Envisioning a simplified platform based on 3 existing applications

Context

As part of a broader IT strategy to improve backend databases, a major consumer goods company wanted to consider merging used three proprietary applications they used as part of their paint color prescription process. To envision this, we ran a design sprint to create and test a future state unified web portal. 

Challenge

The user group for these applications was made up of a small group of experts who worked in the company's lab. The applications had been in use for years, but some of the process flows between applications were cumbersome. The company was in an effort to modernize all their systems, and saw this as an opportunity to explore whether merging applications would be a viable solution, or determine which features could be unified.

Approach

We spent time in advance understanding the current process flows attached to each application, including taking tours of the facility, and used that as the basis for our mapping on Day 1 of the sprint. Many participants from different areas of the business dedicated time to devote to the sprint, and working together, narrowed in on key areas to focus in – including designing a brand new unified dashboard and improvements to four key task flows, with the assumption that the backend data would be streamlined and accessible (in line with their IT strategy).

Outcome

From Slalom's client service lead who stayed on at the company for several more months:

"The pivot that did come out of the design sprint was to refocus on just one of the three apps for a shorter time, plus to focus on a new dashboard and the start of a new task management system. These will ultimately be integrated into their 3 apps.

What I think ultimately came out of the design sprint was a need to streamline their workflow and update their process, and I think in many ways it set the stage for the improvements that we are in the process of working on now. We've made fairly substantial changes to the UX and some of how they approach the process in one of the three apps, and without the design sprint to “open people's eyes” to this, this would not have been a possibility.

One other outcome of the DS: they’ve internalized the design sprint concept and started applying it successfully to other groups and other projects. They took the DS concept on a new app with another group and did a 1-day design studio, complete with “close all electronics”, sketching, bringing in users from ALL different groups, dot-voting, etc – ended up with a completely different system than what they started with, and what they now plan on building is nothing at all like what the Product Owner originally was absolutely sure they needed, although he is also now completely sold since he was part of the process. (They do feel that in most cases it is still better to have an outside, independent, experienced person run the design sprint, but even this one day internally-run design sprint was far better than none.)"