phases.
Sharing the Information
With the plan generated and all team leaders consulted, the next step was to share the information with all team members that were part of the asset development phase and ensure they understood how it would work.
Testing the Changes
In the final phase of this, we had established a Product Management team, so work was done in tandem with the product team from here on out.
I, along with a newly established Product Management Team, decided to set the review cadence at release retrospectives, with sprint retros feeding into it.
Iteration from Retros
One of the pieces of information we received was in regard to how the research team was involved in the earlier steps of the asset development phase. With our young demographic (4-7 years old), the Research team played a crucial part in determining how and what aspects of the activities were assessed, so we adjusted the flow to include Research earlier on in the requirements refinement process.
We also discovered some gaps in the requirements template that missed information that would benefit designers and developers alike. “Similar activities”, “Associated Activities”, and a section for embedding the script for the activities (which also doubled as the user flow from the curriculum point of view) were all added to improve the efficacy of the document.
Outcomes
Go With the Flow
This was the first project I had at this organization and the fruits of that labor are still being harvested to this day. With a 2 year funding deadline for a conversion project, the work I did in collaboration with other leaders paved the way for future success.
This resulted in…
A clear path for developing activities that lead into a development queue.
A visual that helps pinpoint bottle necks; a workback to identifying where issues may be appearing
Established RACI led to team leaders having the ability to hold contributors accountable for work and know who to talk to when there were questions
Activities that were in the asset development phase previously would occasionally get lost once the assets were created—this solved that issue entirely, saving time and money on development
Requirement documentation that was easily understood by non-software dev personnel, that led to a clearer understanding of the goals, constraints, and must-haves for activities.